Fire Gardy

I don’t think the importance of Mauer to the Twins would come as a surprise to anyone around here, what with the mounting worry that his injury is worse than we’ve been told and we’ll be Mauer-less at the start of the season. But it’s finally trickled around to ESPN, where it’s apparently Twins Day in Buster Olney’s world.

As a small-market club, the Twins don’t have a lot of veteran stars, and Mauer might be the best player in the majors at his position — an MVP candidate, as Gardenhire said.

It’s true that the Twins don’t have a lot of veteran stars. But I’d venture to say it’s not because we’re a small market club … for the following reasons:

1. The Twins are not a small market club. They have the 14th largest media market in MLB, which puts them squarely in the “mid-market” classification.
2. The Twins have one position player who might start who’s 30 years old (Cuddyer). The entire rotation is 27 or under. Can’t have veteran stars without veterans.
3. How many teams, small- mid- or large-market, have “a lot of veteran stars” on the roster? A couple?

And why clarify that Gardenhire called Mauer an MVP candidate? He finished 4th in the MVP voting last year. He was an MVP candidate.

But how important is Mauer? Like Olney, let’s have Gardy tell us:

“You’re talking about a guy who helped turn a pitching staff into a pretty good group,” Gardenhire continued. “Not to mention that he’s a batting champion. Your third hitter. Can we list more than that? So yeah, he’s pretty important.”

Oh Gardy. So articulate.

First, I suppose Mauer could have helped turn the pitching staff into a pretty good group. He probably hasn’t hurt. There’s really no way to measure this, anyway. But in the interest of having fun, let’s look at the team ERA+ over the years. Since 2001, the Twins pitching staff has yielded ERA+ numbers of: 101, 108, 103, 117, 119, 113, 104, 97.

That jump from 103 to 117 coincided with Mauer’s rookie season. But he only played 35 games. I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that he wasn’t the biggest catalyst in the improvement of the pitching staff. Instead, I’d pin that on Santana’s 182, Radke’s 136, Nathan’s 292, Crain’s 236 ERA+ that year. Can anyone really say that breakout 2004 campaigns from Santana, Nathan, and Crain happened because Mauer played 35 games?

And if Mauer is the reason that the pitching staff got good … well, what happened in 2007 and 2008?* Should he take some blame for the precipitous drop in the team’s pitching acumen? Or should it be be put on the shoulders of Boof (85), ROrtiz (84), and Ponson (63) in 2007 and Livan (74), Boof (68), Rincon (66), Bass (83), and Guerrer (78) in 2008? It’s possible Mauer forgot how to manage a pitching staff and/or became a big jerk after winning his first batting title. But I don’t think it’s all that likely. I’d put it more on the pitchers.**

* Seriously, the Twins pitching staff was below average in 2008. At least when it comes to ERA. I’d guess a huge chunk of that is due to defensive declines. Largely from Delmon in LF, Harris at SS/2B, and Buscher at 3B. If we tighten up the defense just enough to get the team ERA+ back into the 105 range, the pitching staff will look good again.

** Also the position players. See above.

I, um, got sidetracked a little bit there. Onwards, then, to … Gardy’s point #2! Mauer is a batting champion. Yes. A two time batting champion. This is valuable to a team, no doubt. But coming in second both years would have been pretty much exactly as valuable to the team (and he barely beat Jeter in 2006 and barely beat Pedroia in 2008, so he “almost” has zero batting titles, for what that’s worth … which, in the United States of Boston and New York, is a lot, considering that Jeter and Pedroia actually play for real teams and Mauer just plays for the Twins). But I really have no quibble with Gardy here. Mauer can hit. That’s a good thing.

Point number three. Mauer bats third in the lineup. This really has no bearing on Mauer’s value to the team one way or the other. He’s only batting third because Gardy’s stuck in 1950, when you constructed your lineup based on “speed in the top two spots, highest batting average in the three hole, RBI Guys at 4 & 5, and then stick the other losers where you feel like they’ll fit and stay happy, and never change the order around or guys will get confused and uppity and refuse to play.” Mauer should be our #2 hitter. But it has exactly zero bearing on his actual value to the team.* He’s still the same player.

* Actually, I contend that Mauer would be MORE valuable as a #2 hitter. He’d be an OBP player in an OBP position, and he’d get 50 more plate appearances over the course of the season. That’s more RBI opportunities for Morneau and whatever right handed bat we slide into #3. Given that scoring runs is the goal, I’d say that sounds more valuable. Also, not the point.

Okay, that was three things. 100% of Gardy’s reasons why Mauer is valuable. Two of them are meaningless — ie, have no bearing on Mauer’s value one way or the other. The third (or in this case, second) is so painfully obvious that I can’t believe I’m even talking about it. “Why is Mauer valuable to your team?” “He’s a good hitter, Kent.” Ah. I would never have thought of that.

Now that I’ve distracted you (at least for a little while) from the pain of realizing that Mauer might be injured … it’s time for reality to come crashing down on you! I am the destroyer of worlds, and all hope is lost!*

Mike Redmond is a respected backup who’s highly valued by the Twins, but Gardenhire does not see the 37-year-old as an option as an everyday catcher. “I don’t think he’s built for that,” Gardenhire said. “I think he’s built for his role, and we all understand that pretty well, and I think he does, too. Would he try? Absolutely he would. But I don’t think that’s his role on this team.”

* All hope is not really lost. And I have destroyed no worlds. I just thought that went really well at the end of that paragraph. I may or may not be right about that, but it’s too late now to go back and change it. So we’re just going to go with it.

Yeah, I like Redmond too. But I think Gardy’s right about this one. He’s not really a viable everyday player any more. And this might be his last year in the majors before he takes a year or two off to fish, or hunt, or look like Bruce Willis whenever he’s wearing a helmet, or whatever it is that retired Mike Redmonds do when they retire. And then after that he’ll hopefully come back to the Twins organization and be a coach at some level. That’s all a roundabout way of saying that, no, Redmond is not going to be a longterm replacement for Mauer this season. Or ever.

The Twins do have a couple of promising catching prospects in their system. Jose Morales, 26, played in Triple-A last year and hit .315 in 54 games. The Twins are excited by what they see in 21-year-old Wilson Ramos, who slammed 13 homers and hit .288 in Class A last year.

Morales might be ready to stand in for a month or two, and he does have a 1.000 career average in the majors. He’s probably the best option in case Mauer’s not available. But did you know that Morales is older than Mauer?! I had no idea. I just naturally assumed he was a couple years younger. This is a huge problem for Morales. The best thing he can hope for is that he gets a month or two this year, does really well, and then gets traded to a team that might use him before he gets old and broken.* Ramos is still young and in A ball … he should not be in the majors this year. It’s out of the question.

* I am not considering, at this time, the possibility that Mauer may be gone in 2011. Today is dark enough without that nightmare to think about. Thanks for bringing it up, by the way.

And, so, where were we? Nowhere new, I suppose. We’re still waiting on new about Mauer. We still can do nothing but hope for the best.

But Mauer probably ranks somewhere among the game’s five players most important to their respective teams, and the Twins badly need some good news about his condition as they prepare for what should be an extremely competitive race in the AL Central.

I think the AL Central race will be tight whether we have Mauer for a full season or for just 4-5 months. But he very well could be the difference between coming out on top … or coming up short.

I’ll try to keep everyone posted on all the minor trivialities in the ongoing Mauer Injury Saga 2009 (#1). Also the major trivialities, in case you were wondering if I’d skip those.*

* But seriously. Did you even read this article? Is it even remotely believeable that I’d skip some triviality, minor or major? Exactly.

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