Tag: Joe Mauer

Top 10 Twins draft picks this century

Position Players

Joe Mauer retires. Click on image to make it larger.
  1. Joe Mauer picked as a catcher 1st overall in 2001 and is retired with a 55.0 WAR all with the Twins from 2004-2018.
  2. Brian Dozier picked as a collegiate shortstop in the 8th round in 2009 and is currently playing for the Nationals. Current career WAR is 23.3 and WAR with Twins from 2012 to 2018 was 23.8.
  3. Denard Span picked as an outfielder in the 1st round (20th overall) in 2002 and is currently not playing. Current career WAR is 26.2 and WAR with the Twins from 2008 to 2012 was 13.2. 
  4. Eddie Rosario picked as an outfielder in the 4th round of the 2010 draft and currently playing left field for the Twins since 2015 and has a 10.2 career WAR.
  5. Trevor Plouffe was selected as a shortstop in round 1 (20th overall) of the 2004 MLB draft. Plouffe is not playing this season after being released by the Phillies and has a career WAR of 8.2. When playing for Minnesota from 2010 to 2018 his WAR was 8.6.
  6. Byron Buxton was selected as an outfielder in 2012 with the 2nd overall pick in round 1. Has played center field for the Twins off and on since 2015 and has a career WAR of 8.5.
  7. Jason Kubel was selected as an outfielder in round 12 of the 2000 draft and played for the Twins in 2004, sat out 2005 due to injury and from 2006-2011 putting up a 3.7 WAR before leaving as a FA. Career 4.1 WAR.
  8. Mitch Garver was drafted as a collegiate catcher in the 9th round of the 2013 draft and has been with the Twins off/on since 2017 and has put up a 2.6 career WAR.
  9. Aaron Hicks was drafted as an outfielder in round 1 (14th overall) and played for the Twins on/off from 2013-2015 before being traded to the Yankees. Hicks WAR with Minnesota was 2.3 and he now is up to a 10.2 career WAR with the Yankees.
  10. Danny Valencia was drafted as a collegiate third baseman in round 19 and played for the Twins from 2010 to 2012 before being traded to Boston. Valencia put up a 0.9 WAR with the Twins. I believe Valencia is not playing in 2019 and has a career WAR of 5.6.

 

Pitchers

Scott Baker – click on image to make it larger.

Scott Baker (collegiate RHP) was a 2nd round pick in 2003 and started for the Twins from 2005-2011 and had a 15.7 WAR. After TJ surgery he pitched for Cubs, Rangers and Dodgers thru 2015 and ended up with a 15.6 career WAR.

Kyle Gibson (collegiate RHP) was a 1st round pick and 22nd overall in 2009 and is currently in the Twins starting rotation (since 2013) with a current career WAR of 9.6.

Glen Perkins (collegiate LHP) was a 1st round compensation pick (22nd overall) in 2004 from the Mariners for signing Eddie Guardado as a FA. Perkins joined the Twins in 2006 and pitched thru 2017. Perkins was a starter in 2008-2009 but ended his career as a closer with a career WAR of 8.7.

Brian Duensing (collegiate LHP) was a 3rd rounder in 2005 and pitched for the Twins from 2009-2015 primarily in relief but he did some spot starting early in his career. Twins WAR was 6.3. Duensing is currently with the Cubs and has a career WAR of 6.2.

Jesse Crain (collegiate RHP) was picked in round 2 in 2002 and pitched in relief for Minnesota from 2004 thru 2010 before moving on to the White Sox where he finished his career in 2013. Twins WAR was 5.4 and career WAR was 11.4.

Jose Berrios (high school RHP) was picked in round 1 and 32nd overall as a compensation pick for the loss of FA Michael Cuddyer in 2012. Berrios is currently in the Twins starting rotation (since 2016) and has a career WAR of 5.2.

Taylor Rogers (collegiate LHP) was picked in round 11 in 2012 and has been a reliever in the Twins bullpen since 2016 and has posted a career WAR of 4.6.

Kevin Slowey (collegiate RHP) was picked in the 2nd round and 73rd overall in 2005 and was used primarily as a starter for Minnesota from 2007-2011 and had a 4.4 WAR. He finished his career with Miami 2013-2014 with a career WAR of 4.7. 

Nick Blackburn (collegiate RHP) wasn’t picked until round 29 (857th overall) in 2001 and spent his entire career with Minnesota from 2007-2012 and put up a 3.1 career WAR.

Pat Neshek (collegiate RHP) was picked by the Twins in round 45 in 1999 but didn’t sign and was again picked by the Twins in 2002 in round 6 and was a Twins relief pitcher from 2006-2010 with a year off in 2009 for TJ surgery and posted a WAR with the Twins of 3.0. Since then Neshek has pitched for six other big league organizations (currently with Philly) and has a career WAR of 10.9.

 

Some observations

Seven of the ten position players on the list were drafted out of high school.

Just one of ten pitchers on the list was drafted and signed out of high school.

Only five of the ten position players on the list are first round picks. 

Three of 10 pitchers are first round picks.

Position players on the list not picked in round 1 were selected in rounds 4, 8, 9, 12, and 19.

Pitchers on the list not selected in round one were picked in rounds 2, 2, 2, 3, 6, 11, and 29.

Seems like the Twins should draft position players out of high school and pitchers out of college.

 

 

Looking at Minnesota Twins drafts this century

With the June Amateur Free Agent draft just a month or so away maybe it is time to look back and see who the Twins have drafted this century that has made an impact on the Minnesota Twins major league team. We all know that very few prospects make it to the big leagues and even fewer are stars, here is how the Twins have fared. Keep this in mind before you get overly excited about the Twins picks in this years drafts.

 

Twins draft choices since 2000

 

2000 draft – 52 drafted, 30 signed and 5 put on a Minnesota Twins uniform

Best Twins player – Jason Kubel (OF) was a 2nd round selection picked out of high school and debuted on August 31, 2004 and had a career WAR of 4.1. RETIRED

Wore a Twins uniform briefly – Josh Rabe (OF), J.D. Durbin (RHP), Adam Johnson RHP was 1st rounder and second pick overall) and Jason Miller (LHP)

2001 draft – 50 drafted, 33 signed, 3 put on a Minnesota Twins uniform and 1 played in big leagues for another team

Joe Mauer

Best Twins players – Joe Mauer (C) a Minnesota native was the number one overall pick out of Cretin High School and he debuted on April 5, 2004 and played with Minnesota throughout his career that ended after the 2018 season. Won an MVP, six time All-Star, five time Silver Slugger, three time Batting Champion and three time Gold Glove winner. Career WAR of 55.0. RETIRED

Best Twins players – Nick Blackburn was a collegiate right-handed pitcher drafted in round 29 and debuted on September 7, 2007. Blackburn pitched his entire career for the Twins from 2007-2012. RETIRED with a 3.1 career WAR.

Wore a Twins uniform briefly –  Jose Morales (drafted as a shortstop but switched to catcher).

Played in big leagues for another team – Kevin Cameron (RHP).

Continue reading Looking at Minnesota Twins drafts this century

How will the Minnesota Twins fare in 2019

The Minnesota Twins are an IF team. IF Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano play up to their abilities than Twins fans might be in for a lot of fun and exciting baseball. IF those two important cogs don’t show more than they did last season the Twins will once again struggle to get to the .500 mark.

The Derek Falvey regime has three off-seasons in the books and begins their third season on the playing field. When the year is done we should have a good feel for where this team is. We know the organization has gone head over heels for technology with expensive toys all over and more nerds in the front office than they probably have room for. Owner Jim Pohlad must feel like he gave Falvey an unlimited budget and he has already exceeded it with his organization rebuild.

I can’t help but feel that the Twins organization is so busy trying to help their players with technology that they forget what baseball is really all about. I am no spring chicken and I am not from Missouri but you have to show me that the new ways work better than the old. In spite of my concerns about the organization I am cautiously optimistic that Sano and Buxton will start to shine and help the team achieve the success we all hope for.

The post Joe Mauer era is here, there will be no Twins number 7 on the playing field. With Cleveland dumping some players and seemingly not trying to improve I think that the Minnesota Twins can over take the Indians this season and win the division by two games. I see the Chicago White Sox getting better and finishing in third place followed by the Detroit Tigers and the Kansas City Royals occupying the AL Central cellar with a 100+ loss season.

I can’t wait for the season to start and for the Twins to show me what they got! What about the rest of you, how do you think the Twins will do? Leave a comment with your prediction.

Twins hitters best seasons by position

Although WAR is not always the best answer on how good a player is/was, I find it useful in doing player comparisons. The B-R tool regards a WAR of 2+ as a starter, 5+ an All-Star and 8+ as MVP worthy. Remember too what I am doing here covers position players only, we will leave the pitchers for another day.

Rod Carew

First Base – Having watched the Minnesota Twins for many a year I was pretty sure what Twins player had the best season in team history and when I put Play Index to work, sure enough it verified for me that Hall of Famer Rod Carew and his 1977 season in which he made a run at hitting .400 at the age of 31 stood at the top. If you missed seeing Carew play ball in Minnesota I feel bad for you because you missed out on seeing one of the best baseball players ever. There have been eleven seasons by Twins players when someone had a WAR of 7.0 or greater, Carew had four of them. 

Continue reading Twins hitters best seasons by position

Twins laying the groundwork for what’s to come

A lot of Minnesota Twins fans are frustrated that the Twins front office isn’t doing more to improve the Twins team. With Joe Mauer retired and his $23 million salary no longer on the books many fans figured the Twins would spend some money, and they have, but not much of it. If the 2019 season started tomorrow, the Twins payroll would sit at about $98 million after spending around $131 million in 2018. 

But Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have told us they are busy laying ground work for rebuilding the Minnesota Twins organization from the ground up and it will take some time.

It wasn’t until I stopped by the CenturyLink Sports Complex this afternoon that I fully understood what they meant. At the rate it is going it will take some time, here is what I found when I got there.

I didn’t get close enough to tell for sure but I think that is Falvey in the red shirt and Levine with the green shirt.

Here I think we have Mr. Pohlad himself on the Bobcat leveling the playing field. 

 

And he goes down swinging!

Harmon Killebrew

We all know that strikeout rates are up all across baseball for the last few years but today we will look at Minnesota Twins batters and their strikeout rates going back to 1961. We used B-R’s amazing Play Index to find what we were looking for.

The top two all time Twins leader in strikeouts are Harmon Killebrew with 1,314 and Joe Mauer with 1,034. Mauer? What the heck? Longevity can do strange things to numbers and the devil is in the details.

Continue reading And he goes down swinging!

Best seasons by Twins position players & pitchers

As the Twins prepare for their 59th season of play in Minnesota we should look back and be thankful for some great seasons these players have given us in the past. I am using B-R Play Index to come up with the ten greatest seasons by Minnesota Twins players over the years and I am once again using WAR as the tool to do this. I think you might be surprised at some of these.

Continue reading Best seasons by Twins position players & pitchers

2018 Twins Turkey of the Year is:

The 2018 baseball season is in the books, free agents everywhere are sitting back and waiting for the offers to pour in, a number of teams (including our Twins) have hired new managers. The temperature is 31 degrees outside and there is a slight coating of snow on the ground here in Plymouth so we know it is time to start sorting our candidates for the 2018 Twins Turkey of the Year.

The Twins finished in second place again this season behind the Cleveland  Indians. This past season the Twins were 78-84 as compared to 85-77 in 2017 and this year they were just 13 games back as compared to 17 games behind the year previous. Yet the 2018 Twins were looked on as failures as compared to the 2017 team that was a Wild Card participant albeit for just the one game against the New York Yankees. Manager Paul Molitor was the American League Manager of the Year in 2017 and after the 2018 season ended he found himself unemployed along with most of his coaching staff after signing a new three-year contract just a year earlier. Twins fans were unhappy and attendance dropped to its lowest point since 2004 at the Metrodome. Meanwhile the Twins Front Office added to staff and continued the “new ways of fielding a winning team” such as increasing the number of shifts, playing four outfielders here and there and jumping on the new “opener” strategy employed by teams such as Tampa Bay and Oakland.  

Continue reading 2018 Twins Turkey of the Year is:

Joe Mauer calls it a career and a fine one it was

Joe Mauer

I was watching the KARE 11 News the other day (November 9) when they announced the breaking news that Joe Mauer had announced his retirement. It caught me by surprise but yet I wasn’t surprised at all, it was still kind of shocking. Joe Mauer has been in the sports news in Minnesota since I first heard of him in the late 90’s when he played and starred in three sports at Cretin-Derham Hall High School.

Then Mauer was drafted number 1 overall by the Minnesota Twins in the 2001 June amateur free agent draft. He spent 2001 playing for Elizabethton in the Rookie League, in 2002 he was in Low A ball with Quad Cities in the Midwest League, and in 2003 he started the season with High A Ft. Myers before being bumped up to AA New Britain.

In 2004 the Baseball America number 1 overall rated prospect Joe Mauer made the Twins team in spring training bypassing AAA ball and was the Twins Opening Day catcher on April 5 at the Metrodome in front of 49,584 Twins fans as a 21 year-old. Mauer hit eighth in the line-up that day getting a walk, a strikeout, a walk, and then two singles in his five plate appearances against the Cleveland Indians. Indians starter CC Sabathia was sharp that night and limited the Twins to just two hits over seven innings and was pulled with a 4-0 lead after throwing 104 pitches. The Twins however came back with four runs in the bottom of the eighth sending the game into extra-innings. In the bottom of the eleventh inning Jacque Jones struck out, Matt LeCroy walked, Joe Mauer walked, Cristian Guzman struck out before Shannon Stewart hit a walk-off three-run home run off Chad Durbin for a Twins 7-4 win over the Indians. Joe’s big league career was underway.

Mauer’s second big league game was not on local TV thanks to Victory Sports and it ongoing negotiations with cable and satellite providers, what a game to miss. The Twins won 7-6 in the 15th inning on a bases loaded two out walk-off single by Jose Offerman off Indians reliever Jake Westbrook after five hours of baseball was played. Joe Mauer was the starting catcher and singled in the third inning but was pinch-run for at that point by Henry Blanco. Earlier in the inning Mauer had raced back for a foul ball pop-up and slid in front of the wall on the rubber warning track behind home plate and heard a “pop” in his left knee. By the time the game ended the home-town Twins had lost Mauer, Johan Santana, and Torii Hunter due to injuries. After the game it was thought that Mauer’s injury was just a mild sprain. However; the next day Mauer went on the DL, the first of ten times he will see his name on the DL during his 15 year big league career. A few days later, April 8th, Joe ends up having surgery to repair a medial meniscus tear in his left knee. Mauer returns to the line-up on June 2 but continues to have trouble off and on with the knee swelling and he plays in his final 2004 game on July 15 and his first season as a Twin ends after just 35 games but in that short period he showed all of us what kind of bat he had as he hit .308 in 107 at bats.

Mauer went on to become a six-time All-Star, win three batting titles, win 5 Silver Slugger awards, win three Gold Gloves, and won the 2009 AL MVP award. Mauer start playing first base periodically starting in 2011 and became a regular at first base in 2014 after concussion problems forced him to give up his catchers gear after the 2013 season. Joe made one more appearance as a catcher in a Twins uniform in his final game in 2018 albeit for just one pitch. Many wondered if it was his last game for the Minnesota Twins but Mauer stuck to his guns and said he would decide soon, on November 9 he did just that with a letter to the fans.

Joe Mauer is one of those players that comes along once in a generation but yet took more than his share of abuse from home-town fans in spite of his baseball skills primarily for two reasons, his $184 million eight-year deal he signed in 2010 and the fact that he didn’t play every day. Catchers don’t play every day but fans thought that if you make $23 million a year you best have your butt on the field day in and day out. To his credit Joe never complained.

As is true with may players, their star shines more brightly after they have retired. I remember Harmon Killebrew being criticised for striking out too often, being slow, and poor in the field. Rod Carew was said to be a terrible baserunner and had a surly attitude. We are talking Hall of Fame players here.

That brings up a good point, is Joe Mauer going into the MLB Hall of Fame? He is borderline and the fact that he had to leave his natural position as a catcher due to injury and become a light-hitting first baseman does not work in his favor. That said, his numbers, skills, and longevity are a plus. If I had to bet I would say that yes, Joe Mauer will be a Hall of Famer and here is why. It can be argued that Mauer was the best catcher in baseball when he was forced to change positions due to concussion issues. Concussions are a big deal in sports today and will be looked upon as valid issues in the future. Another reason and maybe even more important is Joe Mauer’s personality. Everybody loves the wholesome All-American boy who pushed milk in ads and that all of baseball respected. Heck, he was never even ejected from any of his 1,858 big league games. Mauer was alway Mr. Clean on and off the field, if he ever did anything bad, only he knows.

Good luck Joe Mauer as you move to another phase of your life, I sure hope we will be seeing a lot of you around Hammond Stadium and Target Field in the future.

Some good Twins articles

I am posting a copy of the Sunday, September 30 Minnesota Twins Daily Clips because there are a number of great Minnesota Twins articles here that many of you might not get a chance to read as this horrendous 2018 Minnesota Twins season comes to and end.

Today’s game could also be the end of the line for the Joe Mauer train as he approaches what might be his final stop. Joe Mauer eight-year $184 million deals ends today and the question remains, does Mauer’s career also end? We all have a perception of Joe Mauer but maybe one of the articles on this PDF will change that. The article was written by Dan Hayes for “The Athletic” (a pay site) and is well worth your read here. Who would have thought?

Joe Mauer – credit to Bruce Kluckhohn

I hope that Mauer keeps playing for the Twins, maybe not full-time and certainly not at the money he has made but he is a Minnesota Twins icon and there is no one on this team ready to fill those shoes as yet.

Twins Clips_9_30_2018