StormJH1

He'll only be 20 when ELIZ starts next yr so its not like he's old (be like a JC college drafted player) but unfortunately you dont really know what you got yet....too bad Agreed. Yes, he's still young, and we don't really know what we have yet, but the strikeouts do seem pretty high, and there hasn't been much displayed of what he'll do well as a hitter. Aaron Hicks was a more coveted prospect, but he spent one year in the rookie league as an 18-year old and then was on to Beloit for two years. Denard Span started later, but got moved up to A-ball when he was 20. I think he is a bit behind in his development, but this is slowly becoming an organization with a lot of OF depth around his age, so it's more about the destination than the journey. Also, don't forget about the pedigree and what that might do for his reputation down the line. Players like Tony Gwynn Jr. and Eric Young Jr. are fringe MLB'ers, but they've gotten several looks in the bigs, and name recognition certainly doesn't hurt that cause. If Dereck can at least develop into a rangey OF with good defense, he'll have an easier path to the majors than, say, Darin Mastroianni.

Yeah, I really think a lot of fans are missing the point. If you follow baseball (or even fantasy baseball), I've really never had the sense that pitchers in the Twins organization are any more prone to Tommy John surgery than in other organizations around baseball. I've never heard complaints of pitchers in the minors being overworked, and Gardenhire has actually been criticized for being TOO cautious with pitchers at the big league level (though he does overwork certain relievers at times). I remember Santana when he was just emerging as a star would rarely get to 100 pitchers, and Gardy angrily defended his decision to take him out of games early. Tommy John surgery happens - I liken it to horse racing, where the animals have been bred to be extremely musclebound, yet with a lightweight bone structure that puts them at risk of broken legs. It should be apparent by now (after an era of extreme muscle training, steroids, HGH, etc.) that there is a physical limit on how hard the collection of bones and soft tissue we call the human body can propel a baseball. That limit is just over 100mph, and what's amazing about that is that Bob Gibson and Nolan Ryan were throwing that hard without "modern" training and nutrition, and the same was probably true of even earlier pitchers. However, there is some anecdoal evidence from pitchers of the Christy Matthewson era that while pitchers threw tons of innings on short rest, they weren't always exerting themselves 100% during the course of a game. That may be a partial explanation for what's happened. Of course, prior to Tommy John surgery, pitchers DID get hurt - you just never heard from them again after they blew out their elbow. Where the Twins are rippable is that they fail to diagnose a TJ situation, and they have this fear of the procedure like it's the kiss of death. It isn't anymore. You're essentially giving a pitcher a replacement part for soft tissue parts of the elbow that have been worn out over many years. Pitchers who recover from TJ surgery almost always end up throwing as hard (or harder) as they did before the procedure. So when the Twins mess around with guys like Baker and pretend like it will just get better, they're doing both themselves and the player a great disservice. It's better to get the damn thing fixed and get back to your career sooner.

I didn't think you COULD tear up an existing deal. Baseball contracts are guaranteed and you can't "renegotiate" them like you hear in the NFL. I feel like that's been discussed in 10,000 forum threads asking Joe Mauer to "re-work" his deal so he isn't stealing from the Twins anymore. Haha.

Wow, that is simply amazing. Also, while there were more than a few "one of us" guys, I was surprised there weren't more from Minnesota. Then again, if you just look at the markers, it's a bit deceiving, since the one for St. Paul represents like 9 different guys.

First, let's get something clear about stolen bases - they're overrated. The primary commodity in offensive baseball is the out. You get 3 of them per inning and just like it makes little sense to bunt early in a game and trade one of those three outs out to advance a single runner one base, it's usually not a good idea to send a risk a 25 to 40% chance of being thrown out in exchange for one out. So while it's easy to beat up on Mauer, let's keep in mind that as bad as the numbers are, we're still only talking about a handful of additional runners that he should have thrown out over the course of a season. That being said, I haven't really thought of Mauer as a "good" defensive catcher since at least mid-2010. There were times from 2006 to 2010 I felt he was an above average catcher. I think what's particularly alarming for a guy like Mauer, however, is that you look at 6'5" guy who is GIANT for a catcher, and you assume that his problems would be with blocking balls, moving around, etc. You wouldn't expect a former HS quarterback of that size to have trouble throwing out runners, but it's clear that he does. And when you factor in the part time playing time, and recognize that it's September and Mauer's defense has resulted in only THREE caught runners all year, I think we can put to bed the argument that Mauer's offense has "added value" because of his defense.

Nick - Absolutely dead right with this article, well done. The question you asked about 6 years/138 million for a part-time catcher about to turn 30 is the relevant question here. Ironically, there's fans in this town that undervalue Mauer's importance to the Twins, while OVERvaluing what he'd be "worth" to another team, say, the Boston Red Sox. People seem to want to go back and re-evaluate the merits of the 8 yr/184 million deal, but that's not how it works. And the reality is that you can look at virtually ANY $20+ million/yr long-term contract, and nobody in their right mind would sign up only for the 2nd half of those deals. Teams agree to the 2nd half because they want and need the production of the younger player in the 1st half. And while I've been a critic of Mauer's vis a vis the size of his contract, JB_Iowa makes a terrific point which people in this market seem to take for granted. Ever since Mauer's first breakout season in 2006, we started hearing about how much more marketable Mauer would be as a "brand" if he played baseball in New York instead of Minnesota. I think that's completely backwards. There are lots of great baseball players who are perceived to be quality guys and good looking guys popular with female fans. Mauer's importance locally as a hometown product is almost impossible to measure because it's been the Twins' reality since he came through the system. Who knows what this franchise looks like and how the fans would respond to it (and an expensive new stadium) had he been drafted somewhere else. And nationally, I think Mauer's persona as an "aww shucks", shy, just-a-little-boring Midwestern guy works much better with who he is. Or, to put it another way, Joe already does endorsements Sony Playstation, Head and Shoulders, Kemp's Ice Cream, State of Minnesota tourism, and countless others I'm probably forgetting. How many would he have needed in a "bigger market"? Mauer is uniquely valuable here. I think that's why the normally tight ownership of the Twins spared no expense (and really got no noticeable hometown discount) to keep him. But as an outside team looking to acquire him, you can't pick up that contract and have any reasonable expectation of getting your money's worth. That does make Mauer the scum of the Earth, he's still a terrific ballplayer. But that's the harsh reality of baseball economics.

It does give them another opportunity to say that they are listening to the fans, though. They can point to Twitter responses, etc. that ask how they could even think about doing this. If you can't do anything meaningful, do something useless and claim that you listened to the fans. (Sorry my cynicism level about this team is so d*mn high. I hope that they were honestly testing the market.) See, and I viewed it as "listening to the fans" when they overpaid him to begin with, and that the fans would still tell them to keep him no matter how bad the team is. While people like you and I are surrounded by fans and bloggers on message boards who play armchair GM and talk about how smart it is to move guys like Morneau and Mauer...we're in the extreme minority of people who pay for tickets. I conducted a very unscientific experiment last year...I happened to be at a Caribou Coffee in Wayzata and the staff (which were virtually all girls aged about 16-25) were asked to name their favorite Twins player on a sign. Of the 8 responses, about 4 of them named Mauer, while 2 of them named "T.C. Bear" and 2 of them said something like "Don't Care" or couldn't name any. Take Mauer off the team, and I bet 2-4 more of those responses are either "don't care" or they name the stupid mascot. This is a big chunk of your fanbase. It's the families that show up with "Circle Me Bert" signs, or the middle-aged guy who listens to KFAN on the way home from work, but thinks that a "waiver" is something the fans do in their seats during a rally. They're the ones that get the free Joe Mauer sideburns, and actually wear them during the game. Good or bad, you lose those fans without guys like Mauer and Morneau, or even if you replaced them with Latin American guys with similar numbers. There's enough "baseball" fans that would show up anyway, but baseball is a business, and winning isn't the only reason people pay into it.

I was looking at that thing last night. It's awful. At the very least, they could have made it a solid sheet of black or green instead of that piecemeal thing they currently have in place. Agreed, though it's not like you can find anyone who disagrees with that. Think if they ran a poll at Target Field: What do you like best in CF: (A) Bring back the trees; ( A different, less distracting option, like shrubs or giant boulders or something; © A hastily-painted, streaky-looking giant black wall in an otherwise completely Limestone and Green ballpark. Option "C" isn't going to win, unless Joe Mauer gets to vote 25,000 times. You could name countless ballparks that feature some type of rocks (Anaheim), ivy (Wrigley, Comerica), or otherwise visible features in or near the batter's eye, and nobody ever complains. The one that really kills me though is Coors Field: This is different than what we had...how? And not only is Coors not perceived to be a "world-class" ballpark, but from what I hear, their hitters don't seem to have trouble locating the ball and crushing it in the thin air there. Also, ignore for a second the awesome tree and rock formations with the water pond...what about that creeping ivy up the green wall!? But at Target Field the wavy branches of those evergreens were apparently so egregious, we couldn't even have them for a 2nd year. What's sad is that they caved into the perception of 1-3 players (I frequently hear Mauer, Morneau, and Cuddy were the culprits) seeing the park from the inside out, at the expense of 40,000 fans looking from the outside IN. This was supposed to be their park, remember?! The people who paid for the damn thing?!

Hahaha. Props for a clever gardening reference. I'm out in the sunshine of LF 200 Level quite a bit, though I think those seats are fine for any night game, or even day games in September weather. In the dog days of June and July, though it can be pretty exhausting getting baked out there for 4 hours.

I generally agree with jokin that there's a good chance we see more payroll cuts next year. Not like 2010 --> 2011, where it went from $112k to $100k (or thereabouts). But would anybody be stunned if our opening day payroll is $95 million in 2013? $90 million? I wouldn't be surprised. All you have to do is listen to Terry Ryan talk about a "weak FA market for pitching" (which is garbage) and his general philosophy against long-term deals for pitchers...and put that together with the fact that we don't have a bunch of guys to re-sign, like we did from 2007-09. I think Baker is a wild card for next year, but really, what else are they going to do? If you name a pitcher out there like Annibal Sanchez, and Terry Ryan pulls out of negotiations as soon as the length gets over 3 years...well, some other team is going to offer more years and more money. Also, I reject the premise that the attendance decline is anything beyond what should have been expected. If you look at attendance history, teams tend to do well in attendance in years following a good year, even if the team isn't good. (Many of the tickets are bought in advance anyway, after all!). If a team is a bad, they'll do poorly unless the team shows signs of life. Add into that the "newness" effect wearing off at the ballpark, and I don't see why this is a surprise. The Twins were horrible in 2011, and horrible again in the start of 2012. And all of the offseason events suggested that: (a) Detroit was the clear favorite in the AL Central; and ( The Wild Cards were likely to go to teams from either the AL East or AL West (especially with the Rangers and Angels in the same division). If the team was BAD in 2011, and had no expectation of being a realistic contender this year...where were the fans supposed to come from?

And yet, the Orioles still have an $80 million payroll, which is actually 3rd in the AL East, higher than Toronto by 5 million and TB by 15 million. And they haven't been "competitive" since the mid-90's. But their highest-paid player is Nick Markakis, who at around $12.3 million, is making roughly within the ballpark of what guys like Cuddy, Nathan and Torii have been let go for by the Twins in recent years. I think this is a better baseball market than Baltimore. I fully expect attendance to continue to decline, but if they can routinely pull around 25,000 a night in the DOME, I really don't think attendance in this town will get that bad with the facility as good as it is, even if the team is bad for a few more years.

Thanks. I figured as much, but since the Twins broke virtually every responsible spending rule they lived by for decades to retain Mauer, I'm surprised they'd do something even as insignificant as this from a symbolic perspective.

Yes, they should do it, if they get value in return. However, the types of teams that would do this sort of a deal would likely be teams not in contention and can take on Mauer's contract and need a C/1B/DH and could give the Twins ML starting pitching. I can't think of any. Boston seems to fit, but they would have to give the Twins one of their top two pitchers, so it seems unlikely they would do it. Seattle might deal King Felix but then they'd have Mauer's contract and they're well set at catcher. Okay, I'll bite, but only to make this point. Why would a team like Boston, New York, etc. want to take on a guy like this? A guy who will be 30 years old next year, and can catch a maximum of 85 games for you, IF he stays healthy. A guy who is a great contact hitter and table setter, but has shown little else to suggest that he's a $20+ million/year player that you'd want to pick up for the downside of his prime. I think that contract is untradeable. Even with Morneau, who only has ONE year left on that deal, it would've taken a team in a crazy situation like the Dodgers, who were basically looking to spend money for big name players in any way possible. And that still didn't happen. Mauer will never be traded from the Twins. You think they have attendance problems NOW?

This is all just hypothetical message board chatter for fun, right? Because I can't even start to entertain "trade possibilities" for Mauer. Seriously, until this guy holds a press conference wearing an Aaron Rodgers jersey with a grill, a Flavor Flav clock, and talking about how he doesn't really care for hotdish, there's no way this fanbase would ever let him go. And that's ridiculous, since we all know that Joe would never talk to the media on his own initiative. My question as a front office "noob" is: Why do big name guys end up on the waiver wire every August when it looks like there's zero interest in trading them? I understand you can just pull them back anyway, but what's the point? Is there any transactional benefit to the Twins for "dangling him" in this way?

Wow. I hope the Pohlads realize that much of this Twins decline was already set into motion by things Ryan did (and didn't do) the FIRST time around. Agree with poster above that this is a not a "thin" FA market for SP. That sort of argument is kind of pointless when you thumb your nose at the whole idea of free agency to begin with. (Hey, how did Willingham work out?) Seriously, Ryan's made some good moves in the past, but for every good move, he seems to handcuff us with some piece of philosophy that makes no sense.

I don't think we'll see sub-20k attendance this year, but of they're like this again next year, it'll happen EDIT: Discussion on another thread led me to clarify this - there will be a few games where we'll see sub-20k attendance, but attendance overall will be fine. My years of watching this team in the Dome and seeing decent attendance in that horrible facility convinced me that this is a pretty reliable baseball market, and they have a great facility now.

It's too early for me to answer this question right now because we don't know what exactly will happen in the offseason. Even if the budget for new acquisitions is somewhat limited, I have to think this team adds at least one veteran starter to the mix b/c they simply don't have the MLB-ready manpower to fill out a staff. IN: Diamond, Hendriks POSSIBLE: Gibson, Baker RESERVES: Deduno, DeVries, Walters, Vasquez As you can see, I'm not convinced we've seen the last of Scott Baker on the Twins. Both he and the club might not have any significantly better options until he proves himself healthy. Gibson could be great, but likewise, we can't COUNT on anything from him until we see it. Like the poster above said, it would probably be a guy like Anibal Sanchez that we could look to sign. He'll be 29 years old next year, and his track record in FLA really was pretty good. But he feels like at least a 6-8 million/year pitcher to me on the open market, even if he's been somewhat terrible for Detroit. If they got somebody like Sanchez and a Marquis-type signing to fill out the rotation (with better results, hopefully), I think that's about as realistic of an improvement as you can expect, and I would feel confident we could be 70+ win team next year. Otherwise....yuck. When you consider that we had a healthy Mauer AND Morneau this year, AND a career year from Willingham, do you really expect all three of those things to happen again? Moreover, aside from Plouffe hopefully staying healthy and having a breakout year, there isn't any other IMMEDIATE help on the way. In 2-3 years, yes, things may start to look up, but not next year.

I didn't see the post-game, but yes I would think it's kind of out of the blue to be hearing about Morneau's concussion in relation to a baserunning situation since we haven't much (ever?) all year. BUT...Morneau led off the 7th with a triple, so the situation was a play at the plate, not advancing to 3rd. My bad - I was going off the quote as I didn't actually see that portion of the game (but might watch it later on MLB At-Bat app recap). The fact that he could have scored, however, would have made it even more concerning. Granted, Morneau isn't all that fast. But I remember going to a game in the Dome around '07 or '08 where Morneau got sent home and basically went out of his way to murder Baltimore's backup catcher on the play. Remembered thinking it was kind of a d-bag move. And later that same season, he tried the same thing against a much larger catcher (I believe it was Miguel Olivo), and Olivo CLOBBERED him. These were both prior to the 2010 concussion, but obviously after his 2005 concussion when he got hit in the head in Seattle. Goes to show how much times have changed. But yes, as the earlier poster said, if there's a critical situation where Morneau is on 3rd late in a close game and you're going to be too fearful of sending him for ANY type of close game, I'm sorry, but he needs to be substituted then. He should be treated pretty much how Gardy handled Thome anytime he got a double late in a game - baserunner subbed in right away.

Nobody excited about this? I was happy to hear it - there are so many new ballparks in MLB right now, I didn't know if getting an All-Star Game was a foregone conclusion by any means. While the Mets are getting it next year, the Reds, Phillies, Padres, Nationals, and Yankees have all opened new parks older than Target Field that have yet to host an All-Star Game (though old Yankee Stadium got it in 2008).

That would have been an option. I'm not AT ALL suggesting that Morneau's issues aren't real or that the Twins shouldn't be careful with him, I'm simply pointing out that this was a surprising revelation to me. On the one hand, we see Morneau playing almost every game and doing well in the field. We're told he's symptom-free and the team is so optimistic about him that they apparently didn't have much interest in moving him off a non-competing team at the deadline, or making a Los Angeles Dodgers type deal. Presumably this is because the Twins see him as a big part of their future. But then we learn that there are also certain plays that Morneau can NEVER do as a baseball player. For example, Justin Morneau can never try to advance to 3rd on a groundball to the right side of the infield, even in a 0-0 game against a stud pitcher. And since Morneau will never be "cured" of his brain trauma, it's safe to assume Morneau will never be able to do that again. I just took it as a subtle reminder that Morneau is not viewed as a fully healthy ballplayer like anyone else, and you have to keep that in mind (along with his age and other injuries) going forward.

That's a good point. I guess the counter-argument to it would be that Mauer was basically overpaid for the purpose of having him be our catcher and trotting out there (most of the time) for the fans. This team may not be in another legitimate pennant race again for the remainder of Mauer's "prime", so what do you do? "Positional scarcity" claims that Mauer's offense has added value when he does it as a catcher. I don't think there's any way to look at the Twins this year and agree with that theory. Scarcity arguments make sense in fantasy baseball where you have a 10-team league and everybody has superstars at every position. The idea goes that if you have a catcher that hits as well as an OF or 1B, you basically have an "extra hitter" that other people don't have. In real baseball, however, that almost always falls apart, since you DON'T have a lineup of 9 guys who are superstars. If you have 3 or 4 guys who are replacement level hitters, your resources could just as easily go to replace one of them with a better hitter than they could to improve the catcher slot. In fact, since there are more good players available at that position, it would be more efficient to address the other positions than to try and find a superstar catcher. Mauer's bat is what it is. Were he an OF or 1B, his production would be considered average to good, but not elite. It doesn't suddenly become "elite" because he moves to catcher on defense. The scarcity argument would only work if you had a lineup FULL of offensive Mauers, and the 9th version of Joe Mauer could only get into the lineup IF he played catcher. That's clearly not the case.

Anybody else bothered by Gardy's comment that he didn't advance Morneau to 3rd on the Plouffe grounder in the 7th inning because of Justin's "injury/concussion history"? I mean, I get the precaution, but that was a huge run. How many other in-game precautions do they have on Morneau like that?

I worry a little bit about the universal man love for Tom Brunansky when the primary motivation for that seems to be that his guys do better in AAA than they are able to do in the bigs (Parmelee). But it's also further proof of this organization's obsession with promoting from within, and the fans certainly play into that when they toss around names of former Twins fan favorites. Aside from the bizarre re-hiring of Terry Ryan (whose own failures planted many of the seeds for Bill Smith to only mess things up more dramatically), hiring and retaining Gardy for so long is as much about holding onto the Tom Kelly era, as opposed to honestly evaluating if he's the best guy to turn things around. Not that I'm saying I'd protest on Target Plaza if they brought Gardy back...I think one more year of this should do the trick. But if they completely clean house EXCEPT for Gardy's buddy Anderson...when arguably it was the PITCHING that got us in this mess more than anything else, then you know they're just acquiescing to Gardy's loyalty. I blame the talent deficit, not the coaches, for the state of the Twins, but this whole organization is developing a "country club"-type vibe, and I don't like it.

First, I've heard lots and lots of people complain exactly about Mauer not catching enough games. Even comparing him to others (this even before 2011 when he was in the top 5 or so for innings caught in the prior five years). Second, I'd say that's at least the fifth or sixth time I've seen you claim there isn't such a thing as positional scarcity, so I figured since I was replying anyway, I'd go ahead and mention that there is such a thing. Haha, well at least SOMEONE's paying attention to me. Since I've already been over [positional scarcity] 5 or 6 times (and this thread probably isn't the place), I will just note your objection to my objection and move on. But on a slightly related note, I thought guy above who pointed out how many games A.J. has played at catcher since '05 hit it out of the park. A.J. has had a great career as a durable, productive catcher. He's playing out of his mind this year, but even a "typical" boring year from A.J. is something like .285 and 15 HR's a year (in about 130 games played). But if you took those numbers and put A.J. pretty much anywhere else on the diamond (except for 2B or SS), he'd be considered an average or even blow-average MLB hitter. Now that Mauer is a part-time catcher, I think you can finally evaluate him as a hitter for what he is, which is a guy with an elite, selective eye at the plate, and a good contact hitter, but who isn't above-average at much else. People say that Mauer "doesn't strikeout", as if that's some type of useful skill. No, avoiding OUTS is a useful ability. Mauer actually strikes out twice as much as A.J. and has a career high already of 69 K's this year. Also, because so much of his game is prefaced on putting the ball in play on the ground (while not being as fast as someone like Span or Revere), you're better off striking out than grounding into a double play, which Mauer has done 20 times this year. So, look, you can argue semantics about positional scarcity, etc. all you want, but at the end of the day, this was supposed to be "Mauer's team", but the team is terrible, and nobody fears this guy. He's a .838 OPS guy, which is lower than the career line for Josh Willingham, a guy who strikes out 150 times a year.

We'll see if you still agree with that when Morneau puts in a few more good weeks and they re-up him for the "bargain" price of $8 to $10 million a year. I wouldn't put it past this organization. For better or worse, they are loyal to "their guys".