cmathewson

No, Kirby would have taken a hack and made an out two thirds of the time. I watched that at bat and I didn't see any very hittable pitches. He was being pitched around with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. An out ends the game. I don't blame him for taking two pitchers pitches and four balls. It's pretty easy to play Monday morning quarterback.

I'm surprised that so many fall on the anti-Mauer side, considering how he is regarded outside of Minnesota. I expected as much from a collection of Strib comentators, but not from people who know enough about baseball to admit that avoiding outs is the most important aspect of an offensive players' contributions.

Shin Soo Choo might be one of the better players right now, but I would take Mauer's production since 2005 over Choo's, no? Part of Mauer's greatness is consistency over the last decade. When I say he's a top five player, that's what I mean. Few can claim his cumulative offensive contributions over that span. None have done it from the most valuable defensive position on the field.

That Mauer is not one of the top 20 players in all of baseball is an unqualified opinion. Right now? Over the course of his career? I could make an argument that he is most certainly one of the top five over the course of his career. If I had to say, he's one of the 10 most valuable right now. But then, I value OBP. As to not seeming to care whether he drives in runs, that's a ridiculous statement. For several years in a row, he's been among league leaders in BA with runners on base and in scoring position. Yes, he takes walks in those situations as well. But that is because he's being pitched around.

Right. So there are maybe three guys who get on base at Mauer's rate and also hit a lot of homers. So your criticism is that he's not one of the three best players in all of baseball. I think you need to reset your standards.

I fail to see how having a high average or being in the top 3 in singles is a bad thig, especially when I show that he consistently hits more than 30 doubles every year. My point was he is not just a singles hitter. But hitting singles and taking walks are not bad things, right?

Mauer's doubles and SLG by year: 2005, 26, .411 2006, 36, .507 2007, 27, .426 2008, 31, .451 2009, 30, .567 2010, 43, .469 2011, 15, .368 2012, 31, .446 2013, 34, .476 Doesn't really look like a singles hitter to me.

One other thing on the home runs. He really only hit home runs at a sluggers' rate one year, in the Dome. After they removed the plexiglass from left field, the left field bleachers in the Dome was as easy to hit homers into as Yankee Stadium's right field porch. He hit something like 19 of those 28 homers to left field in the Dome, and most of those landed in the first row. Those same balls are caught on the warning track in Target. Fans who now curse him thought that was the dawn of the age of Mauer Power. It was really the last chance he had to hit many homers, at least at home. Even when he pulls the ball now, he's more likely to hit it off the wall than into right field bleachers. But these fans are dumb. And they're loud. And they're egged on by the chief egghead himself.

Here's the thing that drives me crazy about the whole value for the dollar discussion. Some of the same people who complain that he does not bring in the ROI also complain about how the Twins don't sign people because they're so cheap. Which is it? You can't have it both ways. And, if you want them to sign guys, why would you complain about them signing the hometown hero to a hometown discount? And, yes it's a discount when you compare it to contracts of that time, like Teixeira's. If you're going to sign players, you're going to overpay for some of them. You'll also get a few bargains in for the, um, bargain. But to expect every player to play up to the expectations set by his contract is ludicrous.

I don't see it that way. He's one of the most driven athletes I've ever followed. He has had to dial back his offseason routine because he was finding himself worn out in September. A lot of what seems like nonchalance is just conserving energy. He seems cool at the plate because it just works better for him. I think a lot of this body language gets misinterpreted by people.

Maybe there's a different sense out state versus the cities. I felt the mediocrity thing most strongly when I lived in Faribault. If you did anything with excellence, you became the target of a defamation campaign. They ran all the best people out of town so they could be free to slack off and just get by. The Mauer hate feels a lot like that. He's just too perfect. Hrbek is more their style. Talk about a guy who might have been a HOFer if he ever worked at it. But he didn't want that. He wanted to be an average Joe. Minnesotans love average Joes.

This is a good point. He was much more palatable when he had Chad to check him. But he didn't like Chad checking him, so he got the station to fire him and hire a yes man. Barreiro is everything I hate about sports commentary. Smug. Ill informed. Loud. Arrogant.

If you'd seen him in spring training, you might understand. He couldn't sprint from foul pole to foul pole without throwing up. Too much of Momma's cooking in the offseason.

Wow, you are really taking this too far. I am not a fan of NY fans. I only write from NY with less subjective bias than I did when I lived in MN. ANd my comment wasn't about who's smarter. It was a simple statement about something Garrison Keillor talks about all the time: the Minnesota tendency to resent outward expressions of excellence, ("all the children are above average"). It's fine to be above average, just don't be great at anything because you'll show everyone else up.

Yep. It's bad enough that he makes it look so easy on the field, but off the field, he's so squeaky clean, he makes us all look bad. Marrying his high school best friend and conceiving twins on his honeymoon is just more evidence that he's trying to live a virtuous life. How dare he show us all up!

This. The first thing Ryan did was fire the head trainer, who was the gas leak that set off a firestorm of criticism from blowhards like Barreiro. He was the one who called it "bilateral leg weakness," which sounds like it's cause by a lack of training. It was really a flare up of his knee injury that caused him to favor that leg and strain the other.

I'm not saying most, I'm saying some. It is a vocal minority, of which I take the Strib comments to be representative.

Maybe I spend too much time reading Strib comments, and listening to comments on KFAN. I have been to games where Mauer was booed and Drew was cheered. I was at games where Wilfong was cheered and Carew was booed. I was in sections where Punto got more cheers than any other player on the team. When I asked them, they said he did so much with so little talent.

Just a gestalt. No science behind it. Being excellent is like being holier than thou. Minnesotans hate that.

As a follower of Minnesota sports since the mid-60s, I can say I shouldn't be surprised. The same thing happened to Rod Carew. Carew had the best season ever for a Twin and all some people could say (led by the front office and PR staff) was that he didn't hit enough homers. He had his detractors the whole time he was here--a vocal minority who always had a negative word. Now that I live in New York and have a bit more of an objective perspective, I think it's a Minnesota thing. Minnesota nice has an evil twin: Minnesota mediocre. Minnesotans are predisposed to hate excellence. They loved Hrbek because he wasn't trying to be great, he just was. Mauer has the audacity to think he can be the best, and to work hard to get there. He also has the audacity to insist on getting paid what he's worth relative to the market. In so doing, he makes all the poor schlubs with limited ability look bad. And Minnesotans hate that. Not all, but many. Think of the last time even one player on a Minnesota team had the kind of hero worship we see here in NY with Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera. The last one was Puckett. Peterson might qualify, but he's been tabbed as "injury prone" or "greedy". Blyleven got run out of town. Ditto Tarkenton (the first time). Kaat too. Tony O suffered blistering racism and other taunts. Viola. Santana. Hunter is still a fan favorite, but to a lesser extent. Garnett was called an "albatross around the franchise's neck." Randy Moss who? Bobby Smith was a hot dog. Gaborick was run out of town. Parise is called a "disappointment." Minnesota fans love an underdog, a guy with limited ability that makes them think they might have done that, but for some lame excuse. They cheered Rob Wilfong and booed Rod Carew. They cheered Drew Butera and booed Joe Mauer. That pretty much sums it up right there.

Good post. Very well written. We have a good thread going on the subject. I won't sum it up here, but I will summarize my perspective. When they acquired Sulbaran, they had high hopes. And he initially justified these hopes by putting up better numbers than Berrios last year at the same level and age. But he came into camp overweight and out of shape. Even though he spent the entire year as a starter last year between two teams in the MWL, he could not make the Cedar Rapids starting rotation. If he was relegated to relief and repeating a level, his trade value would plummet off a cliff. So they determined to get whatever they could for him while his 2013 numbers were still fresh in people's minds. After shopping him, the best they could do was Nunez. So they did the deal. They had to put a positive spin on the trade, so they hyped Nunez as a possible answer to Florimon's anemic offense. But even though they have two open spots on the 40-man roster, they assigned him to Rochester, where he is unlikely to start at short more than once a week at SS, and otherwise serve in a utility role. Santana is still the immediate future at the position, making a return to New Britain highly unlikely (he has nothing to prove there). Neither will Nunez play second, as Beresford is actually a good AAA player at that position, and is hitting third for Gene Glenn while playing sparkling defense. nunez might take some swings from Romero (3B) or Ramirez (LF). Otherwise, he'll be a decent AAA bench option. Far from being a real alternative, Nunez is just depth at a position in which an injury would be difficult to recover from, especially with Bartlett on the DL. Unless an injury occurs, I expect Nunez to spend the year in AAA and maybe earn a September call-up. More likely, he's AAA roster filler until some of the other players move up. Is it a bad trade? No. Depth is good, and Sulbaran was about to become a zero in the organization if we didn't do anything. But I wouldn't read more into it than the above.

I agree. If they're doing it, it is not likely to be successful. But it sure seems like they are doing it. Berardino had an interview with Florimon before camp and the kid said they told him he had to earn a job and it would be a three-way competition, etc. This despite the fact that he had clearly beat out Escobar and Santana is raw to say the least. Now they acquire a guy who is not even as good as Escobar and pretend as though he's a candidate to take Florimon's job.

How much of that is managing through the media? Everyone smiled when he got a hit immediately after the trade was announced. Some think the trade's main objective is to light a fire under Florimon. I don't know if it's true, but it won't be the first time the Twins managed through the media.

Fair enough, but you can't pretend that the facts you cite don't carry some judgement. You could have cited the fact that Florimon lead the majors in chances and putouts last year. But you chose not to. Of course Escobar makes fewer errors when he has an order of magnitude fewer chances. You could have cited that he ranks in the top 5 among shortstops in many range metrics. Because these metrics are rate stats and not counting stats, presumably Escobar would be up there as well if he is better. He isn't even in the top 30.

There is another option. Depth. I expect Santana to start most of the year in Roch. I also expect Florimon to start most of the year in the majors. But if either gets injured, it would be nice to have a guy who could step in. Until then, Nunez can play several positions in Rochester.