American Association SUNDAY Insider: Minnesota's Pride on the Diamond plus Power Rankings

 I was scrapping for a subject for this week's Insider. I was going to go team by team and address whether teams were buyers, sellers, and what they're looking for as the trade deadline approaches. Then all of the sudden, all it took was a Dan Vaughan line on his broadcast on Thursday night, talking about how he didn't know much about Baseball in Minnesota and a comment via text later that we only have baseball weather for a month and I was off to the races. 

So I took it back all the way to the beginning of the Northern League in 1993. Half of the teams were based in Minnesota (St. Paul, Rochester, Duluth-Superior). If you go back and look at the rosters that season for the six teams, you'll see that only six Minnesotans saw action in the Northern League's six teams that season. Of those six, only two saw any decent amount of playing time. Bill Cutshell of the Rochester Aces and Jim Manfred of the St. Paul Saints. 

Cutshall signed with the Montreal Expos after being drafted in the 11th round of the 1984 draft from the University of Minnesota. Cutshall was a pitcher in his professional career from 1984-1988. When the Rochester native saw a chance to play professional baseball in 1993, five years removed from pro baseball, he jumped at the opportunity. However, outside of 25 innings of work from the mound in 12 games for the Aces, Cutshall played outfield for 25 games and was a designated hitter in 35 others, accumulating a .275 average and five home runs in 167 at bats in diminutive Mayo Field. Not bad considering he had not had regular plate appearances since his days as a Gopher. 

Meanwhile in St. Paul, after stalling out in Class A with the New York Mets, the former hockey player Jim Manfred decided to give this new Independent league a shot. The tall righthander found success playing pro baseball in his home state. In 18 games including 10 starts spanning 74 innings, Manfred led the Northern League in ERA with a 2.06. Manfred would struggle in 1994, play in Italy for a season before returning to the Saints in 1996 in time for the media circus that ensued with the arrivals of Jack Morris and Darryl Strawberry. Manfred tied Jeremy McGarity of Duluth- Superior for the league lead in wins with 12. There were only 84 games played in a season at that time, so Manfred may have added to his win total if he were playing the current schedule of 100 games. 

As the years wore on and the Northern League established itself as a good place to go to try to get back into an organization, we saw more Minnesotans making their mark in the league. In 1996, Fargo-Moorhead joined the league and the pipeline from Concordia Moorhead and North Dakota State saw more Minnesotans from Northwest Minnesota getting a chance to leave their mark in baseball. 

Brian Sprout, out of Lake City, Minnesota was a Divsion III star from St. Olaf College, only 20 minutes from my home. After cutting his teeth with Fargo-Moorhead and Joliet in 2002. Sprout had his breakout year in 2003 batting .302 for the RedHawks, earning a minor league contract with the Dodgers. Three years later, Sprout wound up in St. Paul and batted .350 with a .428 on base percentage for the 2006 Saints. Sprout followed it up with a .304 average in 2007. Sprout played one more season before retiring to amateur baseball with the Miesville Mudhens.

Charlie Ruud born in Austin, Minnesota was also a star with St. Olaf and earned a tryout with the Saints as they were short on arms in 2005. Ruud won both starts and came back in 2006, making the team and winning eight games. Ruud in his four seasons in St. Paul won 40 games before retiring to become a pastor. 

After St. Paul moved into CHS Field, Minnesota players saw it as an opportunity to play baseball close to home in a first class facility. Six Minnesotans were on the Saints roster in 2015. But the apex with the American Association championship team in 2019 when six Minnesotans helped the Saints win it all including current American Association veterans Max Murphy and Ryan Zimmerman. 

Safe to say, the American Association has taken notice. Even with no team based in Minnesota, for now, the amount of talent coming out of Minnesota that dot American Association rosters keeps on growing. It has also given me a fun game to play at Minnesota Amateur Baseball Tournaments called find all the American Association alums in the team rosters in the game programs. 

Fargo-Moorhead features Minnesota natives Parker Harm, Jake Dykhoff and Aidan Byrne. Byrne likely was a recommendation from Minnesota baseball legend Tink Larson, a volunteer baseball coach at Minnesota State, Mankato. Dykhoff has shined when he played amateur baseball in the Minnesota State Baseball tournament for the Bluffton Braves. 

Sioux City's lineup features Woodbury Minnesota's Henry George who along with being from Minnesota, also survived playing college baseball for three years at Minnesota Duluth. So the outfielder is not fazed by the early season weather in the American Association.

Kane County's Logan Nissen hails from Olivia, Minnesota. Nissen pitched college baseball for Bethany Lutheran College, just outside of Mankato. His Townball team still puts him on their roster in the very unlikely scenario that the Cougars reliever would be available for the State Tournament. Nissen's fellow pitching staff mate Jake Stevenson hails from Waconia, a Townball power and pitched at the University of Minnesota. 

Lake Country's Luke Roskam hails from Chaska, Minnesota. Chaska has a proud baseball tradition and Roskam has represented his hometown well in his third full season in Lincoln for three years and now with the DockHounds.

The Milwaukee Milkmen have a Minnesota connection with rookie outfielder from Minnesota State, Mankato, Zach Stroh from Elk River. 

I save Sioux Falls for last as the Canaries, a close market to Southern Minnesota and the Twin Cities have tapped into Minnesotans to build the Canaries. We talked about Zimmerman earlier, but the top two Minnesota exports are two of the building blocks of the Canaries with Jordan Barth, born in St. Cloud and is on Cold Spring Springers' roster. Another American Association All Star Josh Rehwaldt was born in Burnsville and an Apple Valley High School graduate. In all there are currently eleven Minnesotans on the Sioux Falls roster and inactive list.

So with those names, if you could get them all to play for a team in Minnesota, sprinkle in some veterans, and I'd say you'd have a pretty darn good American Association team, not bad for a Hockey state.

American Association Power Rankings, a 10th Inning Stretch original.

1. Sioux City Explorers 61

2. Kansas City Monarchs 58

3. Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks 57

4. Lake Country DockHounds 56

5. Sioux Falls Canaries 53

6. Chicago Dogs 47

7. Winnipeg Goldeyes 43

8. Kane County Cougars 43

9. Cleburne Railroaders 41

10. Gary SouthShore RailCats 40

11. Milwaukee Milkmen 38

12. Lincoln Saltdogs 36