jokin

No question that Mauer has had a great career, and he definitely doesn't deserve some of the ridiculous things said about him by the "responsible" media, as in the cases of Dan Barriero, Michael Rand and Patrick Reusse, let alone the 1000s of rubes spewing garbage on the various social media. But regardless of casting fault or blame, I think it is legitimate to examine and identify the large amount of time, and the types of at-times, unusual injuries/illnesses, that Mauer has had to deal with, as well as the large amount of time spent on the DL or DTD list, in the context of his great career. As far as being one of the best hitters in the game, at the Catcher position, sure. But take the example of all 1st Baseman in 2014.... Mauer's career wRC+ at 132 (OPS+ 133) would rank him in 9th place this year, behind Adam LaRoche, and just ahead of Michael Morse, not exactly the first guys you think of when you think about "elite" hitters. Here's the link: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2014&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=17,d

And yes, given the 92 games/year at catcher which is Mauer's career mark, he only played catcher in 56.7% of the games available. As a prevous poster stated, the WAR stat has a big, fat thumb on the scales for the position. Everyone, I think, is in agreement, Mauer's extensive down time on the DL and DTD list over the years, along with his transition away from catcher, to part-time and now, no-time, to becoming a below average production 1st baseman has lowered his value, and hurt the team's potential offensive production (imagine Abreu playing 1st instead over the life of Mauer's contract and Mauer at 3rd or in the OF, instead).

You're conflating arguments here. The topic I addressed was in response to judging a career with "Mauer as a catcher for the first 10 years of his career." and the question overriding the OP, of Mauer's health and durability, not his value strictly as a hitter or a question of if he's a better player.(of which I'm in agreement with you 100%). And AJ isn't a lonely example (just a familiar example to Twins fans), I could list a bunch, but how about: Brian McCann will have caught 100+ games in 8 of 9 seasons and will have averaged about ~132 caught games/year, Suzuki will be 6 of 7 @ 100+ (his string is only broken last year from playing behind a better catcher, not health issues), and will have averaged ~122 games/year at catcher vs Mauer's games caught average over 10 years of 92 games/year. It would be very difficult to field a very competitive team if the majority of the position players only averaged 60% or less availability to play their best position.

Seth, perhaps there's some confusion, I know I am confused, but Mr Brooks responded to this comment of yours: Which didn't make sense since Meyer had, in fact, strung together SEVEN straight starts going back to late June, before his recent two misfires. In those 7 starts, from June 28 to August 3, Meyer had: 10.00 K/9...1.77 ERA...1.06 WHIP... .159 BA. Going back before those 7 starts, it looks like there were 3 "dead arm" starts in mid-June, where his pitch counts/inning limitations were imposed, seems like those appearances can easily be thrown out as more like "rehab" starts. Previous to that "rehab" period, Meyer was on a string of 9 starts, dating from April 23 to June 7, where even with 2 in a row at one point, being clunkers, the other 7 of which were anywhere from "really good" to "really great" starts. In those 9 starts, clunkers and all, Meyer had: 11.50 K/9...2.77 ERA...1.23 WHIP.... .203 BA. Demonstrably, I wish we had this kind of "consistency" with any of the guys currently on the major league roster.

Joe has only played more than 100 games at catcher in a single season 5 times in his career, and none since 2010. This is a critical demarcation point in the Mauer timeline.... he was basically "done" as a full-time catcher in that year, at age 27, which was the LAST YEAR of his old contract, BEFORE he began his new 8 year, $23M/year deal. Since then, he's only played 201 games at catcher in the last four years. By contrast, a much older AJ Pierzynski, by the time this season is over, will have caught over 110 games or more/season every year of the last 14 years, and every year of his full-time career. In the last four years, from ages 34-37, AJ has caught 443 games to Mauer's 201. Even Ryan Doumit has played the position 164 games in the same time frame.

This score is reversed.

That means he has to start again at the beginning and start a new string....lather, rinse repeat..

Ditto on that, Eric, much appreciated.

Thanks for the video feed, good stuff. Looks like it's all early movement on the breaker. Any gun readings in Beloit for Batts, SD? What was his primary "out" pitch for those 7 Ks? Even for a 4th-year college pitcher, 3 levels in a month and a half is pretty impressive. Counting his college innings, he now sits at nearly 147 innings pitched on the year.

I want to thank you again, RP, for all the fine work, the site is really spiffed up quite nicely. Any word on how the Roster & Payroll area under construction is coming along? (I miss the running cumulative payroll total dollar amount and the individual contract bonus clause features).

Yes, you are. And I hope the Twins consider it strongly, Max might just be turning a corner. Not only is he having a great August, his current batting tear dates from July 13. His slash since then: .371/.443/.500/.943 with equal 10% K and BB rates. Not much power to speak of, but that should come in time, meanwhile his LD% is soaring way above his career norm, at 21.6% in July and August, perhaps he is finally mastering FSL pitching and is ready for the next step. He still seems like the kind of prospect that's going to be at least a year each at the next 2 levels, though.

As the organization is now fully in the process of actively moving to the next phase of the rebuild, with the health of the GM in some doubt, the question of succession looms as large as any with the franchise. If they do not have an active succession plan in place, the owners are being derelict in their duty. I hope the young up-and-comers are at the top of their list and on speed dial. A dose of vigor injected at the top of the organization, advised and guided in the best of Twins Way baseball by the steady hands of TR and Gardy in the background would seem to be the best course. Thirty-Something Assistant GMs, David Forst of Oakland and Jeff Kingston of Seattle, would be a good place to start the process.

Jake Reed. Also, 4 year college guy Matt Batts is surprising a lot of people (7 Ks, 1 ER in 6 IP tonight)

Shields for 4-5 years, yes. Extending him out to 36 or 37 is certainly a risk, but the guy will have a track record of 8 straight years of 200+ innings, averaging 223 innings per year. His ERA+ over the last 4 years is 125. There are ways to tweak the contract, such as incentives or front-end loading it, to make it more amenable and less risky to both side's satisfaction.

Yeah, but the "Ace" spot has been kept open for quite a few years now since Santana left,.. and you may be right that the GM might not see his way to spending, but there's plenty of money now to finally fill that spot, plus an OF or corner Inf.

And how about Burdi picking up right where he left off in Cedar Rapids? (The Mets A+ team is #1 in hitting in the FSL, good first test for him, hopefully he's not in Ft Myers for too long). Does Tyler Duffey need a prospect upgrade? Is he Brad Radke-lite? This one has the chance to change my mind on the college-relievers-to-starters strategy.

The list omits Tomas. Yeah, I know, not a "major league" option, but based on that OF list, he looks to be a better option than any of them. Good chance that getting him, plus a top-end SP would make next year's season relevant.

I think the Twins should go all out on convincing Shields to sign. I also have proposed that they go after Tomas or Sandoval. If they could convince Sandoval to join the budding Latin Connection in Minnesota, he can start out at 3rd and move to 1st when Sano arrives. Mauer can then play a corner OF spot. As you correctly pointed out, after trading more of the chaff, the Twins will have plenty of money for both of these acquisitons.

James Shields should be seriously pursued in the offseason if they can get a 4-5 year deal. Jon Niese is still only 27 and is available right now, is theoretically cheaply under control through as late as 2018, and he has cleared waivers with the Mets, projects as a decent #3-type starter. The Mets have a passel of young, high-upside arms ready to possibly supplant him next year anyway, he might be available for a reasonable price in trade. Quote

Vargas turned 24 last week. /minor nitpick But you point is well-taken. Monday was a watershed moment for the franchise, a few more of the over-30s will hopefully be gone by September 1. And with it, decision-making is no doubt underway to decide who needs to be added to the roster. At this moment, there isn't any currently rostered player I would want to call up as a position player (except Polanco, should there be an injury).

Solarte is a sore spot, I wish we hadn't revisited that one. Twins failed to put him on the 40-man roster after 2011 season, even after hitting .329 BA .834 OPS 130 OPS+ in New Britain and shortly thereafter claimed career minor leaguer, Pedro Florimon, to take what could/should have been Solarte's roster spot- and plus, Alexi Casilla "blocking" him for a utility role. Can't win 'em all, at least the Twins brass publicly acknowledged their mistake on him.

Close, Pino started out as the swingman with Rochester. How could you forget Scott Diamond? (now a starter for the Reds AAA team and doing much better than with the Wings in 5 starts).

No question that May has better stuff, but as we saw on Saturday, control is always going to be a major issue for him. I merely demonstrated very similar results for the two pitchers to this point in time. My point was that Adam is likely not simply to be dismissed as merely the "#16 Twins pitching prospect" in the system. K rates are an important indicator of success, but shouldn't be considered strictly in a vacuum. Unlike May and Swarzak who have seen progressive declines in K rates in their minor league careers, to the contrary, Adam, as a starter, has increased his K/9 rate for 5 straight years, even as he has continued to climb the minor league levels. To this point, Adam has both superior K/9 and BB/9 rates to Swarzak's AA total. Swarzak took a noticeable dropoff in AAA- his K/9 was 5.5 and BB/9 was 2.7. May was 8.6-K/9 and 3.6-BB/9 in AAA this year. Based on his history of year over year improvements at sucessive levels, Adam has a decent shot to beat or match both the K/BB numbers of May and Swarzak when he gets his shot at Rochester in 2015. With the results that Adam has gotten to this point in time, with his control already firmly established, it suggests that he has a decent shot to get to the similar ceiling to May with proper development from the Twins staff. He is going to have to get that third pitch going to keep hitters from sitting on his flattish fastball, missing bats, not lack of control, looks like it's going to be Adam's main focus for improvement. After checking this a little further, this is what most analysts suggest, ie, that of mid-rotation starter ceiling. This was a good trade, certainly not like Revere for Worley/May, but not Liriano for Hernandez/Escobar. This guy has a legitimate shot at a career well above Swarzak mop-up level.

Adam just turned 23 a week ago. Though he's perceived to have taken a step back in 2014, look at what the Royals did for him. They moved him to AAA as a reliever, and he's had some very good success in the hit-happy PCL. I think the comp here is not that far off from Trevor May. Let's compare Adam's age-22 year in AA this season with May's 22-year old season with the Phillies AA club: Trevor May ERA/FIP/SIERA 4.87/4.88/4.00 Jason Adam ERA/FIP/SIERA 5.03/3.65/3.74 Trevor May WHIP 1.45 K/9 9.1 BB/9 4.7 Jason Adam WHIP 1.39 K/9 8.1 BB/9 2.7 Trevor May BABIP .300 Slash line: .219/.350/.410/.760 Jason Adam BABIP ..338 Slash line: .281/.336/.419/.755 Trevor May repeated three times, at the A level, A+ level and the AA level. Jason Adams has only repeated AA, and even that involved a promotion to AAA, although in a relief role. I think if the Twins can continue the process of teaching Adams how to "pitch" to avoid more bats, the guy has demonstrated that he has projectabiliy- solid control, a decent FB between 91 and 95, touching 97 and a good slider. For Adams to reach his ceiling as a mid-rotation starter like May also projects, the Twins also have to help him develop a more effective third pitch. As you can tell, I am high on Adam's potential.

According to the AFL website, players under consideration are supposed to be AA or above, and rostered on at least a AA team by no later than August 1, meaning technically, that both Buxton and Michael would only qualify for the two special exemption spots for players below Class AA. (But the AFL rules seem so loosely adhered to, it makes me think that Buxton's promotion to New Britain is primarily based on other reasons besides the AFL considerations). Just out of curiosity, Seth, who do you see as the other two who might get the nod from Ft Myers? There's a case to be made for Kepler, Walker, Goodrum, Burdi, Tomshaw...maybe others? And which other two players under the normal rules besides Buxton and Michael should get the nod? Vargas, Rosario, Gilmartin, Achter...?