Twins All Stars – Today’s and Tomorrow’s

Apparently, when Twins catcher Joe Mauer’s name was announced as the team’s representative to the All Star game, the Twinsville Twitterverse lit up with tweets condemning his selection. I didn’t notice this so much, myself, which is perhaps a testament to the intelligence of both those who follow me on Twitter and those I personally follow.

Joe Mauer

From what others were writing, however, it seems that a significant segment of Twinsville does not believe Joe Mauer is All Star worthy and/or they believe Josh Willingham was more worthy. Whichever the reason, those fans are wrong, of course. Not only is Mauer worthy of being named to the team to represent the Twins, he should have been voted by fans to start the game over the Rangers’ Mike Napoli.

Napoli’s split line is .235/.335/.438 for an OPS of .773. Mauer’s is .324/.414/.445 which gets him an .859 OPS. Napoli does have 12 home runs, of course, but nobody with a lick of baseball sense would consider that stat alone to be enough to overcome 86 OPS points, especially given the difference in stadiums the two call home. No, there’s absolutely no rational reason for Napoli being the starting AL catcher over Mauer. The fans blew that one. Of course, you won’t hear the talking heads mentioning that because Napoli is playing for the two-time defending AL champion (and World Series loser) Texas Rangers.

I did see someone raise the “but he’s not a real catcher” argument yesterday, in regard to Mauer. Yes, he DHs and plays some first base. But guess what, so does Napoli, who’s played more than 20 games at 1B himself this season. Smart managers (and even not-so-smart ones like Gardy and Ron Washington) find a way to give their catchers… especially those that hit like Mauer and Napoli… some time off from duty behind the plate in order to keep them healthy.

Josh Willingham

I would have liked to see Josh Willingham get his first All Star selection. Maybe if one of the AL All Star outfielders can’t participate, he could still get selected, but it’s not likely. Willingham’s year is All Star worthy, but every year there are All Star worthy players who don’t get selected and they’re usually from teams that have lost more games than they’ve won. Just as every year there are players named to the All Star team who are less worthy than others and they’re usually from the team managed by the guy managing the All Star team. This year is no exception. Ron Washington had seven “managers choice” slots to fill. Four of those selections had to come from teams that had no representative voted in. The other three selections were all members of his Rangers team. To the victor goes the spoils, I guess.

Willingham isn’t on the All Star team for three reasons: (1) He plays a position that requires him to compete with a lot of All Star worthy players; (2) He plays on a bad baseball team in a mid-level market; and (3) He is not the best player on his team.

I’d actually boil that down to one big reason he isn’t on the All Star team: The Twins starting pitching has flat out sucked for most of the season. If the Twins had better pitching, their offense is good enough to  have them in contention and they wouldn’t be relegated to the “must have a representative” class of teams. He would be getting the recognition he deserves as one of the top Free Agent pick-ups off the past offseason and his name would be getting mentioned as one of the best hitting outfielders in the league.

So, those of you who want to complain about Josh Willingham not being selected to the All Star team, lay off of Joe Mauer. It isn’t his fault. Blame Ron Washington, if you like, but he’s just doing what managers do every year… reward the guys in his own clubhouse. If MLB didn’t want managers to do that, they can stop it easily by simply taking the manager’s choices away. The real blame for Willingham’s “snub”, if you feel he was snubbed, gets laid at the feet of Carl Pavano, Nick Blackburn, Francisco Liriano, Liam Hendriks, et al.

Speaking of All Star snubs, I can’t help but wonder why nobody is up in arms over Trevor Plouffe not being selected. He arrived on the scene in Minnesota about the same time phenom Mike Trout arrived in Disneyland and their stats since arriving are similar (though Trout is admittedly the far superior defender). If Ron Washington is really serious about setting his Rangers team up with home field advantage in the World Series this time, you would think giving some consideration to arguably the hottest player in the league for the month of June might have been in order.

Trevor Plouffe

It’s hard to argue that Adrian Beltre and Miguel Cabrera, the two third basemen on the AL roster, don’t belong. They certainly do. But if I were the AL manager, having a late inning option as a pinch hitter and a guy who could play pretty much any position on the field other than pitcher and catcher (though, admittedly, none of them particularly well) would be an option I might consider valuable.

I’m certainly not arguing that Plouffe SHOULD have been selected over anyone who was so honored, but just pointing out that Willingham isn’t the only Twins player that the team’s crappy overall performance may have cost an All Star spot.

Speaking of Plouffe, I know we’re all waiting for his bubble to pop because there’s no way he keeps up the level of offensive productivity he’s shown in June (and the first day of July), but he’s riding just about the hottest offensive streak I’ve seen in a long time. There’s understandably a lot of attention paid to uber-prospect Miguel Sano down in Class A Beloit, but isn’t Plouffe pretty much putting up the kind of numbers that most of us dare to even hope Sano will put up some day? Over the last four weeks, his split line is .311/.376/.744 for a 1.121 OPS. Yes, small sample size warning is applicable, since that covers only 24 games, but still… that’s one heck of a four weeks!

Plouffe was the Twins’ first round draft pick in 2004 and it seems like we’ve been waiting around forever for his productivity to reach his potential. His stats over the course of parts of eight seasons spent in the Twins’ minor league system were unremarkable, if not downright disappointing, for a first round pick (.258/.320/.406 .726OPS). That said, he put up a 1.019 OPS in 51 games at Rochester last season, so his current hot streak is not completely out of nowhere, either.

Miguel Sano

Sure, his defense still needs work, but trust me when I tell you that, by comparison, Miguel Sano makes Plouffe look like Brooks Robinson at third base. Most people still believe Sano will eventually need to be moved to a less challenging position, though the organization is still holding out hope that he can learn to play a passable third base. Plouffe, on the other hand, didn’t really even start to learn the position until he was thrown in there at the Major League level earlier this season.

And here’s the best part… Trevor Plouffe JUST turned 26 years old a couple of weeks ago. Pitchers around the league won’t allow Plouffe to put up numbers at his recent levels forever, but while he’s hot, he’s certainly got the potential to be one of the few interesting stories to follow through the remainder of this disappointing Twins season. And if he keeps improving year-to-year, by the time Miguel Sano arrives in Minnesota, it won’t matter whether Sano can play 3B, because that position will be claimed for the foreseeable future by Trevor Plouffe.

– JC

GameChat – Royals @ Twins #4, 1:10 pm

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that four-game series were pretty commonplace. Not so any more. But thanks to yesterday’s make-up game, we’ve got the finale of four-game series today against the Royals. Thanks to yesterday’s doubleheader sweep, the worst our guys can do is come away with a series split and a win today claims the series 3-1.

In case anyone missed it, the Orioles acquired Jim Thome from the Phillies yesterday. Big Jim will be wearing #25 for the O’s. Yes… as hard as it is to believe, the Orioles have not retired that number in honor of Rafael Palmeiro. Thome will return to Target Field with his new team in just two weeks!

The All-Star Game rosters were announced today. Representing the Twins will be Joe Mauer. That’s not really a surprise and he deserves to be selected. He probably deserves to start ahead of Mike Napoli, but with the Twins pulling up the rear in the AL Central standings, you don’t expect to get much love around the country. All of that said, I’d have liked to see Josh Willingham get his first All-Star selection. The Twins poor record has kept Willingham from getting the recognition he deserves. He’s clearly one of the best Free Agent pick ups in the league (especially if you consider performance vs. pay).

If you’re in to the whole ESPYs thing (or even if you aren’t), Ben Revere needs your vote!

On to the game…

The Twins have declared today “Armed Forces Appreciation Day” with a special ceremony scheduled to honor “Gold Star” families. With Independence Day this week, it’s a good time to honor families of those who have given the “last full measure of devotion” for our country’s freedom. They deserve our thanks this week and every week.

Francisco Liriano is on the mound for the Twins. Let’s see the good Frankie today!

ROYALS

@

TWINS
Gordon, LF Span, CF
Escobar, A, SS Carroll, 2B
Butler, DH Mauer, DH
Francoeur, RF Willingham, LF
Betancourt, Y, 3B Morneau, 1B
Hosmer, 1B Plouffe, 3B
Pena, B, C Mastroianni, RF
Bourgeois, CF Butera, C
Falu, 2B Dozier, SS
  _Chen, P   _Liriano, P


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Kansas City

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Minnesota

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I can’t stop laughing.. LOL That was just a ridiculous game of baseball that ended with us on top so at least I’m not crying. Today was all about the HR. Whether we credit burning the assbats, or the warm weather or the sacrifice of live chickens to Jobu, I don’t really care. It’s about time that the hometown 9 figured out how to hit Bruce Chen!!

The real entertainment seemed to be the battle of the team Homerun lead between Trevor Plouffe and Josh Willingham. Both guys have been on fire for the month of June and wanted to get July started off on the right pace. They started today tied but Trevor took the early lead in the 2nd inning. But Josh couldn’t let him get away so he answered back in the 6th with a homerun of his own to tie the race. Trevor was having none of that and took back his position as the HR leader with his SECOND HR of the day in the 6th. It was an embarrassment of runs and riches to watch them go off that way.

For that, we grant them both ice cold adult beverages of their choice (unless they need to re-hydrate) just to show our appreciation.

And then out of the blue…

Drew Butera?!? Totally unexpected 3 run HR in the 8th to build that run cushion up. AND it turns out that 4 HRs in a single game is actually a Twins record. Then it turns out that those runs weren’t so extraneous after all. Perkins made life a little interesting in the top of the 9th and all of a sudden we were VERY grateful that we had those “extra” runs from Drew. As much for the runs as for the surprise of the source, Drew gets the room vote for BOD!

Drew Butera sporting the Minneapolis Millers uniform (Photo: Minnesota Twins)