April 28

Red Lucas (1902)

Charlie Metro (1918)

Tom Sturdivant (1930)

Jackie Brandt (1934)
Pedro Ramos (1935)
Tom Browning (1960)
John Cerutti (1960)
Luis Quinones (1962)
Russ Morman (1962)
Barry Larkin (1964)
Jim Poole (1966)
Jorge Sosa (1978)
Sean Douglass (1979)
Yoslan Herrera (1981)
David Freese (1983)
John Gaub (1985)

John Gaub was drafted by Minnesota in the twenty-fifth round in 2003, but did not sign.

Right-hander Pedro (Guerra) Ramos played for the Twins in 1961 and was the starting pitcher in the first game the Minnesota Twins ever played.  He was born in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, and signed with Washington as a free agent in 1953.  He had a fine year in 1954, split between Class C and Class B ball, and started 1955 in the major leagues, pitching mostly out of the Washington bullpen.  He split 1956 between starting and relieving, and joined the starting rotation permanently in 1957.  He led the league in losses the last three years the team was in Washington, but did not pitch that badly.  His ERA for those three years was 3.93 and his WHIP was around 1.30.  In two of those years he led the league in starts and batters faced, in one of them he led the league in innings, and he made the all-star team in 1959.  When he came to Minnesota, he continued along that same path:  Ramos was 11-20, 3.95 with a WHIP of 1.30.  Just before the 1962 season, the Twins traded him to Cleveland for Vic Power and Dick Stigman.  He had another sub-.500 year with a sub-four ERA, going 10-12, 3.71 in 201 innings, the sixth consecutive season he had thrown more than 200 innings.  A fast runner, he was sometimes used to pinch-run on days he wasn’t pitching.  He pitched well for the Indians again in 1963 but had a bad year in 1964 and was traded to the Yankees in September.  The Yankees put him in the bullpen and he took over as their closer, saving eight games in 13 appearances to help the Yankees get to the World Series.   He had two more fine years in the Yankees bullpen as well.  He was traded to Philadelphia during Spring training of 1967, but after pitching eight poor innings he was surprisingly released.  The Phillies turned out to be right, however.  Ramos signed with Pittsburgh in 1968, but pitched poorly in AAA.  He pitched briefly with the Pirates in 1969, but was released again in early June.  Cincinnati picked him up and kept him in their bullpen the rest of the season, but things did not go well there, either.  Ramos signed with Washington late in spring training of 1970, but could do no better and was released at the end of April, ending his playing career.  He did a variety of things after that.  He scouted in Latin America, opened a cigar business in Miami, and spent some time in prison on drug and weapons charges.  He was a part-time pitching coach for Miami Dade Community College in the 1990s.  At last report, Pedro Ramos was the owner of a cigar manufacturing business in Nicaragua.

Infielder Luis Raul (Torruellas) Quinones played in three games for the Twins in 1992.  Born and raised in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Quinones was signed by San Diego as a free agent in 1980.  He was somewhat up and down in his minor league career, but was mostly pretty average at bat; his best year prior to making the majors was 1982, when he hit .288 with 16 homers in a season spent mostly at AA Amarillo.  Oakland took him in the Rule 5 draft after that season and obviously worked something out to keep him, because he spent most of the season in the minors before getting his first taste of big league life with 45 plate appearances.  Oakland moved him on to Cleveland after the 1983 campaign.  He was in the minors for the Indians for a little over a year, getting traded to San Francisco in May of 1985.  He was in the big leagues with the Giants for most of 1986, getting called up in early May.  He was used almost exclusively as a reserve, playing in 71 games but making only 22 starts.  The Giants released him after the season.  He signed with Oakland, but eight days later was traded to the Cubs for Ron Cey.  He was with the Cubs the second half of 1987, but was on the move again before the next season, traded to Cincinnati.  He was in AAA most of 1988 but came up to the Reds in May of 1989 and stayed there through 1991.  He never hit; his best year was 1989, when he hit .244 with 12 home runs.  The Reds released him after 1991 and he signed with Minnesota.  Quinones started the 1992 campaign with the Twins but played in only three games, going 1-for-4 with an RBI, before being sent to AAA.  He did not have a particularly good year at AAA Portland, and was allowed to become a free agent after the season.  He signed with Houston and started the 1993 season in AAA with the Astros, was released, signed with the Mariners, and stayed in AAA with the through the 1994 campaign.  He was apparently out of baseball for a few years, although he may have been playing in Mexico or something, and then played for independent Atlantic City in 1998-1999 before ending his playing career.  Luis Quinones has been a manager and coach in the low minors for a while now, and is currently the batting coach of the Greensboro Grasshoppers in the Marlins organization.

Right-hander Sean Reed Douglass did not play for the Twins, but was in spring training with them in 2004.  Born and raised in Lancaster, California, he was drafted by Baltimore in the second round in 1997.  His minor league record is not particularly exceptional but is fairly solid; he would generally post an ERA in the low-to-mid-threes and a WHIP in the 1.30-1.40 range.  He was up with the Orioles for parts of three seasons, bouncing back and forth between Baltimore and AAA from 2001-2003.  His time in the majors was not successful, and the Orioles put him on waivers after the 2003 season.  Minnesota signed him and took him to spring training in 2004, but they placed him on waivers near the end of the exhibition season.  Toronto signed him and he started the season in the majors, but after three scoreless innings he was sent back to AAA.  He came back to the Blue Jays in late July, but was not particularly successful.  A free agent after the season, he moved on to Detroit and got the most playing time of his career, making sixteen starts for the Tigers.  He did not do much with them, though, and was waived after the season.  Cleveland selected him, but apparently thought better of it and released him less than two months later.  He played for a few years in Japan, but then his playing career came to an end.  For his major league career, Sean Douglass was 7-13, 6.11, 1.61 WHIP in 207.2 innings.  He appeared in 54 games, 31 of them starts.  His last season in Japan appears to have been 2008.  He appears to have returned to his home town of Lancaster; at any rate, there's a Sean Douglass who's playing in an amateur baseball league there, so it seems reasonable to think that it's the same one.

Right-hander Yoslan (Betancourt) Herrera did not pitch for the Twins, but he made six starts for AAA Rochester in 2010.  He was born in Pinar del Rio, Cuba.  He was a member of the Cuban National Youth team from 1999-2000 and pitched for Pinar del Rio in the Cuban National League.  He was left off the Cuban Olympic team in 2004 due to injury.  In 2005, he defected and settled in the Dominican Republic.  Herrera signed with Pittsburgh as a free agent in 2007.  He was in the Pirates’ system for three seasons, spent mostly in AA.  He struggled in his first year but pitched pretty well there in 2008-2009.  The Pirates seemed reluctant to give him a chance at a higher level, however; despite going 17-10, 3.35 in his last 212 innings of AA, he got only five appearances at AAA.  He did make five major league starts in 2008, going 1-1, 9.82 in 18.1 innings.  The Pirates let him go after the 2009 season and he signed with Minnesota for 2010.  His first three starts there were pretty good, but his last three were awful and he was released with a record of 0-3, 6.08 in 26.2 innings.  What he did for the next couple of years is unclear, but he spent 2013 playing for Lancaster in the Atlantic League.   Two years ago, we closed with:  "He's 32 today and has nothing to recommend him as a prospect.  On the other hand, teams are always looking for pitching.  As the great philosopher Joaquin Andujar told us, you can sum up baseball in one word:  youneverknow."  That turned out to be true.  He did well enough in Lancaster to catch the attention of the Angels, who signed him for 2014.  He began in AAA, but after four solid relief appearances there he came back to the major leagues after a six-year absence, appearing in twenty games and posting an ERA of 2.70.  He signed with the Angels again for 2015 but was released before spring training and does not appear to have signed with anyone.  It seems likely that his playing career is over, but we've thought that before.