Trust The Process And The Stats

Wow. I guess we are just going to have to disagree there. Same number of RBI in half the AB. Just saying.

Again, RBIs are a stat you should stop using. They don't prove anything other than "This guy hits with guys on base in front of him." Also RBI does not equal good hitter.

That would be a great deal for the Twins, unless he's blocking the next Justin Mourneau, which isn't currently the case, or if management thinks Sano needs to play 1B, but note that Fangraphs today rates Sano FIRST among all AL 3Bs in defensive runs saved.

Agreed. Unless Sano needs to play 1B and the Twins already have someone at DH, if Mauer puts up an 800-820 OPS playing mostly against righties, he's worth well more than that. I'd feel comfortable going $8 mill a year on a series of 1 year deals. Maybe his brother will be manager by then?

More importantly, he takes up a position the Twins really need to get playing time for players taht should be up in the major leagues.  I get the Twins are not going to eat a $23 million contract and having Mauer on the team helps a bit at the gate and is an all-time Twins player.  But there is no denying the team would have one more leg up on rebuilding without him.  

Who is he blocking? Sano is fine at 3B and Vargas has not seized the DH job so it's not like there is no spot for him. There's no one in the high minors being blocked at 1B (or 3B if you want Sano at 1B). Not Park. Maybe Palka but he isn't doing anything in AAA that makes you want him up.

That could change in a year or two with Lewin Diaz or however the Gordon/Vielma/Dozier/Polanco pileup shakes out but for now, he blocks no one.

The Twins are in first place. They are better with Mauer playing against righties. He absolutely deserves his roster spot.

One thing I think is lost in all the criticism of Mauer... what would the Twins have done with that extra money? How many fans would have left if they hadn't re-signed him in his prime? 23 million dollars would have been good enough for what, 2 Ricky Nolascos? The contract had to be signed, both for baseball and PR purposes, and hasn't really negatively impacted the Twins' payroll as much as some people allege. 

I'm glad he isn't too old to bring on a good season now, to boot, mostly because that means I might still have a little bit of gas in the tank too. 

Target Field is the house that Mauer Built. They built that stadium so they could afford to keep him.

Mauer has hit 3rd the overwhelming majority of his career, behind some pretty good table setters, at times. So, he does come up with runners on. He does possess very good numbers with RISP, which begs the question why so few RBI. My theory is his approach. He's more than happy to slap a single the other way. That doesn't always get the run in though.

While RBI may not be the best number to judge hitters, nor is it the only number I use. I do not believe they are "utterly meaningless". Last time I checked the object of the game was to outscore your opponent.

Would it help if I also note that Vargas' OPS is still higher than Mauer's? And also was in 2 of the last 3 years.

Who are these great table setters? The best was Span and after that it's a bunch of weak hitting middle infielders. His approach likely has something to do with it and shows why RBI is a dumb way to look at it. Mauer's OBP has been insanely valuable and shouldn't be dismissed because he doesn't fit the 1986 version of valuable.

RBIs aren't "not the best number"- they are literally useless. Meaningless. Crap. They mean nothing. If you want RBIs to matter in judging an individual player (that is what we're doing, we're not saying "what helps a team win"), you need to find some other variable: number of attempts, OBP with guys in scoring position etc. Never use RBI in an argument, it will never ever help. 

Finally, that doesn't help. Kennys Vargas has 66 at bats and is the definition of short sample. Same with last year's 152 at bats that were buoyed by a hot streak against September pitching on the worst team in the majors. You're cherrypicking. Mauer had a slow start to this year but as the article shows, his peripheral stats are very good and he has bounced back considerably over the past three weeks. It's early. He may be down but he's had a great BB to K rate, has hit the ball hard and has a low BABIP. He'll trend up.

The Mauer hate is so overblown.

That's the thing though. He's older and his body is simply breaking down faster now than 5-10 years ago. We old guys know all about that. Nagging injuries are the new normal for him.

But this year he'll be getting time off as he is rested against lefty starters. That's 30% more rest (and the loss of at bats with the least likelihood of success). He should be able to stay healthier. The Twins also have options should he need a few days off - he won't have to play through things and watch his numbers drop. 

He's on pace for 147 games played this year, so it doesn't look like he's getting rested or platooned all that much. Maybe that'll change if Park forces a promotion, but that doesn't look to be happening anytime soon.

 

Edit: For context, that would be a tie for the 2nd most games he's ever played in a season.

Yeah but he's tailed off playing against lefties since Vargas has come up. Before that the Twins right handed 1B option (assuming they wanted Sano to play mostly at 3B for continuity) was Gimenez. Now the Twins have a real option and they have been sitting him against lefties the past ten days or so. I imagine that will continue now that the Twins have Vargas.

I'm cherrypicking?

This isn't personal. I don't "hate" Joe Mauer. I don't like that he's a shell of his former self and I don't like that he is, as far as I am concerned, taking at bats away from Vargas. I view Vargas as a better hitter at the respective spots in their careers. Many on this forum disagree, but the numbers from the day Vargas hit the majors up to today are on my side.

Hate has multiple meanings. I don't mean hate like you would spit on him if you saw him in the streets. I meant that you hate on his game. I think that's pretty obvious from the context if you actually read the whole thing.

You are, you found an essentially meaningless stat to use as an argument rather than examining the full picture. I can tell you haven't really looked at the numbers by you last sentence. If you looked at Vargas's numbers you'd see that his MLB OBP+ is 105, decidedly average. Take a look at his minor league numbers: .809 OPS in AAA, .849 in AA. This isn't to say that Kennys Vargas is a bad player, just that you're hyping him a little aggressively. 

I think you'd also benefit from going back through this forum. You keep switching the argument and ignoring the vast majority of what people say to focus on some small detail you can nitpick.

Considering that Vargas hasn't hit lhp this year yet, I actually doubt that will happen anytime soon. And given that Paul Molitor has apparently decided that Kepler is a platoon player, I'm not sure what the plan going forward will be. Most likely vs most lhp until something changes (like Vargas hitting lhp better for example) probably see something like:

c Gimenez
1b Mauer
2b Dozier
3b Escobar
ss Polanco
lf Rosario
cf Buxton
rf Grossman
dh Sano

With Sano, Mauer and Escobar kinda rotating the DH/1B/3B spots.

Vargas has hit better against lefties that righties in his career. This year is the definition of a small sample size.

Monitor has also shown no desire to move Sano from 3B and play him extensively at 1B. The last time Sano played 1B was on April 22nd.

We are much more likely to see Sano playing 3B with some DH on days off and see Mauer, Vargas and Grossman playing the vast majority of the time at 1B/DH.

Vargas' career OPS is .751. The BEST season Mauer has had since the start of Vargas' MLB career is .752. I'm too lazy to do the math to figure it out exactly, but overall since the start of 2014 it's lower than .751. So, please explain how that statement is incorrect. Perhaps you should check the numbers.

Over the past four years Vargas has had the equivalent of one full season. Not a tiny sample but it's pretty misleading to say "over the past four seasons." I think it's rather telling that on a team with a need for power, a switch hitting power hitter has had a hard time sniffing the field. He has some hot streaks that buoy his stats but he's pretty streaky and undependable. And it's not like it was hard to get PT - the Twins have had an open spot at DH (last year 13 guys were DH for a game and no one had more than 36 games) that Vargas has never seized and made his own.

Mauer has had 1100 more at bats. Mauer has also been recovering from concussions throughout the first part of that period and is now being used more appropriately as a 120 games, mostly against RHP guy. I'd still take Mauer over Vargas this year. I hope I'm wrong, it will likely mean Vargas is having an explosive year.

And again, this thing started with a discussion of Mauer's place among best Twins hitters of all time. You ignored my response to that and turned it into a discussion of RBI. When I explained why RBIs were useless you ignored that and moved it to Vargas being better than Mauer right now. I think you're more interested in moving the goal line when it behooves you than in having a real discussion about anything.

Unless you want to actually talk about some of the things I've mentioned previously, I'm likely respectfully done responding because this discussion isn't really very fun and you're more of a fencer ("scoring" points) than a debator (cohesive presenter of a reasoned argument). One tip would be to not just bold one phrase in a lengthy response and jump on that - deal with the whole concept or at least acknowledge the parts you agree with before zooming in on something you wish to discuss further.

I wish you a pleasant Wednesday.