tobi0040

Light rail can take you to the mall of america and back in 15 minutes each way. I think a ride is 2-3 bucks

I like the two game idea. Book a hotel downtown here next to the stadium. All sorts of hotels and bars near the stadium.

.775 seems like a high bar, that would have put him top 5 in OPS among 2B last year. Given that we really like his glove, if he is in the .730 range or higher I would consider a deal with him. It would only make sense if it buys out two years of free agency and does not come with a no trade clause. If someone like Polanco establishes himself as a 2B candidate, Dozier's contract would be an asset on the trade market.

I agree with the division sans the Reds. They won 90 games last year and have Cueto, Cingrani, Bailey, Latos, and Leake in their rotation. I am going to take the liberty of adding my favorite Gardy-ism. Our pitchers are "really flipping it".

Maybe Pelfrey or Pedro come close. But the point was your best player and worst two players should not be the most criticized.

when we are picking out 400 ip of his 1100 career. Most of which were 4 and 6 years ago....almost all nl.

1).He didn't not pick up a bat because he is lazy. He wants to be 100 percent sure his concussion symptoms were gone.Everyone who has had one (including me) regrets starting too soon and prolongs it.Had he done that he would get twice the criticism 2) I am guessing you have never seen him in person. I am guessing he doesn't just touch tiny weights

Thank you for the clarification. It was hard to reconcile "another o-fer" when referencing a guy who was first and is probably at worst second or third in BA among active players. http://voices.yahoo.com/joe-mauer-owns-baseballs-best-active-career-batting-12136050.html

He is hitting .250 9 games in and has a career .323 average. A lot fewer o-fer's than most.

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This thread is kind of silly. We knock Joe for a lack of power and then say Mauer is not in Tony Gwynn's category. Joe only needs 30 HR from here on out to overtake Gwynn and has his OPS already. Joe had an OPS of .873 from 22-30, the average for a catcher is .748. Gwynn averaged .847 for his career, much less of a gap between the average corner OF of .777. I get that it was a different era. But the gap is larger than the difference in era. I expect Mauer to have about the same as the average 1B from here. Personally, I think Mauer should be playing LF or RF for the next 4-5 years anyway. To widen the gap between him and his peers so we can sign a bat. He is athletic and has the arm. But again, 99% of the criticism of Mauer is a joke. He if a HOF player and we should be thankful he is on our team. http://scoresheetwiz.tripod.com/id136.html

I agree in most cases guys decline after 30. In Mauer's case I think not catching will slow the decline a bit or not cause his decline to be as severe. But even if he does decline, he has to come down 15 basis points to average out to Boggs average and 26 basis points to be in Gwynn territory. That is probably a realistic drop for Mauer, but my point is that even if Mauer is in the range, we are comparing with a guy who played 10 years at catcher with a 1B, 3B, and OF.

Pitching around and intentially walking are very similar things. Especially to a guy with a very good eye at the plate. One is just more blatent.

I think it is unrealistic to expect a catcher to end up with 3,000 hits. Mauer actually has a higher OPS (.873) than Olerud (.863), Boggs (.858), or Gwynn (.847). Given that he had that OPS through 8 years at a position that generates little offense, it is safe to conclude Mauer has added more value than all three. Which comes back to, the criticism of Mauer is a little silly and he is a great player.

Law is very high on Aiken. But he tends to have contrary views of guys at times, although I find him to be pretty smart.

If you or someone wants to look over an extended period of time. I am fairly confident an average of the 8 teams in the playoffs will have finished closer to #1 in team ERA than in runs scored.

Mauer has hit a HR in 2% of his at bats. Plouffe has a HR in 4.5% and a 2B in 3.4%, or 7.9% if you add the two. So when Mauer takes a BB ahead of Plouffe, a plouffe HR or 2B scores the people on base when Mauer was up, and Mauer. Seems like the walk over pressing makes more sense. You can't pay a guy like Mauer because of who he is, then ask him to change because of his pay.

I completely agree. Mauer's best asset is his eye at the plate, which leads to a ton of walks, respect from the ump's, and better pitches to hit. It is not his fault that he is by far the best player on the team. If he would feel pressured to change his game, I am not sure we would be better for it. Could Joe Mauer hit 35-40 HR a year if that was his sole focus? I think we would be kidding ourselves if we thought he is not capable of doing that. The question is, what would that do to his average, OBP, walks, k rates, etc.

I agree. Pep talks are overrated. Plus, Mauer leads by example every day. He plays the game right.

I think it boils down to 4 things. 1) Money. Everything seemed to change when he got the big deal. Some are envious, some are surprised he took the deal and did not take a discount, etc. The expectations went up and frankly, he was never going to hit .365 with 28 HR again. 2) The media gets frustrated with a guy that is a your best player, face of the franchise and is so quiet, an absolutely terrible intereview, squeky clean, etc. They went from Puckett, Moss, KG, and Torii to Mauer. They have 500 words to produce every three days. 3) Durability. This goes along with #1, when you get paid and get hurt, some are just not OK with that. As if $23M Mauer will have an immunity that $8M Mauer did not have. 4) Losing. Someone has to be to blame right? The fact is Mauer could have hit 60 HR last year and this team would have lost 85 or more games. But it would have still been his fault some how.

The only way this impacts anything is if you have guys that are not performing because they are lazy or have a bad attitude, and this lights a fire. With this crop, I don't think that is the case. Delmon Young, absolutely. Pedro Florimon, not so much.

I get that it is a team game. But in my example, a pitcher is in on 33% of the game when they pitch just six innings. A position player that plays every day factors into 5.5% of the plays. So if you adjust for the fact that a position player plays everyday they still don't get to the same level of importance of a starting pitcher. I understand that I am ignorning defense in this example, but again the position player factors into 5.5% of the balls in play and a competent fielding percentage suggests 19/20 of those plays will be made by almost anyone. I guess I am not trying to construct a graduate level paper here., but hopefully the point is clear. Of the 8 teams in the playoffs last year, only four were top ten in runs scored (Boston, Oakland, STL, and Detroit). Six were top 10 in ERA (Oakland, STL, Pitt, LAD, Atlanta, and Detroit). It seems like teams with good pitchers, more than good lineups make it it to the post season. Burt had 27 more wins than losses. I do understand if he had played for better franchises he would have won more games. But his career 3.30 ERA was not lights out for his era. In my opinion, longevity helped his case a ton. I am guessing a 3.30 ERA than is probaby similar to a 3.50 or 3.60 ERA now, which is a 1 or 2 starter. Johan Santana has a career 3.20 ERA and his win percentage is 64% versus Burt's 53%. I didn't mean to under-estimate how often bad starts lose games. That is actually part of my argument of why you need to put more emphasis on a starting pitcher in the draft over an OF. Odds are, if we take a good starter, he will be taking the spot of a guy like Kevin Correia.

If we had zero emphasis on defense, escobar or santana would be at short. plain and simple.

I have never quite understood the argument that a pitcher only pitches every five games, so therefore they are not as valuable as a position player. I know you were making the comp to a QB but the same "they don't play everyday" that you hear a lot was brought up. I don't get it because while technically true, a pitcher has a much bigger influence on the game when they do play than a position player has on a daily basis. If 90% of the game is batter versus pitcher, a pitcher that goes 6 innings plays a large role in about 33% of the game. Versus being one in 18 position players. It is much more common to see a pitcher single handedly win or lose a game (8 IP, 1 ER or the flip-side, 3 IP, 6 ER).