The Secret Behind The Saints' Recent Success

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) -- If you haven't been paying attention to the St. Paul Saints, it's probably time to start.

After another win Sunday night, they're now 42-20 this season -- the best record in the league.

But it goes much, much deeper than that.

Over their last 162 games, the length of a major league season (100 last year and 62 this year), they are 116-46. That would tie the 2001 Seattle Mariners and 1906 Chicago Cubs for the most wins in a single season in history.

So why are the Saints so good?

"You gotta get the good guys," manager George Tsamis said. "And you want guys that care about winning."

Tsamis is the guy responsible for getting the right guys here. In the offseason, he travels the country looking for talent and, not unlike a college coach, trying to recruit them here.

"We just happen to have the nicest minor league park you'll ever see," Tsamis said. "And I say this to players when I recruit them and it is true: Unless you get to the big leagues you'll never play in a nicer stadium than this one."

And he tells them this: A lot of guys that have played for the Saints have gotten to the big leagues.

"Those are the facts," Tsamis said. "Players that have played here have moved on and got with major league clubs."

Tsamis' track record picking players is, obviously by the results, pretty impressive. But here's a fact that makes it darn near incredible: Most of them, he's never even seen before.

"Most players you sign, most of them you've never seen them," he said. "You go by what they did in the past and you try to cull organizations or maybe even ex-players or current players that were teammates with them, you try to find out" as much as you can.

And the result has been a team winning at one of the most historic rates in baseball history.