Bollinger: Mauer Could Catch 125 games

[Nick Nelson]

Mauer offers the most value at catcher, but his long-term health should be their single greatest concern at this point. Whatever the timeline is for thsi rebuilding effort, they're still going to be working around an aging $23M Mauer and if he wears down it's going to make things awfully tough. If the Twins were making a go of it this year I'd be on board, but since they seem to have little interest in competing I don't see the need to push him. Hopefully if things go south in the early months they'll at least make adjustments. No reason to have him catching regularly in the second half of a lost season.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Mauer offers the most value at catcher, but his long-term health should be their single greatest concern at this point. Whatever the timeline is for thsi rebuilding effort, they're still going to be working around an aging $23M Mauer and if he wears down it's going to make things awfully tough. If the Twins were making a go of it this year I'd be on board, but since they seem to have little interest in competing I don't see the need to push him. Hopefully if things go south in the early months they'll at least make adjustments. No reason to have him catching regularly in the second half of a lost season.

 

I can agree with the second half of this paragraph. IMO, a team should try to win at the beginning of every season in case things shake out in surprising ways. If Joe is healthy and wants to play catcher more often, let him do it.

 

But if the team is out of it in June, there's simply no reason to keep pushing that line of thinking. And chances are that the team will be out of it in June.

[jokin]

I can agree with the second half of this paragraph. IMO, a team should try to win at the beginning of every season in case things shake out in surprising ways. If Joe is healthy and wants to play catcher more often, let him do it.

But if the team is out of it in June, there's simply no reason to keep pushing that line of thinking. And chances are that the team will be out of it in June.

 

Who wouldn't agree with this? Unfortunately, the concept of hope that things surprisingly shake out positively coming out of the gate is hanging on the thinnest of thin reeds-

 

and Ryan has already hoisted the white flag on that reed.

 

I think people tend to blank out about that part of the offseason story where the Twins gutted the top of their batting order...

[ThePuck]

I think people tend to blank out about that part of the offseason story where the Twins gutted the top of their batting order...

 

...and the defense those two provided...making our weak defense even weaker.