Charley Walters: Twins should have offered pitching coach job to Frank Viola

Wes Johnson last week abruptly left as the Minnesota Twins pitching coach. A few days later, the Twins named their bullpen coach, 39-year-old Pete Maki, as Johnson’s successor.

The guy to whom the Twins should have immediately offered the job is in his third season as pitching coach for the High Point (N.C.) Rockers in the Atlantic League.

Frank Viola, a young and enthusiastic 62, was the American League’s 1988 Cy Young Award winner. Also for the Twins, he was the 1987 World Series MVP.

Viola won 24 games for the Twins in 1988 and 20 for the New York Mets in 1990. He pitched for five major league clubs over 15 seasons. Then he spent eight seasons as pitching coach in the Mets’ system.

He loves teaching pitching.

The Twins never called.

“I would have loved to talk, sure,” Viola said Friday evening when asked his interest. “When I got back into baseball in 2011 with the Mets, I did have aspirations of becoming a big league pitching coach and would have loved to have had that opportunity.

“But the game’s changed so much, with the analytics and all that other stuff. Bert (Blyleven), myself, whoever, we lived it. We know how to talk pitching, we see what we see and know how to work with people. But sometimes times change and people go in different directions. It’s out of our control and we can just do what we can do.”

Blyleven, the Hall of Fame former Twin, has been pitching coach for his homeland Netherlands team in three World Baseball Classics, and hopes to be next year, too.

Blyleven, 71, said Friday he doubted he would have been interested in the Twins pitching coach job.

“Not at my age,” he said. “It would be something new, all the analytics that are in the game today. The Twins are an organization that builds from within. I’m very happy for Pete, and I think he’ll do a good job.”

Johnson, by the way, is expected to double his $350,000 Twins’ salary at Louisiana State University, considering contributions from boosters, incentives and summer camps. His annual LSU deal includes a reported salary of $380,000 over three years and $800 per month car allowance. By leaving, he’ll take a minor hit on his major league pension.

Recruiting at LSU begins immediately. Already, via the NCAA transfer portal, LSU has added pitchers from UCLA, Creighton and Vanderbilt.

Assistant Gophers baseball coaches make one-fifth of Johnson’s annual base salary as LSU’s pitching coach. Meanwhile, more than 30 Division I head college baseball coaches have contracts worth more than $1 million a year. Erik Bakich, who just left Michigan for Clemson, will make $1.1 million in the final season of his six-year contract as head coach; he starts at $850,000.

Gophers coach John Anderson, the Big Ten’s career leader in victories, is paid a base salary of $225,000 a year, seventh-lowest in the Big Ten.

New head baseball coach at Kansas is Edina grad Dan Fitzgerald, who spent last season at LSU as an assistant and recruiting coordinator after a scouting internship. Fitzgerald, who received a $3.16 million, six-year base salary contract from the Jayhawks, played at the University of St. Thomas.

It’s obvious, considering the 3-4 defense the Vikings are rolling out, that they need to add a big defensive lineman before training camp in three weeks. Eddie Goldman, 6-foot-3, 325 pounds, who played for new Vikings defensive line coach Chris Rumph in Chicago last season, would seem a possibility.

This year’s doubles winners at Wimbledon will share $662,000.

“Isn’t that unbelievable?” Jeanne Arth said last week. “Plus with all their endorsements, it’ll be millions. That’s goofy, isn’t it?”

When St. Paul’s Arth teamed with Darlene Hard to win at Wimbledon in 1959, they shared $300.

“It was just a token,” Arth said. “Wimbledon didn’t start paying big money until the end of the 1960s. But that’s the way it goes.”

Arth, a 1952 St. Paul Central grad, was 23 when she and Hard won at Wimbledon. She’s 87 now and as sharp — and candid — as ever.

“I watched Serena (Williams) lose (last week),” Arth said. “Her serve was 102 miles per hour. It was 130 in her prime. She’s a millionaire a million times over. I don’t understand why (older players) can’t give it up. Sports are so out of whack, aren’t they? It’s money, money, money.”

Speaking of money and out of whack, Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns is guaranteed $62.1 million for the 2027-28 season via the $214 million, four-year contract extension he signed last week. Towns, 26, will average $56.1 million per season.

Former Minnehaha Academy star Chet Holmgren will get a two-year guaranteed contract for about $20 million for being the No. 2 overall pick by Oklahoma City in last week’s NBA draft. David Roddy, the ex-Breck standout chosen No. 23 overall by Memphis, gets a deal for about $4 million.

Unrestricted free agent Tyus Jones, the Apple Valley grad and former Timberwolves guard, was the 19th-best NBA free agent available, per si.com rankings. Jones, 26, has a new $30 million, two-year contract with the Memphis Grizzlies that will pay $14.4 million next season.

Ex-Gopher Amir Coffey has a new $11 million, three-year guaranteed deal with the Clippers. Former Gopher Bill Duffy, now a superstar NBA agent, negotiated Coffey’s contract, the biggest two-way contract conversion in league history.

Terry Kunze, the former Gophers star, is a keen talent evaluator and member of the Minnesota Mr. Basketball Committee. He said the Gophers, with 6-foot-11, 235-pound transfer Dawson Garcia in Ben Johnson’s second season, will be a legitimate Big Ten team to watch.

“Garcia can shoot the three,” Kunze said. “I watched (incoming 6-9, 230-pound freshman Pharrell) Payne (from Cottage Grove) dunk 11 times against Mounds View. He’s Big Ten ready and he’ll start (for Minnesota). In Payne and (6-foot-4 freshman Braeden) Carrington (from Brooklyn Park), Ben got the two best players in the state.”

Besides Johnson, Kunze is a big fan of Timberwolves coach Chris Finch.

“I’ve never seen a team work as hard as the Timberwolves, and they try to play together,” Kunze said. “But they’ve got to pick up a point guard. (D’Angelo) Russell doesn’t run — he walks.”

Former Minnehaha Academy guard Prince Aligbe, 6-foot-6, 215 pounds, is expected to start as a freshman for Boston College this year.

The Wild had a regular-season record of 2-1-1 against the Stanley Cup champion Avalanche.

The Gophers’ John Michael Schmitz, a 6-foot-4, 320-ound redshirt senior, is ESPN’s No. 1-ranked college center for the 2023 NFL draft.

Adam Thielen, Joe Mauer, Harrison Smith and Larry Fitzgerald will play in the 54-hole Lake Tahoe celebrity golf championship next weekend. Also playing is Edina’s Mardy Fish, who has received an exemption to play in the 3M Open on July 21-24 in Blaine.

A national search will take place to replace popular head Minikahda Club golf professional Michael Congdon, who resigned the other day for family reasons.

Construction of a “Dave Lee Patio” at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital to honor the altruistic work of the former WCCO-AM icon will be announced next week.

Outfielder Matt Wallner, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Forest Lake grad with a cannon throwing arm, hit eight home runs for the Twins’ Double-A Wichita club in June, to go along with five doubles and one triple while batting .345 with 17 RBIs and a slugging percentage of .714. For the season, after a slow start, Wallner, 24, has 18 homers and 53 RBIs. Only downside: 95 strikeouts.

After a promotion by the Dodgers from Double-A Tulsa, utility player Michael Busch, 24, the Simley grad, is hitting .256 with eight home runs in 34 games for Triple-A Oklahoma City. He hit 11 homers in 31 games at Tulsa.

P.J. Fleck, who besides being the Gophers football coach refers to himself as a life coach, brought Daymond John from ABC’s “Shark Tank” to town to teach players dinner etiquette and how to be gentlemen.

Jack Washburn, who was 5-2 with a .3.35 ERA as a junior for NCAA champion Mississippi, is the son of former major league 2002 Angels World Series champion pitcher Jarrod Washburn of Webster, Wis.

On the one-year passing of beloved Wild assistant GM Tom Kurvers last week, an evergreen was planted on the left side of the green on the 18th hole of the Classic Golf Course in East Gull Lake to honor the former Hobey Baker winner.

Lexus is a new sponsor for local cable’s insightful “Behind the Game” sports program.

Jim Marshall, the beloved longtime Gophers athletics trainer, turns 92 on Sunday.

One of Minnesota’s greatest all-around prep athletes, Barry Wohler, the Orono boys basketball coach, turns 60 on Monday.

DON’T PRINT THAT

Giving up just two unprotected first-round draft picks — rather than four — for Rudy Gobert, 30, might even have been too much for the Timberwolves in the mega-trade with Utah on Friday, according to a preeminent NBA source.

But the five players the Wolves sent to the Jazz are role players, as Bleacher Report points out, adding an interesting stat: Towns had a 7-14 record when matched up against Gobert during his career. In those matches, Gobert held Towns below his career averages for points, rebounds and assists.

Gobert’s five-year contract through 2025-26 averages $41 million.

Current Gophers media rights deals, centered around the Big Ten Network, are worth nearly $49 million a year. And the Big Ten is in the midst of a new TV contract that could add $50 million more to the Gophers athletic department, totaling nearly $100 million a year.

Maybe now, the Gophers can reinstate men’s tennis, gymnastics and indoor track and field, the sports the school inexplicably decided to eliminate in two years ago.

The reason the Big Ten took in Rutgers and Maryland 10 years ago was to add east coast TV viewership money. Adding USC and UCLA in 2024 expands the TV market to the west coast.

Now, there’s whispering that Oregon, Washington and Kansas want to join the Big Ten, and that discussions are underway with Notre Dame for football. If the Big Ten can add Notre Dame and its millions of viewers, the Gophers’ annual TV share could even reach $120 million.

The Big Ten is seeking a 20-school conference. When the smoke clears, there will be two mega-conferences — the Big Ten and SEC. Plans are for Clemson, Florida State and Louisville from the ACC in August to receive bids to join the SEC.

People who know say before too long, there will be pay-for-play for college athletes, just like the pros, signing lucrative contracts. The NCAA is in flux. Look for a separate NCAA division just for football to be instituted.

The rich will get richer, and that won’t be good for the Gophers. As part of his name, likeness and image (NIL) deal at Ohio State, sophomore quarterback C.J. Stroud is driving around campus in a $200,000 Mercedes G-Wagon. That’s probably not what six-year Gophers QB Tanner Morgan is driving.

What has to be a mega new endorsement deal with Gatorade (estimated at nearly $500,000 per year) for Olympic gold medalist Suni Lee of Auburn features her practicing in her St. Paul backyard. Lee is expected to surpass UConn’s Paige Bueckers as the leading NIL collegiate female athlete.

Jaxon Howard, Cooper High’s 6-foot-4, 245-pound defensive end, can expect a whopping NIL deal at Louisiana State University, where on Friday he committed for football.

Twins catchers’ caught-stealing percentage is 29th of baseball’s 30 clubs, and the team is last in stealing bases themselves.

The Twins, projected to win 85 games, have a 59.6 percent chance to make the playoffs, per fangraphs.com.

New Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has bought a house in West St. Paul for $1.5 million.

It’s unclear whether Vikings running back Dalvin Cook’s off-the-field legal issue from last year has been resolved with the NFL.

The Timberwolves have narrowed a list of candidates to replace play-by-play voice Dave Benz to 20, then will reduce that to 10, then five. Incoming majority investors Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore are intent on finding a nationally prominent replacement for Benz.

New Wolves center Gobert has taken just three shots from three-point range during his nine years in the NBA. He’s missed all three.

Eric Musselman, denied a Gophers men’s basketball coaching interview when then-athletics director Norwood Teague hired Richard Pitino in 2013, has three McDonald’s All-Americans on his Arkansas team entering the season.

OVERHEARD

3M Open executive director Hollis Cavner, asked how his close late pal Arnold Palmer would have reacted if approached to become a partner in the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour: “After Arnie threw him out of the office? That would be his first move — get the hell out of my office.”