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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. Similar, sure. They are different, though. Now you can disagree with Verlander (and should given the matchup numbers) but clearly there is a perception of Mauer as a hitter not to pitch around but to challenge.
  2. intentional walks are hardly equivalent to pitching around. Mauer tends to earn his walks with patience rather than pitchers intentionally avoiding him.
  3. You utterly and completely missed the point. Votto is pitched around. Mauer is not. in fact, I can't remember anyone pitched more directly at than Mauer. He is rarely pitched around. His OBP is due to his eye/patience, NOT due to pitcher fear of throwing strikes. The notion that he is pitched around frequently is utterly preposterous.
  4. That really isn't a response. If Mauer isn't getting pitches to hit, is seeing some of the most pitches in all of baseball, and has a good eye.....why is he not walking? Votto walked twice as often for example. The flaw is in the meme that Mauer doesn't get pitches hit.
  5. True but I think the stats show your view on how often he is pitched around to have some flaws.
  6. Yeah, as long as they avoid the Blues in the first round they have a real shot to go deep. But if they play the Blues that massive group of brutes is going to pummel us into the offseason. Been a fun season all around - Charlie Coyle and Granlund look friggin legit.
  7. I think this is a perception bias. There was a time when Mauer was being pitched around, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore. The man is typically in the top 10 in pitches per plate appearance, but his walk total has rarely been at an abnormally high rate/elite. If he was being pitched around, with his eye, we'd see more walks. Guys that get pitched around are Trout, Votto, etc. In fact, I'd argue Mauer is the least "pitched around" hitter I've seen in a long time. Pitchers of all ilk go up to him early in counts and groove strikes simply by virtue of his reputation to take pitches. Mauer has every right to be selective, but people are too frequently equating that with being pitched around. I'd argue he as close to the opposite of that as any great hitter in the league.
  8. To be fair, you have to understand that his leadership gets called into question because his production doesn't answer the question itself. If you're not driving in people, getting the big hits, coming through in big spots, than other elements of your game get more scrutiny. It's not fair, but it happens all the time in sports. Guys who are highly productive on winning teams just get the assumption of leadership. I think people are too dismissive of how Mauer's personality plays into this. The guy has been a great hitter, but his mannerisms and his near pathological unwillingness to take the mantle of "the guy" are certainly reasons to be annoyed with him at times.
  9. Well, so much for that largely civil discussion.
  10. This entire premise is based on the notion that every walk he takes only has bad pitches during the course of the at-bat. That seems to me to be the absurd notion. He walked today after passing on at least one pitch that could have been driven. Frequently that pitch happens at 0-0 when he's basically wearing a flashing billboard to every pitcher that he won't swing no matter what they lob up to him.
  11. The real question is how much did Dave's WS odds just skyrocketed in his favor with this move.
  12. I'm on the record in this thread as being against the Mauer hate, but your post isn't fair either. I think there are some that boil it down to the homeruns, certainly. But I think you're sticking your head in the sand to dismiss the issues to simply that. With Mauer, there is a certain....persistence....(Arrogance? Stubborness?)....that says he's going to do things his way regardless of the circumstances surrounding him. This goes for how he handled his injuries and the questions about it. If I was a player perceived as quiet, borderline diminutive, I probably wouldn't have stood for the awful way in which the organization portrayed my injury. It made him look soft and....he didn't dispute that, which exacerbated the issue. It goes for his approach at the plate that seems indifferent to his role on the team as a run producer and centerpiece of the lineup. He seems content not driving the ball sometimes. Or even attempting to change his approach so he can. It goes for his body language which never seems to change win or lose or (worst of all) when he fails. He's paid to be the man and yet by his body language he couldn't be any further from that. Personally, I put more stock in his production, consistency, and the amazing successes he's had then these more intangible/questionable matters. But to deny that these things can rub a person the wrong way (and seemingly more often now than ever), isn't being fair to the other side.
  13. I think the injury was a big turning point that made people dig in their heels even more. Like it or not, that quacky diagnosis and bizarre handling of the injury reinforced the idea that Joe is soft and doesn't want to be a superstar in anything more than pay. It deepened the idea that he's just as content to get 0-1 as a basehit, or just as content winning 60 as he is a World Series, or just as content sitting for a Dr. Nick Riviera diagnosis as he is for gutting it out to help the team. I don't think it's fair and I totally disagree with it, but that's what it is.
  14. Touche. The Twins myth of "we'll always out hustle and do the little things better!" has been dead for awhile. I'm stealing Riverbrian's thunder on this, but they have been anything but the "Twins Way" for a long time. And, no, that has nothing to do with their talent level. They have managed to be both untalented and undisciplined/sloppy/defensively inept for awhile now.
  15. I have been dubben (pretty sure that's a word jerks) Levsy. Let it go forth.
  16. Did you see who we ran out to LF the other day? I think the "defense first" Twins identity died several years ago.
  17. I gotta pick your post apart a bit here Psuedo because it's not making sense to me. Acquiring "middle infielders with youth" is hardly a difficult thing to do. Acquiring ones that are good at being middle infielders is the issue. I don't see how Nunez qualifies as a guy that's good at being a middle infielder. If we're reading into the move that Bartlett isn't a SS - can anyone explain to me what the heck he actually is then?
  18. This is a fair point, but I'd suggest most teams have a better fourth outfielder than we were coming in with. This is precisely the type of thing we talked about just a week ago - the Twins are woefully thin on offense in the case of injuries.
  19. Is it wrong I was ready with my answer before I even clicked on the thread to see why?
  20. We're also talking about a team that is throwing a mid-30s career shortstop into the outfield for the first time. I think we can throw career positional starts out the window at this point.
  21. Right move, probably overdue.
  22. They've also perhaps shown their pitching is going to be godawful again. Mayhap we should sign Drew for his own merits and not judge anything by a 6 game sample size.
  23. Pretty nice series for the offense. 3-3 is about the best I expected coming into the home opener.
  24. I'm beginning to believe the last few years have been a social experiment by the Twins to see just how god-awful a fielder they can run out to the corner OF and get away with it. Between Doumit and Bartlett I'd have to imagine very few teams have run out worse the last few years. Someone tell me why the hell Parmelee isn't on this team?
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