H2H Debater A

CLOSING STATEMENT: So, to conclude I look at my debate mate and see him agree that his numbers were not very good for the Twins, but if we bury them in a mix of Oriole over production and Twin normal production he looks okay he could be a mediocre RP. But is that what we traded for? Does Baltimore miss him? Did we enjoy our time with him? Please let’s try again and this time let’s really go after someone with at track record as well as that elusive “live arm”. Jorge it has been good to know you, but actually not too good. Time to move on.

ROUND 2 REBUTTAL: My fellow debater states that we are dealing with a short sample size in assessing Lopez performance. I am pleased that he chose to take the route because RP is all about short sample sizes. We have one inning appearances. In and out, no allowance for bad performance. We do not judge RP by the same standard as SP. They are given one try to max out their pitches, to put everything into their effort and then sit down. So SSS is the world they live in. Any RP would be happy to have an inning here and an inning there removed from their history and era. Who wouldn’t. But in this era (not earned run average) of the BP when we no longer have Spahn and Marichal going 14 innings or Burdette and Haddix going 12 or Cy Young with 749 complete games. Instead, we started the era of Jesse Orosco with 1252 appearances and Mariana Rivera with 1105. The relief pitchers have taken over the league and the strategies of teams, so a relief pitcher has to be ready and impactful in those short opportunities. That is why they used to call them firemen. Jorge has now pitched 421 innings – certainly more than a SSS. He has had one half of one season of good performance out of seven seasons. True he is recently put into the BP. And it is true that a lot of pitchers who do not have enough of an arsenal make the switch to the BP and some, like Nathan, do it exceptionally well. But many do not. I will not repeat all the statistic that I put in the opening and the last response; I will just ask that you read all of them together. Baseball reference has a projection https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lopezjo02.shtml for each player and Jorge is projected to have a 4.28 ERA – 1.363 Whip I guess BR was not fooled by the half year aberration. That would put in line with Bundy, Archer, Megill, Pagan and Joe Smith. I am not as excited by K/W stats as I am K/W and H. In his 22.2 innings (that is 23 games which is a decent number to judge a RP) he gave up 23 hits and 14 walks. 18 Ks versus 37 baserunners is not a statistic I find encouraging. 66/89 is Duran’s total for comparison. There are those who have a bright flame and then a flame out – one hit wonders, whether music or sports. Bleacher report has the top 25 https://bleacherreport.com/articles/713369-baseballs-25-biggest-one-hit-wonders-of-all-time and many are pitchers. Or if you are looking at the fact that he made the All-start team, Just Baseball, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/713369-baseballs-25-biggest-one-hit-wonders-of-all-time, has a list of players who made the All-star game once and never made it back. Look at their RP list at the bottom where old friends Grant Balfour and Jesse Crain join Taylor Rogers, Alex Colome and old friend Matt Capps. We can always HOPE – it is baseballs endearing quality – the fans start each year with each team based on HOPE that this is the year. And sometimes it is. Look at the Orioles. Preseason they were picked last; a companion to the Detroit Tigers who were actually picked to finish higher. Then Manager Hyde and the team refused to go away. They ended up better than that team in Minnesota and yet they were willing to trade their ACE and ALL-STAR closer to us. That makes no sense unless they saw something our FO missed. I am not saying Lopez might not have some value, but I am saying he has a long way to go to proving the first half of last year was not a fluke.

ROUND 1 REBUTTAL: The term live arm has bounced around baseball for my entire life in fandom – what does it mean? I know it means they do not need Tommy John surgery, but that is all. Over the years I have read about prospects with live arms like Nick Burdi. He was able to throw the baseball 95.2 MPH as a high school student. By his sophomore year in college, he hit 100 MPH. Unfortunately for him his live arm keeps getting damaged and now he has a -0.6 WAR for 3 years in the majors and is currently hurt. I believe we thought Vance Worley had a live arm and his 2012 season did not count – we knew we could revive the 11 – 3 3.01 era Worley of 2011. What happened? He went 1 – 5 with a 7.21 era for Minnesota. Jim Hoey had a really live arm. He hits triple digits regularly. He was so good we gave up J J Hardy to get him. And we did improve him from a 10.24 ERA and 7.30 era’s the previous two years to a 7.02 with us. He could still throw 100 – all the way to the back stop. Ron Davis was going to be the arm that held the BP together after we stole him from the Yankees. I remember his last year when he accumulated a -2.1 WAR – 1985. We then traded him for another live arm – George Frazier who came in and gave us a 4.98 era. And a l.574 WHIP. Live arms are not rare – good arms are. Remember when we got Alex Meyer? We tried him in 2015 and got a 16.88 era then tried again when he was 26 and got a 12.27 era. So based on a lot of years of experience watching live arms come and go the recent group of live arms does not give me hope. Emilio Pagan had a – 0.4 WAR last year. Alex Colome had a -0.7 WAR the year before. Now we have Jorge who has had ½ of one year of good results. His second half a year was with the TWINS and he had a -0.1 WAR for that time. I would like to say that the last half was the exception, but it wasn’t. He had 3.0 WAR for the first half – that is the exception. WAR is cumulative so consider that first half WAR and realize that he has a WAR for his career of 0.5. Take out the one exceptional career half year and he is a negative. I expect a return to the norm, not to the exception. He gets garbage time if I had him in the BP.

OPENING STATEMENT: Watching the Twins BP for the last few years has been painful. After years of Nathan, Aquilera, Worthington, Reardon, Guardado, Rogers, and Perkins come in and deliver in the clutch we have shifted to picking up veterans who the opposing clubs were happy to see go. We went with Alex Colome who had just had the fewest inning pitched since his rookie year. Sure, we could turn things around we then give him more innings than he had pitched since 2015. It did not work, he cost us too many wins in the first half of the season to allow us to have a good year. Did we learn? No. We next go for Emilio Pagan because he has a live arm and we can fix him. Did we? No. Twins fans had to have a bottle of Ibuprofen on hand for the headaches he gave them, and a bottle of whisky to numb the psychic damage. Stats could not cover the frustration – walks, key runs, runners on base, HRs allowed. WAR of -0.4 which was rescued by late season low wattage innings. ERA+ 87. HRs per nine – 1.7 which was way down from the year before – I guess we did fix something. On BR they have a stat called RE24 which means given runners on base on many runs did the pitcher save – how good was he at stopping a potential rally? Zero is average and anything above 0 is better than average. The score for Pagan was -4.2. The FO saw the error of their ways and went for a trade to get Jorge Lopez because he actually had a great first half. Unfortunately, he did not have a great second half. Let’s look at the two halves of the season. Stat Orioles Twins FIP 2.99 4.35 WHIP 0.972 1.635 SO/W 3.18 1.29 HITS/9 5.6 9.1 ERA 1.68 4.37 Sometimes midnight comes early and turns the player back to a pumpkin. Was this just change of scenery or was this reality coming back to bite the Twins. Why did we think the first half was going to be the future? His first half stats were way better than anything he had shown in the past six years. His seven-year ERA is 5. 45. His WAR was 1.9 with the Orioles. After the second half with the Twins it was 1.8. and his WAR in those six years was positive only once 0.1. Why did we think he was the answer? Now the question is – do we count on him for meaningful appearances in 2023? My answer is no. History has shown us his true performance rate and we saw it for ourselves as he reverted to the norm. Let’s put the effort into Duran, Alcala, Thielbar, Jax and find another live arm. Sure we can still keep Lopez, but he fills non crucial innings in my BP (and don’t even ask about Pagan).

I appreciate you coming to this conclusion. We are mostly on the same page, even though we are debating opposing views. Pitching and hitting is important to survive a 162 game season, and if your team is below average at either one, you're not going to have a successful year. By the time the World Series comes around, hitting is the most important. Developing pitching prospects is also one of the most random developments in the sport. It's a great way to save money, but at the same time, if you don't develop a premium position prospect, you're in the same boat. Paying premium prices for a SS, CF, 3B, or C. In recent years, we've seen the Chicago Cubs draft, develop, and trade for a young lineup and supplemented them with expensive pitching (Lester, Chapman, etc.) The Astros went with the same methodology, developing a young stud lineup and supplement them with blockbuster trades for expensive veteran pitchers. The Dodgers are the unicorn here where they can develop everything. Point being, there's more than one way to build your team, but we've seen the champions develop their lineup and pay for pitching. I'll close my argument with this graph that I found on Reddit. Bear with me, it is complicated, and I will post the author's interpretation. Per the poster on Reddit: "How I read this: We usually see the best pitching teams in the playoffs. Hence why pitching fWAR and WPA is stagnant from playoff teams on. We usually see the teams that hit the best make the world series and win the world series, hence why batting fWAR and WPA continue to rise from non-playoff teams to world series winners. With this alone, good pitching and excellent hitting wins championships. I would be cautious to draw that conclusion from these graphs alone though as we should consider more factors than just fWAR and WPA." This concludes my argument why building a strong offensive lineup is more important than building a strong pitching staff.

We probably should have established further rules before engaging in the debate, since my opening argument is about World Series champions, and your opening argument is about surviving a 162 game season. Thanks mods!! I will focus this rebuttal on your premise of surviving a 162 game season, if your next rebuttal is about building a World Series champion. When it comes to surviving a 162 game season, I think offense and pitching are both equally important. I discovered another case study from Samford University, where they conducted batting average vs. winning percentage, and ERA vs. winning percentage. They determined the correlation coefficient of BA to winning percentage is .716, and ERA vs. winning percentage is -.710. Frankly, pretty negligible when it's all said and done. So with that being said, I have to bring up consistency and projectable performance. A pitcher's range of outcomes is far greater than a typical batter's range of outcomes over the course of a 162 game season. The league is running out of consistent workhorses like Verlander and Scherzer. While emphasis should be put on both pitching and hitting, good luck figuring out who will be the pitchers to lead your strong staff. In regards to a strict budget team like the Twins, and all else being equal, I prefer spending $25 million AAV for a good bat, vs. $25 million for a good arm. There's less risk, and still helps you get to the end goal of making the playoffs.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think a team can win with a top 5 offense, and bottom 5 pitching staff. Like everything in life, balance is key. However, I still hold the premise that building a strong offense is more important than building a strong pitching staff. The study I quoted before really opened up my eyes. Position players account for over 50% of fWAR over the course of a 162 game season. The correlation you posted in your opening statement is not as strong as this one: "... a team’s xWins over the past ten seasons can be explained 31% more from their position player WAR than their pitcher WAR, which is a substantial gap" Based off of these numbers, I get the opposite conclusion. If you can't score runs, you can't win games, No matter how strong your pitching staff is. Let's take a look at recent examples: Philadelphia Phillies were a top 10 pitching staff in fWAR, 15th in offense, and finished 82-80. The New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds were #10 and #11 in pitching fWAR and missed the playoffs. Milwaukee Brewers had a top staff in all of baseball, and lost to a more potent offense in the playoffs. When runs are at a premium in October, a 95 win team with the best pitching staff can make a quick exit because the offense was average compared to their competition. Hell, the Braves just won the World Series with 2 reliable starters and a few band-aids. Let's also discuss the risk factor of projecting pitching vs. hitting. 29 GMs in the league (I can't predict Colorado) will say that hitting is less of a risk to sign long term than pitching. So even if you believe pitching is the key to a contending team, good luck choosing who that will be. Robbie Ray who just won the AL Cy Young, was a 6.62 ERA pitcher in 2020. 3.93 in 2019. The projectable "workhorse" pitchers are becoming unicorns in baseball. If a GM had a choice between signing a 27 year old All Star pitcher to a long term deal, or a 27 year old All Star fielder to a long term deal, they will choose the fielder 90+% of the time.

Judging by the pre-debate poll, I am fighting an uphill battle. But here I am, excited to open up your mind that building a strong offense is more important than building a strong pitching staff. The old adage has always been "pitching and defense wins championships" but how accurate is that in recent times? Let's explore the last 11 years of World Series winners, and their ranks per Fangraphs: 2021 Braves: 11th in Off, 19th in Def, 12th in pitching WAR. 2020 Dodgers: 3rd in Off, 23rd in Def, 5th in pitching WAR. 2019 Nationals: 7th in Off, 15th in Def, 5th in pitching WAR. 2018 Red Sox: 2nd in Off, 6th in Def, and 6th in pitching WAR. 2017 Astros: 1st in Off, 29th in Def, and 7th in pitching WAR. 2016 Cubs: 2nd in Off, 1st in Def, and 4th in pitching WAR. 2015 Royals: 12th in Off, 8th in Def, and 15th in pitching WAR. Giants: 11th in Off, 10th in Def, and 23rd in pitching WAR in 2014; 6th in Off, 4th in Def, and 19th in pitching WAR in 2012; and 15th in Off, 1st in Def, and 5th in pitching WAR in 2010. 2013 Red Sox: 1st in Off, 17th in Def, 15th in pitching WAR 2011 Cardinals: 4th in Off, 20th in Def, 17th in pitching WAR The noticeable trend is that the eventual world series champion has a better offense than pitching staff. Minus the Giants in 2010, and the Nationals in 2019. Still don't believe me? Let's include some graphs from someone else who conducted a study on whether offense or pitching is a better way to build a contending baseball team. Based on the coefficient of determinations (r^2) of these two graphs, a team’s xWins over the past ten seasons can be explained 31% more from their position player WAR than their pitcher WAR, which is a substantial gap. I can go on about how projecting a hitter's future production is more reliable and steady than a pitcher's future production, but I will wait to rebut that point when my debating counterpart presents their argument. Thank you for reading my TED Talk.

As we conclude this debate, I wanted to draw attention to what has clearly become a debate about outcomes and expectations. A lot of Sabermetrics is identifying how many runs certain characteristics are expected to generate (BB%, OPS%, wOBA%) where counting stats are used to show how many runs you did generate (R, RBI). Counting stats have no predictive value but they are highly effective in evaluating performance. My opponent has attempted to obfuscate the issue by starting out and only comparing Mauer to other catchers. The argument is Mauer vs Puckett, not Mauer vs His Peers and Puckett vs His Peers. My opponent wanted to discount the actual runs produced by Puckett and focus on OPS in specific situations. Again, Mauer won the process awards for OPS with RISP, Runners on, and High Leverage but Puckett won the outcome award of actual RBI in those 3 use cases. My opponent attempted to play up Mauer’s time at catcher and state how it was more valuable than Puckett’s time at CF. His is right that Catcher is more valuable, but we found he didn’t even spend 50% of career there. Below are charts showing number of games Puckett and Mauer played with the Fangraphs 162 game run value. You will see that accounting for their entire careers that Puckett had a slight advantage as he played so many more games at a premium position where Mauer played more than half of his games a low value positions of 1B and DH. Puckett Mauer Finally, my opponent somehow wanted to enter a world of make believe, a world of pure imagination, and pretend that the only thing we can compare about the post season is the first 10 games both played. Taking away the absurdity of the fact we are ignoring Game 6, I still showed that while both slumped in their first 10 games, even with a roughly equal OPS number Puckett was able to produce more value in number of RBI and XBH. It is almost impossible to compare one of the great playoff performers in MLB history to a guy who the New York papers referred to as an “EZ Pass” in the playoffs though. Ask any Twins fan who can remember both runs about if they would prefer to keep 1984-1996 of 2004-2018 and you will see as overwhelming of a vote total as you are likely to ever see. The choice is clear, Mauer was good but Puckett was better.

As my debate with the honorable “H2H Debater B” goes on I find myself wondering if I am remembering baseball correctly at all. Their first rebuttal point was to say that Mauer and Puckett had virtually identical numbers of plate appearances but Mauer was able to produce more WAR in that amount and I was wondering, is the point of baseball to be the most efficient in producing WAR or was it to have successful seasons that resulted in playoff runs and championships. If it is the former, then Mauer is a better player but I think the vast majority of the readers would agree with me that having the better total season is more important and is what contributes to playoff and championship success. The fact Puckett was able to stay on the field for 25 more games a season which allowed for him to get as much done in 12 seasons as it took Mauer 15 is why Puckett is more valuable. In addition to wanting look at PA instead of seasons my opponent also wants to disregard the outcome of having runners on and only look at the process by measuring OPS with RISP. If we look back at my opening statement you will see that Mauer clearly favored the Walking part of OPS while Puckett favored action. Taking the same stats from above I take away the predictive stat of OPS and use the outcome stat of RBI and we find a totally different leader: Runners in Scoring Position Mauer: 756 RBI in 2,107 opportunities Puckett: 842 RBI in 2,146 opportunities Men on Base Mauer: 829 RBI in 3,548 opportunities Puckett: 974 RBI in 3,567 opportunities Runners in Scoring Position, Two Outs Mauer: 278 RBI in 849 opportunities Puckett: 267 RBI in 814 opportunities I have always thought that RISP with 2 Outs is an odd stat as it could happen at any point in the game, even during a blowout. I think clutch is better defined by high leverage and the numbers for that are as follows: High Leverage Mauer: 338 RBI in 1506 opportunities Puckett: 397 RBI in 1400 opportunities Do we want to elevate the guy that had a better process in these situations or do we want to reward the guy with the better outcome. I say the point of baseball is to score runs and win games, not to demonstrate the best Sabermetric process and Puckett shows the best outcome. My fine opponents’ comments on the playoffs start out with an immediate misquote. I know classic Michael Scott from the Office when I see and have no idea who this “Great One” is you are referring to but he sure as hell didn’t make that quote: Putting that aside, if you want to willingly forget about some of the greatest playoff moments in the history of baseball and just concentrate on the first 10 games, Mauer had 1 XBH (2B) and 1 RBI in those games. Puckett, even when struggling a bit, had 3 XBH hits (2B, 3B, HR) and 4 RBI. Great players can still make a difference while slumping and Puckett showed that while struggling he could still impact the game while Mauer was pulling his best Moonlight Graham impression and trying to make you remember if he was actually ever there. I also would point out that Mauer had Cy Young winners and MVPs on his teams so its not like he was pulling an Ernie Banks here. I am happy to say that regardless of the outcome of this debate, my opponent and I agree on one thing, this guy deserves a statue.

As I read through my opponents opening statement, I found myself agreeing with much of it. “Joe Mauer was underappreciated and unfairly attacked by fans and media.” “Joe Mauer was an exceptional athlete, especially at the catcher position. Look at these 3 batting titles.” “Joe Mauer was exceptional before the concussion.” I was agreeing so much that I feared I was losing the debate, so I went back and looked at what the actual debate was and found that the points I agreed with had nothing to do with the debate we are engaging in of "Who was the better player: Kirby Puckett or Joe Mauer?" so let’s look at them in more depth. 1. “Joe Mauer was underappreciated and unfairly attacked by fans and media.” It is an undeniable fact that Mauer took a lot of abuse. Souhan would put an article out every 3 months about swinging more and harder or finding some other way to diminish Mauer. Fans seemed to pull back from him, especially after he failed to ever duplicate his 2009 breakout season. There is even a hilarious Boring Joe Mauer account that seems to capture his milk toast nature. This always seemed unfair considering how much Puckett was embraced by fans and media but beyond his difference in personality with Puckett there is that fact that Puckett won 2 world series with the Twins and had a top 10 impactful game in the history of baseball in game 6 while Mauer’s claim to fame in the postseason is almost getting a double against the Yankees. Regardless, fan and media appreciation don’t impact who the better player was. 2. “Joe Mauer was an exceptional athlete, especially at the catcher position. Look at these 3 batting titles.” Joe was a great catcher; I think all Twins fans remember him in his catchers gear with the old school mask. We all teared up a bit when he came out in his equipment for his last day to say goodbye to the fans. Despite all these strong memories, Joe didn’t play catcher as frequently as we think. He only played 897 of his career 1858 games (48%) at catcher while spreading the rest around 1B and DH with a few PH thrown in for good measure. For comparison, Puckett played more of his career in CF with 1432 of his career 1783 games (80%) played in his premium position. Not only did Puckett play more games per season as I described in my opening statement, he more frequently played his premium position as well. Also, as shown in my previous post, even though Puckett had nowhere near the average or number of batting titles, he certainly had more hits per season which assists in run creation. 3. “Joe Mauer was exceptional before the concussion.” There is no doubt that Joe had a career cut short by injury. Concussions negatively impacted his career and he was not the same after his injury. That said, injuries to the head and body are part of the game when you are a catcher. That is why the Astros moved Biggio out of the catcher position when they found he had some skill and started playing him at 2B to extend his career. I don’t know if the blame falls to Mauer or to the Twins but keeping his talent behind the plate decreased both the length and quality of his career. Another factor of comparison here is that Mauer lied to the Twins about his vision sensitivity issues after his concussion for 2 years before admitting to sensitivity on the Spring of 2016. “It could be a lot of things,” Mauer continued. “There are so many different symptoms. For me it was lighting, I couldn’t really pick up the ball. It was blurry at times. Where I am here versus last year at this time, I can tell my workouts are better.” When he was asked about keeping his coaches up to date with this info he stated “Mauer was asked whether he shared his pitch-tracking concerns with hitting coach Tom Brunansky, manager Paul Molitor or the front office as he tried playing through them. “You know, I probably haven’t done that great of a job of doing that,” he said. “There’s days where it’s been really difficult and those when it hasn’t been very difficult. It just hasn’t been very consistent.” According to reporting from the Pioneer Press “Both Twins general manager Terry Ryan and manager Paul Molitor said they were never informed last season about any vision issues for Mauer.” In comparison, when Puckett had a vision issue he immediately informed Twins doctors and management and went through a cooperative analysis of the situation. Undoubtedly, Puckett handled this situation better. Conclusion When we get away from the fans and media, the success at catcher, and the what-ifs about the concussion, Puckett brought more runs to the table every season while playing his premium position more frequently and brought 2 world series to Minnesota. Mauer was good, Puckett was better. Play it out Puck....

As we start this great Lincoln-Douglas style debate on the careers of Kirby Puckett and Joe Mauer I wanted to begin with an obvious forward. Kirby Puckett was a failed human being. He abused and threatened multiple women including his wife, a mistress, and random folks in restaurants. If this were a discussion on who the better person was then I would forfeit right now as Joe Mauer would unquestionably win that award. For those wanting to read more, SI wrote an excellent story on this topic in 2003. With this out of the way I would like to start the debate. 1. WAR In this day and age of advanced statistics almost all HOF or career comparison discussions start with WAR. Fangraphs has Joe Mauer having the advantage here with 52.5 to Puckett’s 44.9. This doesn’t tell the whole story though as Mauer took 15 seasons to get his number while Puckett was able to achieve his in 12. When looking at it as WAR per Season Puckett took the lead with 3.74 versus Mauer’s 3.5. WAR is a pretty dry and dusty way to look at this so let’s look at what actually wins games. 2. Runs The actual measurements of runs gets a bad rap these days. Blogs and podcasts are put out about how RBI are meaningless counting statistics that are just side effects of how your teammates are doing around you. I don’t think they deserve the importance that was placed on them until the early 2000’s but they are not meaningless. If you look at Puckett and Mauer you will see that Puckett averaged 90 RBI and 89 Runs a season to Mauer’s 62 RBI and 68 Runs a season. That is a big disparity but a person could still look at this and say this is just luck of the draw and a reflection of teammates but there are actual stats that back up why Puckett generated more runs. 3. Hits Throughout their careers Mauer and Puckett were known for the opposite things. Mauer gained a reputation as someone who never swung at the first pitch and was always happy to take a walk. Puckett was instead known as a guy who was never afraid to swing at anything, be it in the zone or out. This resulted in quite the disparity in hit count as Puckett averaged 192 hits a season while Mauer averaged only 142. These 50 hits are significant in run creation because they included 4-5 HR which are always impactful in RBI/Run production. They included a number of other XBH which are important because a runner on first can be in scoring position if you hit a double, so it offered non-optimal RBI opportunities. Finally, hits generate errors and confusion. Puckett likely took second on several singles in those 50 hits because of errors or throwing decisions. I have never seen Mauer take second after a patient AB turned into a walk. These hits are a huge reason that Puckett generated far more runs that Mauer per season but there is another reason that contributed. 4. Durability In these modern times it is popular to only look at the % stats. What is a person’s BB%, K%, OBP%, SLG%, etc… These are extremely helpful, but they don’t tell a complete story when looking at player who play dramatically different amounts of games. Mauer and Puckett have similar career stats in many of these major types of stats like OPS (Puckett .837 / Mauer .827) and wOBA (Puckett .366 / Mauer /358) but when looking at the counting stat of games played Puckett averaged 25 more games played per season (149) when compared to Mauer and his 124 games per season. Some of you might be thinking that obviously he played fewer games, he was a catcher. Fortunately, the smart folks at Fangraphs thought of this as well and gave positional adjustments allowing for some positions to be allocated more runs created just because creating runs from that position is harder than others. The current adjustments for CF are 2.5 runs a season and C is 12.5 runs a season. This means in a full season Mauer is spotted 10 runs. As we look back, Puckett averaged 28 more RBI and 21 more Runs a season which is still more than Mauer, even with positional ranking brought into play. I am a bit ashamed to say that I have buried the lead in the argument though. 5. Playoff Success If you aren’t having Jack Buck saying, "and we'll see you tomorrow night!" going through your head right now I’m not sure if you are on the right site ?. Puckett has unquestionably had the greater postseason success. Puckett has 2 World Series rings and Mauer never won a playoff game. Puckett is in almost all of the top 10 MLB playoff moment lists on the internet while the main think Joe is known for is being part of the longest playoff losing streak in MLB history. Puckett elevated his game in the postseason taking his career OPS of .837 and increasing it 60 points to .897. Mauer let the postseason pass him by with a massive drop of 186 points from a career OPS of .827 to a playoff OPS of .641. Puckett, when confronted with a potential series ending game 6, famously said "Jump on my back, I’m going to carry us tonight.”. After that, he has 3 hits, a sac fly, and one of those hits is a game winning home run. I attempted in vain to find similar quotes or examples of Mauer leading in the playoffs and I couldn’t. Conclusion In short, Puckett had more WAR per season, generated more runs in any given season due to more hits and games played, and was so much better in the playoffs that it is embarrassing to compare. Joe Mauer was very good at baseball; Kirby Puckett was better.

The MLBPA, MiLB players and MLB players would all be harmed by the absorption of the 3,600 additional minor leaguers into the MLBPA. While the MLBPA is not a for-profit business, they do need to cover their expenses. Making membership available to minor leaguers would cause administrative service costs to skyrocket and those costs absolutely must be paid by somebody if full rights are to be extended to the new members. MiLB player salaries are basically the same as the union dues themselves. Either the MLBPA would be forced to increase MiLB salaries approximately 400% (more than $180MM per year from MLB owners), or the MLBPA must make MLB players pay for the MiLB players. Either way, the existing MLB players who are members of the MLBPA, the ones who keep the lights on and have paid millions of dollars for representation stand to lose. Pay for the MiLB players out of their own MLB player pockets and lose leverage in the union to the MiLB players who far outnumber MLB players or lose leverage at the table with owners. Pick your poison for MLB players in this scenario. My opponent believes the solution to the scenario above is to offset costs by treating MiLB players as second-class members, stripping them of voting rights, excluding them from the CBA and offering them reduced services. The MLBPA could certainly do that and retain their leverage for the MLB players, but why would a MiLB player join a union who offers them only lip service? The MiLB players know joining the union will annoy the very same owners who pay the MiLB player’s wages and choose who is promoted. The struggle is real. Consider MLB players (and MiLB players on the 40 man rosters) have had the leverage needed to negotiate and improve MiLB conditions for decades and have never really made a significant effort. It is not reasonable to conclude they’d suddenly change their stance and act selfless at this point with the harm recent lopsided CBA’s have caused MLB players who are now out for every dime they can get for themselves to try and balance the equation. A pseudo-membership in name only would hardly make sense to the MiLB players themselves. “Why don’t I get a vote and what would the voting members stand to gain by fighting for me? If I’m not part of the CBA, who is going to protect me from owner retaliation? The union wasn’t even able to protect MLB superstars from service time manipulation!” The MiLB players would be absolutely right, too. Then there’s the public shredding the MLBPA would be in for as it abandons its responsibility to work for 75% of its most vulnerable and financially helpless young members. Both the MiLB players and MLBPA would be harmed in this scenario, maybe even the MLB players themselves as collateral damage in the media war. When you sum it all up, there are no options which are viable for the MLBPA to take in MiLB players and add them to the CBA at this point, and that is the exact subject of this debate. This debate is not about other unlimited and off topic hypothetical options. My opponent says the MLBPA already exists so it’s best to expand the scope, right? In this case, that’s like saying you have a Honda Civic with a tow hitch rated for a bicycle rack you own so you might as well try to pull that house boat with the same Honda Civic because the tow hitch exists. The two aren’t compatible and if you try it, the results could be a tow directly to the Civic's new forever home, the junkyard. If it’s adding MiLB players to the MLBPA or not, the better option is to watch how the changes MLB has already committed to work out, allow public opinion and outrage to compel additional improvements from MLB owners and perhaps use a small portion of leverage to aid MiLB players without having them join the union. If the changes requested by the MLBPA do not represent a significant increase in costs, it won’t cost significant and precious leverage at the negotiating table with owners and everybody wins. The MiLB players may not get everything they should, but there will be a small walk forward of further improvements, the CBA can be more balanced for MLB players, the MLBPA can regain its position of respect and owners can use the publicity.

MLB teams do pay all of MiLB player wages. The MiLB player rights are owned by MLB and their salaries are paid by MLB. The MiLB team still covers travel expenses, like the per diem, travel costs like hotels and the MiLB team provides supplies like bats and uniforms. Things like the tight meal per diem and other travel conditions have been hotly debated in recent years, but MLB clubs aren’t currently responsible for that cost and MiLB teams are not part of the CBA leading to these types of headache issues from an administrative point of view. My opponent appears unaware that some MiLB players are already full fledged MLBPA members. All 40 man roster players are eligible to be part of the MLBPA and are represented in the CBA. The only players who are ineligible for MLBPA membership would be any “replacement” players who are permanently banned. Each team has about 150 MiLB players on their collective US rosters. About 15 of those MiLB players are already members of the MLBPA, affording them additional benefits and a minimum salary of $41k. That minimum salary is still insufficient to cover typical living expenses once the $14k in MLBPA union dues are deducted. It’s worth noting the MLBPA has scarcely supported those 15 or so players who were members but not playing in the big show showing how the union works and probably should work. Leverage is at its strongest when there is a unified front and MiLB members either had no significant voice inside the union despite being full fledged members or they didn’t care what was going on with the other MiLB players. Baseball players are human and they’re going to look out for themselves first. Adding 135 additional MiLB players to MLBPA eligibility would almost certainly result the scenario I talked about. An increase in MiLB salary of $6MM per team, minimum to bring the total salary for MiLB to $60k, less the $14k in MLBPA dues for a wage which would allow players to make ends meet. That $6MM per team is a major expense for what amounts to non-roster administrative costs and that will absolutely be a major leverage issue. Right now, the only reason the MLBPA is functional is because MLB players have a strong majority of roughly 26 to 14 so their interests are represented almost exclusively. 40 man roster players probably go along with this because they, too, expect to be playing at the MLB level in the immediate future. My opponent proposes stripping the voting rights away from the MiLB players in on the 40 man so that more MiLB players with no voting rights could be added to the MLBPA with no or heavily reduced union dues as a concession to prevent the MiLB players from overwhelming their MLB counterparts in voting power. The idea is the MLB level members would cater to non-paying union members in MiLB out of the goodness of their hearts even though they’ve never done this before despite decades of opportunity. What advantage is afforded to MiLB players who aren’t actually represented by their very own union? That further exacerbates a potentially huge issue. MLBPA membership is not compulsory. MiLB players would have little reason to join the MLBPA if they weren’t represented. This creates tension and fosters an atmosphere of mistrust and fragmentation. There is also the possibility the MLBPA could collect union dues from some MiLB players who choose not to join the union as state laws allow this in roughly half the nation as it would still be critical to expand the administrative power of the union to handle the influx of members, even if it wasn’t a high percentage who joined and even if the CBAs never focused on MiLB players. MiLB players who choose to not join the union would be more likely to ignore the MLBPA when they get to the big show. Those players would benefit from the CBA, but still be allowed to cross picket lines in the event of a strike or potentially benefit from favoritism shown by owners who would love to fragment the players’ power. Aside from the hypothetical expansion of the MLBPA, MLB has recently made significant steps up in compensation and living conditions for MiLB players in the real world. Was that accomplished through the MLBPA negotiating for them? No. It was due to public humiliation from baseball fans everywhere demanding MLB owners take action and treat their employees better. Not only is the public sentiment and media vocally and strongly in the favor of MiLB players, MLB owners are begrudgingly making improvements already. Joining the MLBPA would grant MiLB players a perceived powerful representative and negotiating strength which would then place the MLBPA in the crosshairs rather than the owners themselves. MiLB players are likely going to get every bit as much from the public outcry and likely allies at the federal government level in support of the powerless young kids playing in the minors today as those players would get from lip service in a union who cannot afford to lose leverage fighting MiLB player issues, and those gains would come absolutely free from wasted leverage in CBA negotiations. The MLBPA would be putting themselves between a rock and a hard place by taking in MiLB players.

You'll get no disagreement from me that MiLB players are not fairly compensated for the work they put in while playing for their parent clubs. Fair compensation isn't the real issue here. The issue is whether or not MiLB players, MLB players, the MLBPA and baseball as a whole would benefit from MiLB players being admitted into the MLBPA and becoming part of the CBA like 40 man roster MLB players. Unions need to be focused and keep leverage to be effective. Just being part of the union doesn't guarantee any condition, wage or benefits improvements. I've worked for unions where my net pay, after union dues were deducted were lower than minimum wage and benefits unobtainable. By taking on the mammoth task of quadrupling the union membership, the MLBPA would be forced to spend an enormous amount of precious leverage not on the MLB players who've been paying the dues and funding the MLBPA, but on the MiLB players who outnumber MLB players 3 to 1. A sure fire way to create chaos inside the union and fall into a situation where MLB players would likely vote to decertify the MLBPA entirely. Owners would pounce and create an even more lopsided CBA... one without guaranteed contracts, with a hard salary cap by offering MiLB players compensation improvements worth a dime on the dollar for the sacrifices from the MLB player compensation. There's also a huge risk to the signing bonuses for MiLB players. Owners would see a sudden opportunity to wipe them out or severely cut the signing bonus. After all, the MiLB players in this new hypothetical MLBPA already received their signing bonus. Of course they'd be willing to also sell out the up coming draftees for higher compensation while playing, right? Joining the MLBPA would not only create chaos for the compensation structure of MLB players, but likely result in savage reductions to draftee signing bonuses. There are too many ways for owners to exploit the chaos which would result from incorporation of MiLB players into the MLBPA and it would set the players back for decades. If MiLB players want to advance their case through unionization, the MLBPA is the wrong avenue to take in the pursuit.

7 Reasons Why Having MiLB Players Join The MLBPA is a Bad Idea Having MiLB (minor league baseball) players join the MLBPA (Major League Baseball Players Association) and be included in the MLB (Major League Baseball) CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) would ultimately hurt baseball players rather than help them. It seems like having minor league players join the MLBPA would benefit playing conditions, off field life and compensation for minor leaguers who are currently paid low salaries and struggle to find good housing, but it’s likely to hurt MLB players more than it helps MiLB players. First off, the MLBPA only has so much leverage in negotiations with MLB owners when it comes to the CBA. The MLBPA spending some of that leverage to help MiLB players means less leverage to help MLB players. This begs the question how much leverage can the MLBPA afford to spend on MiLB players? Probably virtually none without making MLB players angry with their own union as MLB players already feel they’ve been taken advantage of and MLB owners seem much more unified and prepared to dig in on issues. Second, there’s an even bigger problem with the MLBPA negotiation philosophy. MiLB players outnumber players on the 40-man by about 3:1 so MiLB players would have far more voting rights and far more power than MLB or 40-man roster players. It would create a conflict of interest within the union itself, pitting MiLB players against MLB players, substantially weakening the union’s ability at the negotiating table for any issue. Third, MiLB players making $10,500-$14,700 a year cannot afford to spend $14,000 a year in MLBPA dues, but MLBPA still needs to provide services to their members. How could MLBPA afford to expand its administrative and other services to the point they could handle a quadrupled union size without collecting a massive influx of union dues? The MLBPA can’t squeeze blood from a turnip, and that means either drastically reducing their services, wiping out the strike fund or a huge increase to union dues for MLB players to cover the MiLB players’ portions. Obviously, that’s a non-starter long term. MLB players are not going to spend their money to cover MiLB players long term. That means the MLBPA is going to be forced to take up negotiations with the owners to drive up MiLB pay several times over so the minor leaguers can afford their share of union dues… and that means a substantial drop in leverage for MLB players at the CBA table. It’s a horrible catch-22 which is bound to set players at each others throats. Fourth, MiLB players don’t play for MLB owners… I’m not sure if people realize this, but the majority of MiLB teams are not owned by the MLB parent club in any way. It’s just an affiliation agreement where the MiLB club has to pay a fee (there was a leaked and supposedly inexact amount of $20MM for the Saints to become the Twins’ AAA affiliate, for example). MiLB clubs cover organizational and travel expenses right now. The MLB owners may not have the authority to negotiate on behalf of the MiLB teams’ ownership when it comes to expenses covered by MiLB so MiLB players might find the MLBPA’s power is somewhat limited on what they can and cannot get done without MiLB ownership being added to the CBA and MiLB owners want to be a part of a union about as much as they want an IRS audit. Fifth, assuming MiLB players did become part of the MLBPA and negotiations for improved conditions were underway. The entirety of the cost would have to be footed by the parent clubs since MiLB clubs aren’t part of the CBA. Plus, the front office administration for the MLB club would need to expand enormously to accomplish all the tasks. Soaring college education costs have been tied directly to big staffing increases and administrative costs. MLB teams have already seen similar soaring administrative costs in recent years as analytics departments have grown and expenses in administration have increased by millions of dollars per team as a result. Expanding MLB team administrative costs will reduce leverage for the MLBPA before the negotiation even starts. The expansion of union size will be a net negative in and of itself. Sixth, consider how MiLB players benefit from the current arrangement. MLB teams compete directly with one another at the very highest levels to sign top talent. Draftees don’t have to take on clubs, they’ve often got a more free-agent-ish environment where multiple teams are calling and talking to them about general signing bonuses or positions, continuing education, etc. Draftee players are not pitted against the billionaire MLB owners directly, but those same 18 year old kids would be put into a situation where they’d be negotiating and communicating about playing conditions and compensation on the direct opposite side of MLB ownership. It’s hard enough for an established MLB player with an agent making millions of dollars to be in that situation, let alone a starry eyed 18 year old newly graduated from high school. It’s scary. Seventh, consider how baseball itself benefits from the current arrangement. A huge increase in salary, better living and playing conditions for MiLB seems all good for baseball, right? A minor league career often lasts only a couple years. Sometimes a team releases a player, but often it’s a player who decides to retire. Even with a shorter draft, teams are going to be faced with far more players who are making good money playing MiLB. Players will be more comfortable and it will become harder and harder to identify which players are willing to do anything it takes to improve their game. Roster management will become a real nightmare and we may very well see the we’ve lost a Brian Dozier to a roster crunch, guessing guys with more talent should stick around before we lose a Brian Dozier with more drive and ambition who is struggling due to economics.