Mauer: Lack of Training and Overflow of Excuses Catching Up to Him

[SF Twins Fan]

 

Couldn't help but notice Carew used the qualifier "Since we've been down here". (hope you can appreciate the irony)

Well I'm assuming Carew doesn't follow Mauer around in the offseason.

[DrNeau]

 

Hrbowski, on 18 Sept 2015 - 3:53 PM, said:

...Madison Bumgarner and Jonathan Broxton are athletes.

Hi Hrbowski, 

Yes, Madison Bumgarner managed to hit exactly as many home runs last year as Joe Mauer. Pretty impressive for a pitcher.      (Love your s/n, btw.)

 

 

...I like how you completely skip this line from the first article:

 

"To his credit, Joe works," Brunansky said. "He'd even say, 'Come on, let's go out early.' We'll say, 'We're going to go play.' No one's around. It's nice. It's cool."

 

-----------

 

Here's another quote from Rod Carew:

 

 "His footwork over there is good," Carew said. "The more he plays, the more balls will get hit at him, and his reaction will be OK. He's going to make some plays. The diving plays, and the stuff like that, that's all reaction. As long as he makes the routine plays, he'll be fine. He's working at it. Since we've been down here, he has put a lot of work into it."

 

If you're going to pull little "snippets of information" as you say then you should pull some from both sides of the spectrum.  Otherwise you're just cherry picking quotes to make your point and it's not all full facts. You're not giving the full truth to what the articles were saying. 

Thanks, lmfao1. 

 

Response to quote #1: I have not claimed that Mauer does not work in spring training. In fact, I believe all players work in spring training. 

Response to quote #2: I have not claimed that Mauer does not work in spring training. In fact, I believe all players work in spring training.

 

That's what they are there to do... train. 

 

 

[DrNeau]

 

 

Mauer's workout regimen, circa July 2014:

 

http://sports.yahoo....20195.html?nf=1

Sure looks like a lot of leaning and lying around in that workout...

 

Unsure what happened to the person's post I was trying to quote. Looks like it has been deleted. 

 

[dbminn]

 

Sure looks like a lot of leaning and lying around in that workout...

 

Try it at the number of sets, reps and intervals in the article and report back.

 

 

[jokin]

 

You are aware he has a 37-game on base streak going, the longest streak for a Twin since Bob Allison's 42 game streak in 1961.

 

Uhh, here's the slashline during the current 37-game streak:

 

.282/.372/.387  wRC+ 111

 

This current "hot" streak is fairly comparable to Joe's final numbers of his two worst seasons, 2014 and  the"bilateral leg weakness" year, 2011.

[h2oface]

Nice compilation of information and facts. People will draw there own conclusions, I guess, and implicate you of agenda beyond your presentation in ways that suit them, but I just want to say I enjoyed it and thanks for the work you did to compile it.

 

I think the whole team could benefit hanging with Berrios during the off season, especially with the second half fades screaming at them to not repeat the things that don't seem to keep them going a full year.

[SF Twins Fan]

 

Hi Hrbowski, 

Yes, Madison Bumgarner managed to hit exactly as many home runs last year as Joe Mauer. Pretty impressive for a pitcher.      (Love your s/n, btw.)

 

 

Thanks, lmfao1. 

 

Response to quote #1: I have not claimed that Mauer does not work in spring training. In fact, I believe all players work in spring training. 

Response to quote #2: I have not claimed that Mauer does not work in spring training. In fact, I believe all players work in spring training.

 

That's what they are there to do... train. 

Here's a good article I think you and everyone else should read...

 

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8391985/minnesota-twins-joe-mauer-ignores-critics-extends-career-espn-magazine

 

[Teflon]

This won't advance the pro or anti Mauer sentiment in either direction but I find it fascinating that Joe's fantasy production has been cyclical this year in repeating 5 or 6 week bell curves. His peaks have occurred in weeks 3, 7, 13, and 18 while his valleys have occurred in weeks 1, 5, 10, 16, and 21 with the weeks between the peaks and valleys in ascent or descent. There are three very discernible full cycles like this in his season with partial cycles at front and rear. Of the 23 weeks this season, two I would classify as outside of this pattern but neither of those are outlying spikes or drops, but two-week continuations of one of the stages.

 

Our fantasy points take into consideration hits, walks, runs, HBPs, RBIs, total bases, with negatives for Ks and GIDPs - so is a fairly comprehensive picture of Joe's performance.

 

Over 143 games played and 23 weeks, this seems less than a random distribution  of weekly points. Not saying that this depicts some lingering physical or cognitive issues from the concussions - merely asking if this seems possible. One could argue, I suppose, that this could reflect off-days in the schedule or Molitor's resting Joe in certain weeks but I find that equally as unlikely to be this regular. 

 

 

 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

I think he's just lazy and that's about it. I mean the video's he's put out regarding his training and the offseason golfing gut picture say it all. Joe Mauer is lazy. He does nothing in the offseason except play with his money. Simple as that.

Ahtlete is first round pick. Athlete turns down football scholarship at premiere school. Athlete dominates defense-oriented position at a level never seen in the history of baseball.

 

Athlete gets hit in the head. Athlete gets old and declines faster than most expected. Athlete is obviously lazy.

 

What a bum, that athlete.

[jimmer]

^{Couldn't we just create a Mauer bashing thread and combine all the threads created to bash him into it? Then direct people to post their new posts there?  Or maybe even create a separate forum? Place the forum right under the one entitled: 'Other Baseball'?}

[mikeearl]

The OP is spot-on. Mauer makes it clear he does not lift weights, nor does he do much training at all. Stretching is a benefit, but it's only a complement to strength training, agility, training, etc.

 

All of the people on here saying that squats, deadlifts, cleans, etc. don't make a difference in athletic performance must be people that have never lifted themselves. Look at Mike Trout; you think he would say that strength training has improved his game? There's no question.

 

It's not that Mauer needs to bulk up, but lifting weights would absolutely have preserved his athletic abilities for a longer period of time.

 

As others have said, that photo of his gut while playing golf says it all.

[David HK]

 

120229CP-KJ-GOLF12_5426153_ver1.0_640_480.jpgI always root for Joe, but his work ethic has irked me these last few years. If he was doing well it would not bother me. This is his job that he is paid well to do. He has lived to easy of a life. To be fair I always did like Hrbek and he was not known for his work ethic either.

I always liked Hrbek, too, but he was just maddening in the way he didn't take care of himself in his prime.  You're a young guy, making millions, playing for your home town team, of course you want to have fun and hang with your pals and blow off steam--  but a baseball career is a short one, and the long season is unforgiving.  

It just frustrated me, as a life-long baseball fan, who, like nearly all the others, watched these players live out the dream we used to have.  Why a guy born with such God-given talent, wouldn't put the the work in during those few short years, to be the best he could possibly be- to take that talent and multiply it.  In the 80s-the 00's, we saw too many guys do that wilth a needle, but plenty of them did it the old fashioned way- diet, training, taking care of the machine.

I lived in the Cities then, and I'd see Hrbie around town, especially in the offseason, making that gofling photo of Joe look like an emaciated super-model.  I'd always think- wow, if he just took a little care of himself during these prime years, and go wild with the chicken wings after it's all over, and you're still relatively young--  

The Walter Mitty in me would get up on his hind legs, and think- if I had that talent, by gum, I'd be having a few less Grain Belts, and spend more time in the gym, hit the yoga mat, do whatever I could to make the most of it.  Seeing a guy like Hrbie let himself go, even during his prime, kind of hurt.  

I'm not saying Joe is to that extreme, but it seems from what we've seen the past couple of years, and his comments noted above that 1) the concussion effects aren't over  2) He just doesn't seem to have a lot of stamina  3) that stupid looking beard has got to go.  He just looks like a suburban dad who's trying too hard to be a suburban dude.

It's been great to see him pick it up like he has lately, but I have to say the original poster made me think that a $23 million man has got to do a little more than the average guy, and not just rely on the God-given talent.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Are we REALLY comparing Mauer to Hrbek or did that 6pm old fashioned hit me harder than normal?

 

I mean, come on people. Hrbek weighed more than a Buick by the time he was 34.

[D. Hocking]

That golf pic is not the most flattering, but I think that might have been the spring after the concussion.  He is looking pretty trim now (putting aside whether he should have more muscle or not), so I think at the very least he is not catching up to Hrbek.

 

http://cdn.fansided.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/2015/04/joe-mauer-mlb-minnesota-twins-seattle-mariners-850x560.jpg

[formerly33]

Wow, everyone's ranting because Joe Mauer doesn't lift weights until he looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Why not start a thread called "Mauer needs to juice up"?

[spinowner]

 

I think the Hrbek comparison is good, Hrbek was 2nd in Rookie of Year and 2nd in MVP at the age of 24 and I thought we were watching a HOF player.  But if never seemed like he worked at his game and ended up a good but not great player and out of the game at 34.  Mauer was first ballot HOF talent, who doesn't look like he going to make it to the Hall.  Feels now he just around because of the contract and not his contributions.  And the concussion excuses are getting old when even he says he has no symptoms.  Can't believe someone with a brain injury is actually going to play more games after the injury than before.

I'm not a neurologist. I haven't reviewed Joe Mauer's medical chart. And I think both statements are probably true for everyone who posts here. That said, I think it's more than just random coincidence that there was a precipitous drop-off in Mauer's offensive stats after his concussion. Players as talented as Mauer rarely experience that sort of change. It took Justin Morneau four years after his 2010 concussion to become Justin Morneau again. I think the concussion is BY FAR the most likely reason that Mauer's offensive production has dropped off during the last couple years. I very strongly doubt it has anything to do with his training regimen.

[Craig Arko]

Maybe a little experiment will help. Bang your head against a brick wall a few times. Then have someone throw you some 100 mph fastballs.

 

How'd you do? Write a full report, using advanced metrics.

[ashbury]

OK, I banged my head against 100 mph fastballs. Now, where can I find someone to throw me a brick wall?

[Craig Arko]

OK, I banged my head against 100 mph fastballs. Now, where can I find someone to throw me a brick wall?

Eventually it's guaranteed to happen in a game thread.

[D. Hocking]

 

Eventually it's guaranteed to happen in a game thread.

 

That is probably the best place to look for examples of the effects of brain injury.

[DocBauer]

I wasn't gonna. I wasn't gonna. I really, really wasn't gonna.

 

But here I am anyway. (Sigh) I guess it's just a sickness.

 

First...just because I told you and everyone else I stopped by the store and grabbed some beer and something for dessert doesn't mean I didn't ALSO pick up the meat and veggies. But I guess it's anyone's right to moan and complain about what I announced I bought instead of looking at the receipt of what I bought in TOTAL.

 

Second...hitting a baseball successfully, (power or not withstanding), is an incredibly difficult thing to do with any consistency. If it weren't, there would not only be a whole lot more "top prospects" in the sport who didn't wash out, but the threshold for greatness...not goodness-GREATNESS...wouldn't be to succeed 30% of the time.

 

Maybe Mauer will rediscover his past self for any number of reasons. But maybe, maybe it's time that we just realize than a star baseball player, facing pitches that dip and dart and dive and slurve and slide between 80-100 MPH, has the very, very, almost obscenely difficult task of locating said round object, dissecting its trajectory and eventual targeted landing area in an X and Y plane, and then deciding if he should swing at all...(projecting and guessing whether it will be a ball or a strike)...and if he does, hoping his hand eye coordination matches his expected velocity and location computation so as to strike the ball successfully in to the field of play in some capacity. And this all takes place in about a second and a half???

 

So what if you are a star athlete ballplayer like Mauer, at the pinnacle of your sport, and your precious brain gets dinged multiple times until one day it gets hit hard enough to do actual damage? Not even talking such problems as memory loss, lack or coordination, drooling, lack of emotional control, depression, poor speech or anything else. Nothing...not a single thing that anyone can see or that will affect your life in an altering or quality lessening way. But what if it was just enough to throw off that hand eye coordination and split second mental, projectile-hard tossed-spinning-darting-diving-slurving-sliding multiple plane diagnosis targeting mechanism off a degree or hundredth of a second or two?

 

Might you go from pinnacle of your craft to average or slightly above? Especially if nature itself, not old but over 30, wasn't cutting you much slack.

 

So I dunno...maybe we can hope for the best, debate the best role and batting order spot for Joe, wonder when he becomes the highest paid veteran LHPH and backup 1B and occassional DH in the history of the game. Or, we can post even more "I love Joe BUT...." posts.

 

And for the love of St Pete, someone get Ashburyjohn some ibuprofen!

[jokin]

 

Might you go from pinnacle of your craft to average or slightly above? 

 

Or perhaps a little more than slightly below average?

 

 

MLB average slash line for 1st Basemen:  .258/.334/.441/(.775)  wRC+ 111

 

Joe Mauer 2015 slash line thru 9/17/15:     .269/.341/.375/(.716) wRC+ 94

[Old Twins Cap]

People keep attributing Mauer's decline to brain injury, and maybe it is, who knows?

 

But, just as likely I believe, is that Mauer peaked at a young age -- being a super athlete at age 18.  That's 15 years ago now.

 

Fifteen years is a lot of time to go by and still maintain a very high performance level.  They say he only struck out once his senior year of high school.  He was offered a full-ride to the best football college in the country.  He also started and was a credible basketball player.  That is a phenomenal level of skill at age 18.  He's over 32 now.

 

I have seen this in many people, in many different sports.  Not everyone peaks at the same time, nor over the same time interval.  Some people hit their peak early, some middle, some late.

 

In Mauer's case, for whatever reason, he is in the decline phase at age 32.  It may be brain injury, it may be laziness (thought that seems doubtful to me), or it may be he peaked at a younger age than most.

 

In any case, the numbers are the numbers and Joe is in the twilight of his career.  Between him and Morneau, who both showed such incredible prowess and promise in the early years, it is a sad and unfortunate truth that they came and went before we hardly knew them.

[Jham]

Mauer came off an injury in 2009 and hit 28 HR in 606 pa.  He's hit 45 HR in 6 seasons since in around 3,200 pa.  As I recall, Mauer came back in May, after kidney stone surgery to post something like 11 HR in month one and 9 more in June.  His numbers continued to tail the further he got away from his off season recovery.  After that season he signed a massive contract which many bemoan to this day.  Perhaps too many people focus on what's wrong with Joe, and not enough on what did Joe do differently in 2009?  

 

The eye test says Mauer isn't nearly the same player.  The stats back it up.  I think Parker did a breakdown this spring on Joe, and he was one of the worst at catching up to heat in all of baseball last year, and swung and missed at breaking balls far more often as well.  I think he's just declining.  His bat speed is going, and for a guy who already lets the ball get deep, a drop in bat speed is deadly.  If it was the concussion, he'd be better by now.  Either way, he'll probably never be better than he is now.  Scary thought.

 

I think my frustration, and most fans' frustration is the continued insistence on batting Joe 3rd.

[spinowner]

 

  If it was the concussion, he'd be better by now.  

 

 

Actually, we don't know that. This is just a guess on your part. Every brain injury is different and you and I have no way to know. He may be fully recovered and just in decline, but my guess is that some effects of the injury are still present. Look at Corey Koskie--he never recovered fully enough to play again. As I said before, it took Justin Morneau 4 years to return to form.

[Jham]

 

Actually, we don't know that. This is just a guess on your part. Every brain injury is different and you and I have no way to know. He may be fully recovered and just in decline, but my guess is that some effects of the injury are still present. Look at Corey Koskie--he never recovered fully enough to play again. As I said before, it took Justin Morneau 4 years to return to form.

 

That's actually what I meant.  If it were the concussion, he'd be better by now [if he was ever going to get better].

[Headfirst]

I always think that it is funny when posters on TD become experts in the art of strength and conditioning.  There are always debates about whether a general strength routine (dead lifts, heavy squats, olympic lifts) or sport specific movements (utilizing bullpen/batting practice sessions, increased trunk flexibility) is more beneficial in terms of increasing sport performance.  Yes the benefit of increased glute strength and hip extension from a dead lift can be helpful in a baseball swing, but will the increased strength benefit the swing of a 32 year old who has had his body beaten up for the large majority of the year for his entire life?  

 

I could look into scientific articles to support my opinion that because Joe doesn't work out 6 days a week like JJ Watt flipping 1,000 pound tires, that he is actually helping himself in terms of his baseball performance. But I am just as lazy as Joe is so I don't think I will.  

 

Just irks me when we sit here and critique a man's work ethic when we don't even know 5% of the specific info that we need to know what is best and what isn't in terms of a strength routine.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Just irks me when we sit here and critique a man's work ethic when we don't even know 5% of the specific info that we need to know what is best and what isn't in terms of a strength routine.  

On top of that, I find it incredible posters (posting on a baseball message board, mind you) will call a guy lazy when that guy is (was) better at his profession than anything any of us will do in our lifetimes.

 

It requires a rather impenetrable Reality Distortion Field to suggest such a thing and do it with a straight face.

 

Maybe Mauer doesn't have a great offseason regimen. I don't know and I have no information to suggest either side of the argument is correct... But it's incredible to suggest he's lazy when he was one of the best players in baseball for a decade. What, do some of you think Mauer somehow became one of the best catchers in MLB history through dumb luck and talent?

 

*shakes head in disbelief*

[ken]

 

I'm not a neurologist. I haven't reviewed Joe Mauer's medical chart. And I think both statements are probably true for everyone who posts here. That said, I think it's more than just random coincidence that there was a precipitous drop-off in Mauer's offensive stats after his concussion. Players as talented as Mauer rarely experience that sort of change. It took Justin Morneau four years after his 2010 concussion to become Justin Morneau again. I think the concussion is BY FAR the most likely reason that Mauer's offensive production has dropped off during the last couple years. I very strongly doubt it has anything to do with his training regimen.

Both of us lack the medical knowledge, then why not listen to the player who say he has had no concussion issues?

 

Given that, the lack of production could very well be his lack of off-season workout.  If you look at his 2013 season, if his BABIP was at his career average instead of a career high, he would have batted below .300.  His strike out rate jumped, continuing a 3 year trend.  Everyone jumps on these type of stats and indication for other players, but don't want to look at them with Mauer.

 

Morneau has fought concussion and missed a lot of time as a result.  So again, I don't have the medical background but it sure appears to be a lot more serious than Mauer.  Can't we stop comparing someone with no concussion issues to a player who continues to suffer concussion issues, just to try and give his an excuse for his lack of production?

[USAFChief]

Are we REALLY comparing Mauer to Hrbek or did that 6pm old fashioned hit me harder than normal?

I mean, come on people. Hrbek weighed more than a Buick by the time he was 34.

Perhaps you should check Hrbek's stats at the same age Mauer is now.

 

 

 

You might need another old fashioned.

 

Then check Hrbek at 34, and compare THAT to Mauer now.

 

You might need a double.