ewen21

It was like he painted himself into a corner with it. The more he hit to slap the less willing he was to take a full confident swing with the intent of turning on it and hitting a places where it cannot be caught. The fact that he went from 2008 to 2017 without a single walk off hit was a side effect of this approach where he seemed content to draw a walk than rather than get the big hit in the big spot. His close and late and high leverage batting averages are both 20-30 to thirty points lower than his career average. He's a no brainer for the Twins HOF and retire the number. Is a lock for Cooperstown? No way in the world, in my opinion.

I often wondered...."where is his happy zone?" and "does he ever recognize he's set up for a waste pitch that could drift over the plate?" Miguel Cabrera once singled on a pitch out attempt. How's that for contrast? Joe did not seem tuned in for a mistake. He never deviated from his approach and his approach was narrow. TexasLeaguers used to put up spray charts and his was perplexing to say the least. He was making lots of contact, but with a table setter's mentality. If he decided to make a more serious attempt to square up a ball, turn on it and drive it more often what the results would have been. I surely didn't expect 2009. I just feel that if the HR and RBI totals were like 2009 with a .285 average we'd have had a better player. He played it "safe" and he did it to a fault, in my opinion. On Cooperstown, I can drive there and get there within two hours. I have never gone during HOF weekend, but have been there multiple times. Does Mauer make it? I have no idea. They lost me years ago. Scott Rolen and Harold Baines get in and Al Oliver and Steve Garvey don't get a whif? No one should be upset if Joe doesn't get into the HOF. Half of his career he was a first baseman/DH and his numbers from those spots were clearly not HOF. Think of a guy like John Olerud. He rivals Joe, in my opinion AND he had a penchant for being on teams that went someplace in the postseason. Those things mean a lot to me. Maybe more than most.

This is not going to be popular here, but I need to say it..... The signing HAD TO happen, but to be honest, I was deeply disappointed with the Mauer I saw AFTER the contract. I will start at the beginning. In my estimation, he came into camp looking absolutely dreadful in 2011 because he literally did nothing over the winter. He had five months of down time over the winter and to get all that money and look so out of shape when he came to camp raised my eyebrows. His body looked like it had atrophied and he looked very pale. You do not get diagnosed with "leg weakness" if you are doing what you should be doing. I made the observation about his apparent lack of conditioning IMMEDIATELY when he reported to camp on the old MLB site. I was treated very harshly for this observation (I didn't care because I can take it). A highly paid athlete should be working hard during the offseason to get his body right and Mauer did not seem to do it. For example, Russell Martin had the same procedure on his knee at about the same time Joe did and he had an all star season--from the catcher position. https://www.nj.com/yankees/2011/02/yankees_russell_martin_wont_ca.html Martin came into camp doing handstands. Clearly he was doing some work. According to his own words Joe chose to rest and take it slow in camp and that cost him, in my opinion. That approach isn't explained away with his humble and self-deprecating demeanor. I understand Joe is chill dude, but it went too far. Harmon was essentially a choir boy and he wasn't turning over buffet tables, so I really do not care about that angle. Bernie Williams was another guy...very much docile, but go take a look at what he did in the postseason alone. Not only that, the Twins lost every single playoff game he played. It is not his fault that Twins lost all of the playoff games he played in, but he managed to drive in just one run in those games. In most of those games we were desperate for a big hit. He never delivered. I do not think that is a coincidence. Did anyone know Mauer actually went from 2007 to 2017 without getting a single walk off hit? He had a walkoff against Oakland in 2007 and by about 2011 I started to notice he had not had a walkoff in a long LONG time. He finally had one in the early summer of 2017. How does a guy of his caliber do that? I do not believe that is some odd anomaly or a statistical coincidence. His career batting average close & late and in high leverage numbers were considerably lower than his career average. Joe developed a nasty habit of deferring at bats and seemed content to grind out walks in situations where he should have been a hitter. If I had a dime for every moment he came up in a high leverage spot and spit on fat pitches he should have driven to Mars I would have $796.51. Finally, it was maddening to watch him get up there and try to inside-out everything into left field. When the shift started he refused to adjust and that was absurd to me. It was more of Joe being Joe and morphing into a player that made no sense to me. The smack singles the other way approach worked against him being a run producer. That is what a table setter does. He was not paid to be a table setter. If he drops a flare into left field for a single it is awfully hard to get the runner in from second base. He did not adjust for situations and that was bothersome to me. Where are the Joe Mauer moments in Twins history? All of them seem to be centered on his personal accolades as a catcher who can hit. I am not trying to take that from him, but we are talking about the contract. HOW did his signing help the Twins? That is the bottom line for me. He seemed to be off the in the corner dancing to his own music (probably that gross TI song) while the party went on without him. I do not dislike Joe Mauer as a person, but he became a very frustrating ball player. Sure, he had a solid comeback year in 2012 and good year in 2013, but apart from that he barely made an impact during the time of his contract. In sum, the contract had to happen. HOWEVER, I cannot imagine him doing what he did in 2011 in New York. He'd have been slaughtered by the fan base and the press and THEY would have been right to do so. He would have needed to stand in front of the press and answered questions and he somehow managed to stay away from the press during that 2011 season. WThat 2011 was one of the most bizarre seasons I have ever seen a player have. The only thing that touches Mauer 2011 is what we see with Buxton. I know.....not a popular take, but I am willing to take the criticism for it.

Injuries and age of caught up with them? That may very well be true but bear in mind Byron Buxton is not even turn 30 yet. It’s kind a hard to say that a 29 year old player is being waylaid by the ravages of time. If that’s what we’re going to go with then all praise of him should end today

Coaching messed him up? No. He has proven to be pretty hard to coach and the Twins brass seem to think that he doesn't even need to be coached. He doesn't make adjustments and isn't one who loves the offensive part of the game. The guy admits to his coaches and the press that he hates batting practice. I think the real problem no one wants to talk about is that he isn't working hard enough at his craft and that he lacks the focus and desire to get through the rigors of daily life in major league baseball.

This article is another example of Buxton being unbelievably overrated. Stanton has had a far more accomplished career than Buxton. If Buxton turned into Stanton, he’d have to be Babe Ruth the next 5 years. He’d have to hit 278 HR, drive in 713 runs. Stanton is 33, Buxton is 29. Buxton at 29 is Stanton at 33. Let’s talk Stanton. His lifetime OPS is .884, He’s got almost 400 homers (393), and he has over 1,000 RBI. Buxton has never scored 70 runs in a season and Stanton had done it five times by the time he was 29. Buxton has never come close to producing like Stanton did. Maybe what you mean to say is Buxton at 29 is like a broken down Stanton at 33. That would actually be closer to reality.

I like Goldschmidt a lot, but no way. First of all, we are not contenders. Second, he would be a one year rental. He turns 36 in September and as good as he is his decline is imminent

A home run of a post right here. The assumption by too many was that Kepler and Buxton are really good players. The Twins FO believed it enough to extend them and invest in them long term and yet they flipped Luis Arraez. Arraez produced actual tangible results in a very short period of time unlike Kepler and Buxton and yet organization was extremely patient with both believing that their "athleticism" and "tools" would eventually translate into baseball skills and help them become money ballplayers. Buxton has a .300 lifetime OBP, has trouble playing even half a season most years and currently doesn't play the field. Since he had his best season in 2017, if we exclude this year (because it is incomplete) and 2020 (because it was a shortened season) he has averaged precisely 67 games over the four subsequent seasons after his "breakout season". In spite of Buxton's inability to stay on the field and unpredictable streakiness this FO invested in him long term. They also invested in Correa long term and both he and Buxton lobbied for one another. The front office bought that. Several years before they gave Kepler a nice extension, which seemed like a decent risk at the time, but Kepler has not even been an average major leaguer for the last three seasons. Worse, he doesn't even appear to enjoy baseball. Buxton hates taking batting practice and evidently wasn't all that interested in watching baseball as a kid. Time to stop looking athletes who might become good players and start looking for baseball players who are in shape mentally in physically to play BASEBALL.

With this statement you absolve the players of blame. I wish Rocco was not our manager, but if you think the major issues this team now has are erased with one move you are fooling yourself.

You are 100% correct. Buxton is not underperforming all that much as far as I can see. It is normal for him to go into prolonged slumps like the one we are seeing right now. This is his ugly side and it rears its ugly head from time to time and you hope he finds a way out. The danger is this time he seems on the precipice of completely losing it. This persistent pattern makes me start questioning his commitment to the craft of hitting. He certainly isn't hitting during times he is on the IL so this means he has long stretches during the season where he does not work on hitting. He doesn't like taking pregame BP and didn't for over two years. He admitted this saying he does indoor hitting instead. Just how much of that he does is a mystery. I sincerely doubt he picks up a bat during the winter. We all know that he loves to run and he is a great athlete, but how much hitting does he do during the winter I wonder. Just a couple of days ago when the team swung into Atlanta he said he barely watched baseball as a kid. Does he even like baseball I wonder,. He was content to sit on the sidelines during spring training with the Twins employing an NBA "load management" style approach, He didn't get in real live hitting against opponents during the spring and he seemed to agree that it was "best for the team" that he be managed this way. And yet HE was cleared to run on November 18th after the minor arthroscopic surgery he got: How did he go from this on November 18th to playing in just a couple of games in spring training several months later? How much of him not playing in games during ST was him not even trying to convince the Twins he was fine to play? How is it this world class athlete get relegated to DH duties even though he is making headfirst slides, stealing bases and running the bases hard through it all? This makes zero sense. We have a right to question what is going on at this point because we have been fed a bill of goods by the Twins and the media. For example, this article below at the very beginning of the season highlighted his speed and how good he looked running the bases: https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-twins-second-consecutive-shutout-kansas-city-royals-sonny-gray-byron-buxton/600263811/ I have read and heard a great many people effusively praise Buxton and, quite frankly, I do not want to hear it anymore. We can talk about his athleticism from here to eternity, but iIn reality, he has never driven in more than 51 runs, never scored 70 runs, has a career OBP of .300, a career BA of .240, has played in more than 92 games only once, etc....etc...etc....etc.... I do not want to hear about his tools. I do not what to hear about "...when healthy...." We can't even fall back on his defense anymore.. He is 29 and should be in his professional prime and he is doing this right now Not good enough!

I do. Garza was called up in 2006. I was at the game on September 30th against Chicago where he got smoked.. Kansas City saved us by sweeping Detroit. That said, I think we have a problem developing starting pitching. That "pitch to contact" garbage is long gone, but the stench remains

Fair enough. Then again, in the mid 2000s we were sold on the idea that we had a pipeline of young pitching and Terry Ryan acted as if the likes of Kevin Slowey, was untouchable. In fact, go back as far as 2006 with Garza and find me a starting pitcher who was any good outside of Jose Berrios? Between Garza and Berrios is over a decade. Baker, Slowey, Blackburn, Lohse, Mays all had promise and then seemingly got worse as time went on..... Forgive me for this mini-rant, but it is my main bone of contention with this organization. Mid-market organizations like ours should make raising quality starting pitching its prime focus and we have failed at doing so. If you can do that then you aren't constantly in the market trying to find overpriced starting pitchers. We need to raise our own starting pitchers to a reasonable extent and we can't seem to do it. Can we do that now? THis remains to seen,

I teach in NY upstate so I was pretty swamped with work until my last day of school (last Friday). I used watch daily and the Twins were appointment TV. Put it this way, I am not rushing home to watch like I used to. I have become frustrated with Buxton and Correa. These guys are allegedly the "stars" and they have been brutal,

Being optimistic is fine, but when it starts to shroud reality it becomes problematic.

That is a very short list compared to the list of guys with similar numbers after that many starts that never panned out and are long forgotten.

Not that anyone cares, but I do not see a problem with bringing up these situations. If were are talking about the Twins in late June of 2023, it is kind of hard to exclude these things from discussions about the team. I mind their performance much more than I do comments about their performance. I guess that is just me. That said, I am doing my part. I have mentioned Kepler once since my return about ten days ago, and haven't brought up Gallo (yet) or Rocco (yet).

He figured going to Paris and forgetting about baseball was a good thing. It feels like he doesn't even like baseball right about now.

There are so many absurd conversations about this player, but this is not one of them. It is only natural we discuss this. You watch the broadcast of tonight's game and in his first ab they cut to Rocco trying to explain why he's not in the outfield and it makes me shake my head. because I have seen him steal some bases. At this juncture, I actually am not the least bit curious about WHY is not in CF. I just deal in facts: and the facts are he is NOT playing CF, he isn't hitting, and (according to him) he doesn't like batting practice and didn't before games for a couple of years. That is information he volunteered. Take if for what it's worth. If I am going to offer up an opinion it is this: He simply doesn't get the reps to be a good hitter and he is a bad DH through the first half of this season.

What is the difference if he can or can't? He ISN'T and that is all that matters. This is a guy touted as a world class athlete in his 29 year old season and he is not fit to play the field somehow. His injury history and physical challenges will not improve with age. In reality, he is a player in his 9th season who has played more than 92 games just once. He has a lifetime OBP of .301 and a lifetime batting average of .240. He has never driven in more than 51 runs and never scored 70 runs in a season.

I am not buying his potential. Sorry. I have seen too much. The guy has played in more than 92 games one time in his whole career and speed guys have a pretty small window.

There seems to be some avoidance over this so whey you say "chilling about it" you pretty much explain Rocco's touch. He didn't embrace the history for whatever reason last year. I felt alienated when Rocco said, "I'm not frustrated at all" after last year's 3 and out. It's funny because the team tries to act all relaxed like it isn't a big thing, but until they can face fact and admit: YES, this is a big deal we aren't going anywhere. Time to own it.

Rocco made some pretty dumb calls and there is no question, but I don't care who we had in that dugout. It could have been Casey Stengel, Earl Weaver, Tony LaRussa, Muller Huggins, whatever. It comes down to this team (once again) putting together terrible at bat after terrible at bat. It is clear that when the Minnesota Twins reach the playoff the goal has already been achieved. That message has been deeply inculcated into the players coming though our system before they even reach the big leagues. Rocco has been indoctrinated into it as well. In fact, they selected him because they thought he was intelligent and understood analytics and they knew he was a "people person" and a players guy. He proved how super-chill he was after last year's embarrassment: "I'm not frustrated at all" That ring a bell for anyone? We have seen this rerun many times over and it is basically the same thing. We have lost 17 playoff games in a row. In those last 17 games we have scored 41 runs. In the last 15 losses we have scored 31 runs. We can go on and on about pitching, defense, managerial moves, umpiring, shifts, etc....I don't care. If this team is going to average two runs per game in the playoffs they are going nowhere. Rocco deserves to be ripped, but then when he's gone and we get swept out of the playoffs again what are we talking about?

A very definite pattern has developed over the years. Every single time the season starts Buxton looks completely overmatched in the batter’s box. He’s 1 for 13 with 6 strikeouts and “small sample size” doesn’t apply. He’s started every single season horribly. Why is this? Over the last few years he’s been vocal about hitting and what works for him. He’s talked about his need to be comfortable with what he’s doing. I’m not thinking about how he goes back on balls right now (as important as it is for him to clean up). I’m more concerned about his cluelessness in the batters box

I am glad that you did. What a brilliant post!

"You would be forgiven if you simply chose to forget any Twins player between 2011 and 2017 not named Joe Mauer" I would love to forget the 2011 version of Joe Mauer. It was pretty ugly