Tag Archives: Joe Mauer

Friday Hot Dish

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Way down south, where I’m living (in Iowa), it’s called a casserole. But as I recall from my younger years in Minnesota, up there it’s a hot dish. Either way, to me it’s still a bunch of stuff thrown together, cooked, and if you’re really good at it (or really lucky), it turns out tasty, satisfying and filling. So that’s the purpose of this post… throw a few things together and, since I’m not likely to be really good, I’ll hope to be lucky.

It didn’t take long for the Twins to completely disregard my suggested roster moves. In fact, not only did they NOT make the moves I recommended, even the one move that I said “we all know WILL happen this weekend” isn’t going to happen this weekend. JJ Hardy won’t be rejoining the Twins for their series against JJ’s former team, the Brewers, this weekend. I’m getting a bit more concerned about this slow-healing wrist. A couple of our readers added comments taking issue with my suggestion that it might be time for Brian Duensing to slide in to Kevin Slowey’s spot in the rotation. Whether my suggestions turn out to be as far off base as they’re already starting to look, only time will tell. Let’s see where things stand in 2-3 weeks.

By the way, given that Hardy isn’t ready yet, it makes perfect sense to have Trevor Plouffe join the team this weekend. Luke Hughes is on the DL and Matt Tolbert can’t return to the Bigs until 10 days after he was sent down, so Plouffe makes sense. Let’s just hope Gardy isn’t tempted to use him as a late-game defensive replacement in a close game. Trevor has eight errors already this year.

Joe Mauer... moving up TSN's "Best Player in Baseball" list.

The Sporting News polled 125 baseball “experts” (apparently my ballot was lost in the mail) to find out who they thought the best 50 players in baseball are. Guess what!? Joe Mauer isn’t #1! Yeah, that Pujols guy over in the National League (or as I call it, Class AAAA) got the nod for the second year in a row. But Joe’s on Albert’s heels at #2 after moving up 37 spots from last year’s poll. Seriously… these experts thought Joe was the 39th best player a year ago? I mean… I know he missed April with back issues so maybe the votes last year were influenced by what was then Mauer’s “current performance”, but 39th?

Doc not impressing the TSN 'experts'?

The Twins’ other representative in the top 50 is another head-scratcher. Justin Morneau is ranked 23rd by these experts. If current performance is important, how is Doc’s 2010 not being recognized? He’s off to arguably the best start of his career. And he’s DROPPED 9 spots from last year?

The panel, as described by TSN, “included 18 Hall of Famers, 12 Cy Young award winners, 8 MVPs, 15 rookies of the year, 3 batting champions, 3 home run champions, 9 Silver Slugger award winners, 18 Gold Glove winners, 6 ERA champions, 4 World Series MVPs, 2 relievers of the year, 7 managers of the year, 5 former executives, 6 media members and 9 team broadcasters.” Sounds like a bunch of old men, to me.

Apparently senility has set in among some of those old “experts”.

It wouldn’t be a JimCrikket link fest without something from Joe Posnanski, of course… so I’m going to link to two of Joe’s recent efforts. Don’t worry, they’re both short.

First, Poz (I don’t know if that’s really a nickname he uses, but if it isn’t it should be) looked at the Hanley Ramirez fiasco and posed the question “What if it had been Jeter?”  He’s also given us a peek inside the Sports Illustrated tent and, as someone who’s giving some thought to buying an iPad in the near future, I found his “Sports Illustrated for iPad” posting of some interest.

You may have noticed how I’ve avoided any mention of last night’s loss to the East Coast Bitch Sox in Boston. It was aggravating on so many levels, but I think the thing that stood out the most, right from the start of the game, was the absolute joke that particular umpiring crew has become. Since the Twins have a “history” with some of those guys (remember Brendan Harris not being allowed a time out and having a pitch zip by him while not even looking?), it was probably predictable. But rather than me ranting today, I’ll just send you over to k-bro’s place to see her scientific (I’m sure) diagram of the strike zone last night.

I guess I need to get a little real work done this morning, so that’s enough for now. Check back later… if I come across any other interesting ingredients for today’s hot dish, I’ll add them as the day rolls on. – JC

UPDATE 1: I did mean to include this post from Jim Manelaro concerning the Stephen Strasburg “event” in Rochester. Strasburg, the uber-phenom of the Washington Nationals who is being kept busy mowing down minor leaguers until the Nats can be sure he won’t qualify for “super 2” arbitration status in a couple of years, pitched against the Red Wings Wednesday night.

He pitched well (although newly promoted Twin Trevor Plouffe did get one hit off him). As you’d expect, the Rochester stadium was overflowing (with a significant number of fans wearing Strasburg T-shirts sold at the stadium by the Red Wings!) and when Strasburg was finally relieved of duty, he was given a huge ovation as he left the field. However, he apparently did not acknowledge the ovation with the traditional “cap tip”, causing much of the ovation to turn to boos. This has apparently become a bit of a “thing” now. So my questions, working backwards a bit, are:

1- Why is it a big deal that Strasburg didn’t tip his cap to the opposing crowd?

2- Why would an opposing crowd be THAT enthusiastic in the first place toward an opposing pitcher?

3- What the heck were the Red Wings thinking when they printed up T-shirts and turned their entire crowd in to an 8,000-strong Syracuse/Strasburg love fest? (Yes, I know, money.)

4- I want to know what the Red Wing players… and for that matter the Twins organization… thinks of Rochester’s bizarre promotion of an opponent? (If I were a Red Wing player, I’d have been pissed!)

UPDATE 2: This one made me laugh and almost cheer a bit, as well. Seems the people who run the city of Los Angeles decided they should boycott the state of Arizona over the issue of their controversial immigration law. Now, this blog is not the place for me to express my feelings regarding the law itself, but I REALLY don’t like it when the people on either coast (who think they know everything and that the rest of us should do things the way the folks on the coasts tell us to) start throwing their weight around.

So THAT’S why I found this response from an Arizona Corporation Commission (an oddly named agency that oversees electrical power plants in Arizona) member to the Mayor of Los Angeles hilarious:

“If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives power from Arizona-based generation.”

Seems Los Angeles gets about 25% of their electricity from power plants in Arizona. Oops.

Yeah, I know it’s unlikely they could actually withhold electricity from LA, but any time someone is willing to stand up and say “stick it, jerk!” to bullies, I love it. I also know this article has almost nothing to do with baseball… except let me say that if Bud Selig actually does change his mind (what mind?) and pull the 2011 AllStar game from Arizona over this issue, the good people of Arizona should tell Bud to “stick it”, too. Immigration is a serious issue and should be dealt with by serious people… and that leaves out Bud Selig (and the LA City Council, too).

GameChat – Orioles @ Twins, 7:10

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I don’t know what happened to our weather but it seems like April and May decided to trade places this year.  But I guess that’s pretty much par for the course here in Minnesota.  If you don’t like the weather, wait 10 minutes and it will change.

Cool game time temps aside, here’s an update on a couple of the injury situations.  Joe Mauer actually took batting practice today even though he’s not in the lineup tonight, it’s promising that his return is slated for sooner rather than later.  And apparently, all that confusion and ill will involving Pat Neshek’s request to go on the DL was unearned.  According to a recent report at am1500, a new MRI has determined that his hand does have a problem – in the palm not the finger.  Which is why the treatment the team was giving him wasn’t actually helping, just making it less painful.  Unfortunately, it’s very reminiscent of the situation Cuddy had to deal with in his hand which had him on the DL for a LOT longer than 15 days.  Here’s hoping that now that they know what the real problem is, he’ll be back with us soon.  It must be driving him crazy to have a problem like this just when he was back.  Here’s hoping that we do well in his absence!

Baltimore @ Minnesota
Jones, A, CF   Span, CF
Markakis, RF   Hudson, O, 2B
Wieters, C   Morneau, 1B
Tejada, 3B   Thome, DH
Wigginton, 2B   Cuddyer, RF
Atkins, G, DH   Kubel, LF
Hughes, R, 1B   Ramos, W, C
Reimold, N, LF   Casilla, A, SS
Izturis, C, SS   Punto, 3B
  Bergesen, P     Pavano, P

 

Well that didn’t go the way I would have liked.  Sheesh.  But fantastic outting from Carl Pavano regardless – what a workhorse.  And I will admit that I laughed for 5 minutes after that bunt from Lexi that just rolled down the line.  Marvelous!

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Baltimore 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 7 1
Minnesota 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0

Ramos, Mauer and Morneau… who’s gonna go?

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Warning: This is another lengthy post from JC with the occasional use of numbers.

There have been a number of interesting things going on in the past few days and weeks that seemingly have nothing to do with one another and there’s been no shortage of media and blog attention to them individually. But I’m a “connect the dots” kind of person who tends to see patterns and conspiracies in just about any set of random events.

So it should come as no surprise to anyone that I would look at the new contracts of Joe Mauer and Ryan Howard, along with the remarkable Major League debut of Wilson Ramos, and see threads that bind them together.

Just so we’re all coming at things from the same starting point, let’s review a few things. All of Twins Territory knows Joe Mauer begins making $23 million a year next year and has a no-trade contract through the following eight years.

Phillies 1B Ryan Howard signed a lucrative (some would say absurd) extension that will pay him $20 million a year in 2012 and 2013 and $25 million from 2014 through 2016. By comparison, a couple of years ago, Justin Morneau signed a deal with the Twins that pays $14 million a year through 2013.

The Twins have generally spent about 50% of their revenues on their Major League payroll. With 2010 estimates coming in around $200 million in revenues and just south of $100 million in payroll, they seem to be continuing along the 50% path. It’s tough to imagine those revenues increasing much (if at all) as the newness of Target Field begins to wear off, so it’s also tough to imagine their payroll being allowed to increase significantly, either. But this isn’t a post about the Twins’ payroll anyway… well maybe it’s a little bit about payroll.

It’s not so much that the Twins may not have room in their payroll to afford their current stars, as it is that they may not have room on the field for them.

How could this possibly be? What happened? Things have been humming along nicely so far this season with nothing but the occasional “Kubel or Young?” debate among Twins faithful.

In short, Wilson Ramos happened.

Not that Ramos has come out of nowhere. Ramos has been one of the Twins top 3 prospects as ranked by Baseball America (and pretty much anyone else who ranks such things) for the past couple of years. In fact, he was BA’s Winter Player of the Year this past off season. There’s no such thing as a “sure thing” where baseball prospects are concerned, but the last time the Twins had a catcher in their system this close to being a “sure thing”, his name was Mauer.

The Twins didn’t have a lot of leverage in their negotiations this spring with Mauer and his agent, but what little they did have was named Ramos. If Mauer were not a Twin Cities native and/or if he and his agent had insisted on A-Rod money, Wilson Ramos might already be the Twins’ regular catcher.

In other words, while nobody should make too much of the hot start to his Major League career, nobody should make too little of it, either.  He’s good.

Seth Stohs posed the question of what to do about Ramos and Mauer in his TwinsCentric blog at the Strib. He proposed that the Twins have four options, though at least one of them arguably is not an option at all. Joe Mauer isn’t going to be traded any time soon and Ramos is almost certainly headed back to Rochester when Mauer is healthy enough to play every day again.

But what about next year? How long do you keep a guy like Ramos “down on the farm” once he’s demonstrated to you (and everyone else in baseball) that he’s ready to contribute at a high level in the Bigs?

The answer is, “you don’t”. In 2011, absent injury, Wilson Ramos will be a starting Major League catcher… somewhere.

The easy solution, when you’re the GM of a team that sees itself as a World Series contender, is that you trade a valuable, yet blocked, talent like Ramos to a team who is building for the future and has an established Major League ballplayer who’s getting too expensive for a team in that situation to keep. You don’t trade Wilson Ramos for washed up 35 year-olds, for one-year rentals, or for another team’s “prospects”. You get someone you KNOW will add wins to your record immediately.

But what if you want to keep Ramos? Well, despite what some people (who likely never played the game) seem to think, you can’t simply give Ramos a different glove and turn him in to a Major League third baseman. Everyone reading this has watched Nick Punto and Brendan Harris charge slow rollers or leap to their left or right to snag a ball, then make some sort of acrobatic throw to 1B for an out. And by now, everyone has gotten a look at Wilson Ramos. Seriously… do you see this guy making those plays? To my eyes, Wilson Ramos is a catcher and a very good catcher. He hits well, for a catcher. He is not and never will be a 3B. You don’t waste time making him your DH either. He’s just too valuable a commodity as a catcher.

No, if you want Wilson Ramos on the field for the Twins in 2011, Joe’s gotta go… probably 90 feet up the line to either 3B or 1B. Unlike Ramos, it’s not hard to imagine Joe Mauer excelling at either corner infield spot, given enough work at the job. He could also probably perform well in a corner OF spot, but the Twins have a pretty solid supply of corner OFs both on the Major League level and in the minors.

People I respect continue to maintain that Danny Valencia will become the Twins’ answer at 3B by 2011. If not, a couple of years behind him, they have Miguel Sano coming up. Sano is the Dominican prospect that the Twins shelled out over $3 million for last winter. But try finding a legitimate offensive threat among the first basemen in the Twins organization, not named Morneau.

And what about Morneau?

Well, this is where payroll comes in. See… I told you this was a “little bit” about payroll.

As I mentioned, Doc is locked in at $14 million a year through 2013. That seemed like a lot of money a couple of years ago. But that was before someone in the Phillies organization went insane and gave Ryan Howard a deal that will pay him $25 million annually starting in 2014… coincidentally, the same year that Morneau’s next contract will start.

But Howard’s deal is just the beginning. Between now and the time Morneau’s agent will begin negotiating his next deal, fellow star 1Bs Adrian Gonzalez, Prince Fielder and some guy in St. Louis named Pujols will have new deals. All of those players are likely to exceed Howard’s contract and they’ll be setting new bars for Morneau and his agent to be aiming for.

As much as I would love to see the Twins’ M&M boys ride off in to the sunset of their careers together in Twins uniforms, I simply can’t envision a scenario where that happens.

So if I’m the Twins’ GM and I look in to my crystal ball and see no Justin Morneau being re-signed and nobody in my farm system looking like the “next Morneau”, what do I do?

I trade Justin Morneau before the 2011 season.

In the next year or so, the Cardinals, Padres and Brewers are going to be faced with negotiating new deals with  Pujols, Gonzalez and Fielder for anywhere between $25 and $30 million a year (or trading those players to another team who will meet their respective prices). The market for Morneau, who will still have three years at a comparatively modest $14 million per year remaining on his contract, will never be higher.

The Twins are almost certainly going to lose Morneau, either by trade before his final contract year, or to free agency following 2013. Postponing the inevitable makes sense if you have nobody to replace him of comparable abilities. But that’s not the case, if you move Joe Mauer to 1B.

The bottom line is this. This off season, the Twins will have two valuable trade chips in Ramos and Morneau.

If the Twins won’t trade Ramos, they need to create a spot for him in the everyday lineup and the only logical spot is at catcher. Moving Mauer to 1B allows them to put Justin on the market. Morneau would likely bring back pitching and infield talent to upgrade multiple roster spots immediately and in to the future.

Of course, trading Ramos instead could also bring immediate help at other positions and if the Twins are prepared to say unequivocally that Joe Mauer will be catching for the foreseeable future, then trading Ramos makes perfect sense.

But that means that a couple of years later, they’ll have neither Ramos nor Morneau and, considering the abuse any catcher takes over the course of a couple of seasons, it’s a fair bet that the Twins will be forced to move Mauer to a new position by then anyway.

If I’m the GM, I listen to offers for Wilson Ramos this summer and if, say, the Royals decide they don’t want to pay Zach Grienke the $13.5 million they’re going to owe him starting next season, I’ll deal Ramos and strengthen my team right now. But absent that kind of “knock me off my feet” offer, I’m holding on to Ramos this year and if everyone stays healthy, I’m going to look for a good deal in return for Morneau after this season… and buy Joe Mauer a new first base mitt.

Off-day History Lesson: April 26-May 2

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I’m a bit of a history buff. I love reading about history. I love watching movies with at least a basis in history. So leading up to this baseball season, it should come as no surprise that any time I’ve ventured in to a bookstore, I’ve walked out with at least one book about baseball’s history.

That’s not to say I always read those books… at least not right away. In fact, I admit I bought two copies of Fay Vincent’s, “We Would Have Played For Nothing.” Obviously, I thought it would be a good book during a visit to a book store… twice.

Bob Showers’, “The Twins at the Met” is a terrific “coffee table” book for old timers like me who have so many great Metropolitan Stadium memories. Reading through it is like reliving every summer of my youth and my teen age years.

A year or two ago, I read “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Minnesota Twins”, by Steve Aschburner and found myself literally laughing out loud in public more than once and Jim Thielman’s “Cool of the Evening: the 1965 Minnesota Twins” is must reading for every Twins fan who remembers the 1965 Championship season.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I really enjoyed Joe Posnanski’s, “The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America”. In fact, I’d put that at the very top of my favorite “baseball books” list.

All of this is just leading me to today’s off-day rambling (hey, at least I’m not ranting about Bud Selig again!). I bought “162-0: The Greatest Wins in Twins History”, by Dave Wright, over the weekend. Mr. Wright’s premise is to go in to detail about the best (in his view) Twins victory that took place on most every date during a baseball season, from Ron Gardenhire’s first victory as the Twins’ manager on April 1, 2002 to Jack Morris’ 1-0 gem in game 7 of the 1991 World Series on October 27 of that year.

I’ve read enough to catch myself up to date in the season, but I’m trying not to read ahead too far. I’m enjoying reading a few days, corresponding with where we’re at in this season. Sometimes the game chosen by Wright to represent a particular date is unique because of something special one of the players did or because of something peculiar that happened during the game, but they all have one thing in common… a Twins victory. You have to love a book with 162 stories, all with happy endings! (Actually, it’s 167 stories, since Wright had to include last season’s game 163 plus four World Series victories!)

A Monday “off day” seems like a good day to provide a glimpse of the week ahead, April 26-May2… throughout Twins history. As you might imagine, not all of the interesting games the Twins played on a given date in history were captured in Wright’s “162-0”, so I’ve done a bit of web-searching to supplement the information in his book.

April 26 has been pretty uneventful, it turns out (unless you count April 26, 1986 when a game against the Angels was delayed when winds ripped a hole in the Metrodome roof.

Maybe April 27 is a better day to start with. We may find more eventful dates as we go forward with this (assuming I feel inspired to do this again some time), but until we do, April 27 presents a very interesting group of games.

Here’s what happened on April 27 in the year…

1961: 74 year old Ty Cobb threw out the first pitch before the first home game of the new LA Angels as they hosted the Twins. It was Cobb’s last visit to a ballpark prior to his death.

1969: Camillo Pascual hit a grand slam home run in the Twins’ 11-1 win over the Indians. What’s the big deal about that? Pascual was a pitcher for the Twins and this was the only grand slam home run ever hit by a Twins pitcher.

1969: Harmon Killebrew hit his 400th career home run over the BitchSox (yes, even in 1969, I’m sure the southsiders were bitches.)

1980: The Twins hand pitcher Geoff Zahn a 10-0 lead over the A’s in the first inning, but he doesn’t record a win. Zahn was removed after giving up 8 runs in less than five innings. Doug Corbett gets the win as the Twins outscore the A’s 20-11.

1994: Scott Erickson, after losing three straight games and seeing his ERA rise to 7.48, throws the third no-hitter (and the first in 27 years) for the Twins as they blank Milwaukee 6-0.

By comparison, April 28 has been relatively uneventful. In fact, the most eventful game on that date in Twins history was met with a collective sigh as they managed to beat the Orioles 4-2 in 1988… as the Orioles set a new AL record for consecutive losses at 21 games.

April 29 has seen a couple of interesting games.

1962: The Twins swept a doubleheader from Cleveland and, in the second game, they tied a MLB record by hitting six solo home runs… two by Johnny Goryl and one each by Bill Tuttle, Zoilo Versalles, Lenny Green and Don Mincher.

1970: Relief pitcher Stan Williams saved a 1-0 win over the Tribe for the Twins and Jim Kaat… without any Indian completing a plate appearance. With Tony Horton on 2B, Vada Pinson fouled off Williams’ first pitch. Before the next pitch, Williams (who had pitched the prior four seasons for Cleveland) picked Horton off 2B to end the game. Horton was not the first runner Williams had ever picked off. In fact, he had picked off Roberto Clemente once and Stan Musial twice in his career.

It may not seem like much, but given the problems the current Twins have had with the Yankees, Brad Radke’s 2-1 win over the Evil Empire on April 30, 2001 is something to celebrate, even now. Radke gave up only 6 hits, with the sole run being a Tino Martinez HR. Doug Mientkiewicz drove in both Twins’ runs, one with a solo HR.

May 1 has seen a couple of notable pitching performances from members of the organization’s Hall of Fame (and one memorable hitting performance by a future member of that HoF).

1988: Frank Viola shut out the RedSox 2-0 at Fenway Park. It was the first complete game thrown by a lefty against the RedSox in Fenway in over four years.

2005: The Angels beat the Twins 2-1 at the Dome, marking the first loss by Johan Santana in 20 starts, going back to the prior year. Santana had gone 17-0 during that span.

2009: After missing all of Spring Training and the month of April with a bad back, Twins catcher Joe Mauer makes a triumphant return when he drives a Sidney Ponson fastball over the left field wall for a home run in his first plate appearance of the season. The Twins beat the Royals 7-5.

The Twins have been busy boys on May 2 throughout their history as well.

1963: The Twins picked up Jim Perry from the Indians. Perry would win the Cy Young award in 1970.

1964: The Twins enter the top of the 11th inning in their game vs. Kansas City tied 3-3. Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall and Harmon Killebrew rip four consecutive home runs and the Twins win 7-3. Only two teams, prior to Minnesota, had gone back to back to back to back.

1967: It was 32 degrees at game time, the coldest start of any game played at Metropolitan Stadium, before the Twins beat the Yankees 13-4 in a game that lasts less than two and a half hours.

1992: They weren’t consecutive this time, but once again the Twins hit four home runs in one inning as Shane Mack, Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek and Randy Bush ‘go yard’ in the 5th inning vs. the Evil Empire. The Twins win 7-6.

2001: Over 40 fans are ejected from the Dome after umpires pull the Yankees off the field during the Twins’ eventual 4-2 win. The fans had been throwing objects at former Twin Chuck Knoblauch.

Kind of a lot of excitement for this year’s group of Twins to live up to this week, isn’t it?

-JC

GameChat – Twins @ Royals #2, 6:10

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The Bad News:  I don’t have any updates on Punto’s MRI or general condition – sorry Jan, I did look.  The Good News:  despite the thunderstorms in the KC area, it does look as though the game will start on time or very close to it.

Oh, and for the few australian folk who seem to regularly view the blog, Luke Hughes is now officially with the team – even woke up his mom in Perth at just after 5 am to give her the news. All I can say is that it’s a good thing she already loved him cause that is darn early. We do seem to really like the australian boys here in Minnesota. 🙂

Minnesota @ Kansas City
Span, CF   DeJesus, D, RF
Hudson, O, 2B   Podsednik, LF
Mauer, C   Butler, 1B
Morneau, 1B   Guillen, J, DH
Cuddyer, RF   Callaspo, 2B
Kubel, DH   Ankiel, CF
Young, D, LF   Kendall, C
Hardy, SS   Gordon, A, 3B
Harris, B, 3B   Betancourt, Y, SS
  Blackburn, P     Hochevar, P

 

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Minnesota 0 0 1 2 1 0 2 0 0 0 1 2
Kansas City 2 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0

 

ok… um..  I’m making a complete mess of my keyboard typing with the nubs I have left after chewing my fingernails to the knuckles.  There was a lot of angst and screaming in the chat room from those who weren’t holding their breath.  Kind of sad that it had to end on such a bad call – even if it was against KC.  You never really feel good about a W in that scenario but I loved that the guys kept battling back in the rain even after a 4 run deficit.

We elected Joe Mauer as BOD but award donuts AND cookies to Morneau and Cuddy.  The bullpen all gets dry socks and undies for hanging in there.  Hope the rest of the boys hit the showers, get warm and sleep quick.

It was also interesting to hear Gardy in the postgame come to the same conclusion about Blackburn being on too much rest and overthrowing his pitches that we suggested in the gamechat.  I don’t have any worries that Nick’s elbow might not be ready yet – he’s good, just gotta get back on schedule.

Just another walk in the (ball)park

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Spending the day at the Twins’ spring training complex, for me, involves spending a good bit of the morning on the minor league complex. I enjoy watching the coaches put the younger players through their drills and give a bit of instruction along the way. I thought this would be a good time to share a couple of pictures from my Sunday morning.

Twins pitching prospect David Bromberg gets some instruction.
Terry Ryan discusses the "Twins way" with prospect Ramon Santana... who tucked his jersey back in his pants.
Twins teen aged Dominican prospect Miguel Angel Sano gets in some work at 3B.

On the way back over to the Hammond Stadium, this familiar face was spotted on Field 5 (next to the stadium).

Joe Nathan signs autograph after a workout on the day he and the team announced he'll undergo TJ surgery.

Finally, a few shots taken during the Sunday afternoon game with the Rays. (No story today… nothing I could come up with would top the “story” of Joe Mauer signing a contract that will keep him a Twin for the next 9 years!)

Orlando Hudson turns a base hit in to an out vs. the Rays.
1B coach Jerry White congratulates Joe Mauer on his single vs. the Rays... or was it on the new contract?
Michael Cuddyer is congratulated by Thome and Morneau following his HR vs the Rays.

Trading Joe Mauer… and other nonsense.

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See, this is what happens when you give writers too much free time and too little real news to talk about. They start thinking. And, as Crash Davis told Nuke LaLoosh in the best baseball movie ever, “Don’t think. You’ll only hurt the ballclub.”

So a Strib columnist had nothing better to do this week than write a column hinting that (a) the Twins’ inability to sign Mauer at this point means there may be some sort of impasse in the negotiations, and (b) that such impasse means that Bill Smith will consider trading Mauer.

Now, personally, I think it’s possible that the whole column was intended to send a message to Smith and Mauer’s agent. Specifically, “We’re tired of nobody telling us what’s going on so until someone starts talking, we’re going to start making crap up!”

There’s been no indication from anyone anywhere (that I’ve heard or read) that the negotiations are in trouble. These folks are talking about paying one player amounts of money that come pretty close to what the Marlins have been paying to their entire team lately… and committing to do it for several years in the future. It should come as no surprise to anyone that it’s taking a bit longer than your run-of-the-mill contract negotiation.

Of course, if the first point did have any basis in fact, it would be hard to argue the second point. Obviously, IF the Twins were at the point where it was looking unlikely that they were going to be able to reach agreement with Mauer and his agent, then absolutely, they have to trade him. It could be argued that the Twins should have let Johan play out his final year and take the two draft picks they’d have received in compensation, rather than trade him for the mediocre (and that’s being generous, the way things worked out) return they got from the Mets. But Joe Mauer is in a whole different category from Santana.

Which brings me to the part of the original columnist’s article that I can’t laugh off… the part that makes you wonder if this guy pays any attention to Major League Baseball whatsoever.

Having dragged his audience to the conclusion that the Twins may not sign Mauer and thus may need to trade him, he proposes that the Twins trade him for… a relief pitcher.

Seriously? They should consider trading arguably the best player in the game, who’s likely entering his prime productive years, for bullpen help? Did he not see what the Jays got for Roy Halladay (Travis d’Arnaud, Kyle Drabek and Brett Wallace) or, in a more accurate comparison, what the Rangers got for Mark Tiexiera (they got Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Elvis Andrus, Neftali Perez, Matt Harrison, and Beau Jones from the Braves)? And the Twins should get who, for Mauer… Heath Bell?

Now, I realize that Bill Smith’s track record with Twins fans and the local media when it comes to making trades is not real positive. The Delmon Young trade and the Santana trade would hardly be considered “wins” for the organization at this point. But if Bill Smith traded Joe Mauer for a package of players headlined by a relief pitcher, he’d go down in baseball history as the biggest bonehead ever to hold a Major League GM title (and this is a club that includes people like Steve Phillips and Hawk Harrelson!).

It appears that Mauer and his agent have most of the negotiating power right now so if you’re Bill Smith and want to send the message that nobody is irreplaceable, that’s fine. Call the Yankees and ask them what they’d offer for Mauer. Given the direct pipeline the New York writers have to the Yankees Owners’ suite, that story will take all of 30 seconds to be published on the web. That would be “message sent” and you won’t have violated the agreement you’ve made with Mauer and his agent not to talk to the media about the negotiations.

But until we read something along those lines, my suggestion is, “chill”… and if you read or hear something that sounds like nonsense, consider the source because that’s probably exactly what it is. 

If Mauer wants to be a Twin for the rest of his career, he will be offered enough money to make sure he can do so and live in a manner that the rest of us can only dream of. But if it turns out that all the talk about how money isn’t the most important thing, how he’s more concerned about the Twins being committed to winning, etc., is all just PR garbage, the Twins and their fans will survive fine without him.

Unless, of course, Smith is as big a bonehead as any person suggesting he be traded for a relief pitcher.

Twins to sign new TV/radio deal… and Mauer, too?

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I hadn’t seen or heard anything about this in any of the “usual” online sources for Twins’ news that I read rather religiously (doesn’t mean it wasn’t there… I may have missed it), but Peter Gammons had this little nugget in his mlb.com report on the Twins:

“… regardless of the weather, the Twins will realize a significant bump in revenues with their new park. They’re about to sign a new radio and TV deal.

‘It’s not quite a Seattle deal,’ said one club official, but another says it will put the Twins within ‘the top 8-10 revenue teams,’ giving them a higher payroll than the Dodgers.”

Seriously? Although I guess maybe the whole soap opera revolving around the divorce of the Dodgers’ owner might be inhibiting the Dodgers’ payroll and, if so, maybe it’s not as big a deal as it sounds. I just assumed the Dodgers probably were one of the $100+ million payroll clubs.

I suppose it’s foolish to hope this new TV/radio deal will mean I’ll actually be able to watch/listen to Twins games in Eastern Iowa.

In any event… now that they’ve got this TV/radio contract pretty much ironed out, maybe they can make some progress on another contract issue of significant interest to the fan base.

UPDATE: Those of you who actually live in/near the Twin Cities probably can opine about the reliability of “Common Man”, but Jesse over at TwinkieTown posted a link to Common’s podcast in which he claims to have a source with a “family member with the Twins” who says a Joe Mauer contract agreement will be signed by Sunday. Eight years @ $22 mil per year plus a couple of option years. Sounds a bit like one of those “friend of a friend of a friend who has a sister who dates the janitor” kinda things to me… but who knows? We can hope, anyway.