Mauer Outage

It will be nice to fire up the " It's all Mauer's fault" talk once again.

So, what's wrong with him? Has his approach at the plate changed? Have pitchers changed their approach? Different combination of pitch selection & location? Different defensive shifts?

I'm not real sure who was saying "it's all Mauer's fault" on here. Is what Nick wrote accurate? Seems to me it was!

Maybe Joe will follow the old adage "when summer warms up, so will the hitters".

Well, considering our options are Park and Vargas for now.......

I had always hoped that Kepler was getting some rotations at first base and would be our first baeman of the future (assuming Sano didn't need the shift). Seeing that we potentially could fill the outfield, it would be nice to have one of the many guys for the outfield play elsewhere....

Park needs some work, some seasoning. He can be our short-term first sacker.

But what of Mauer. Yes, move him out of the front of the lineup. Let;s keep that round of msuical chairs going for the season. Why should Joe get the same spot everyday while everyone else wanders the chairs around him.

Dangle him out there. Maybe he will allow  trade if a contender comes calling. That would be major salary relief.

Or let's get some consistency in the lineup. Return Dozier to leadoff. Bat Kepler second. Have Sano 4th when he returns and stick-with-it. 

Let's call it the reverse "Dozier effect" this season.  Many, including yours truly, had Brian being DONE a few weeks ago.  Now it looks like he could go up to the plate blindfolded and swinging a broomstick and still hit one out.

 

Long season.... ebbs and flows...oscillations....reversions to the mean...etc.

 

Hopefully Joe has a few more hot streaks later this year. And when he does, hopefully they last for a while.

Dozier usually doesn't go up to the plate blindfolded until after the All-Star break.

I would honestly either bench or flat out release Mauer and then send Park to AAA and pick your top first base prospect from the minors let him play out the season at 1B. Not sure if that would be Palka or Vargas or Walker maybe?

I would honestly either bench or flat out release Mauer and then send Park to AAA and pick your top first base prospect from the minors let him play out the season at 1B. Not sure if that would be Palka or Vargas or Walker maybe?

Wonder what our team OBP would be without his .367, considering he's second on the team?  Our team is already 14th out of 15 (only 1 point above the As) with a team OBP 58 points lower than Mauer's. 

The Twins on the active 25 man roster with a higher wRC+ than Mauer:

Grossman (give him a week or two).

Nunez

Dozier

Unless we're taking into account his salary, he's probably not the guy you bench or release.  Still a disappointing season for him, though, no doubt.

I've tried to find a study on this......is it better to have guys hit 1 for 4 every game.....or 2 games with three hits and 4 games with no hits (or something like that)? Which one leads to more wins over 162 games?

 

I can't find one, but I'll ask on a FG chat or tweet one of them, and see....

Interesting concept.  My thought is that there would be a positive correlation toward the latter scenario, but I don't think the results would tell you much.

Getting 1 hit in 4 at bats for .250 average (last year's league average was .254) is likely to be almost neutral for wins and losses based on being so close to the league average without looking at average wins per team.  Going 0-4 in any particular game probably correlates slightly with a loss, certainly more so than a 1-4 day.  Going 0-4 might mean you met Chris Sale, but even Sale gives up hits.  If you went 3-4, you probably did not face Sale, you probably faced Nolasco.  You're more likely to beat Nolasco than Sale.  You might go 0-4 against someone in the middle, you might go 3-4 against someone in the middle.  But 1-4 doesn't tell me much.  Thus my hypothesis is slight correlation toward multi-hit games, but only because your probably not the only one hitting well when you go 3-4.  (correlation vs. causation).
 

Wonder what our team OBP would be without his .367, considering he's second on the team?  Our team is already 14th out of 15 (only 1 point above the As) with a team OBP 58 points lower than Mauer's. 

 

The Twins on the active 25 man roster with a higher wRC+ than Mauer:

 

Grossman (give him a week or two).

Nunez

Dozier

 

Unless we're taking into account his salary, he's probably not the guy you bench or release.  Still a disappointing season for him, though, no doubt.

Mauer is what he is now: solid OBP and decent glove at 1B but not much more. He is not going to carry a line up but does bring professional ABs to a young and developing team.

The Twins need to work out if they're going to carry a player like that for the next 2 years. My guess is they probably are. What are the options? Trade him to the Rays for a PTBNL?