Yeah, the fan angle is more what I was looking at it from. It'd be kinda like if Bagwell was traded after 1994 or if Biggio had ended up going to Colorado when he was a free agent.
Mauer plays the most demanding position on the field and has won more batting titles than all catchers in major league history combined. I strongly suspect if you poll every GM to pick one position player to start a team with, Mauer would be at the top of most everyone's list. He is also great defensively. As far as position players go, Mauer is certainly deserving of a large contract.
People forget how large St. Louis was back in the day. It was top five in America, as far as population back then. In 1920, St. Louis' population was 772,000 and it peaked at around 860,000 in 1950. For comparison's sake, Houston was at 138,000 in 1920 and 597,000 in 1950. Today, Houston is at 2.3 million and St. Louis at 354,000. So, that explains the large Cardinals following back in the day. It was like a Chicago.
Before mlb baseball came to Texas, this was Cardinals country, due largely to KMOX like otto said. Other than the game of the week, Cards baseball was all you could get on the radio up through the 60's. Their first affiliated minor league team opened in Houston in the early 1920's, btw.
Batting titles are generally worthless though without looking at other things. BA is a highly overrated stat in and of itself - without power, a 0.320 batting average doesn't mean a whole lot, and until last year, he had no power. I would also say one reason not a lot of catchers win batting titles is that the ones that are truly good hitters often get moved to other positions. Mauer likely eventually will be too - in part to keep his knees healthy, and in part so he can play more games. And if he does, then he becomes a fairly average offensive first baseman. I agree that he's a great catcher, both defensively and offensively. But he's not a $23MM catcher, and definitely not for a small market team. Overall, I would rank him below Piazza and Pudge in their primes as far as catchers to build around, and neither of them would be worth that kind of money either. A-Rod was a great SS when he got his contract. Utley is a great 2B - both of those are offensively-challenged positions like catcher, and they put up far superior numbers to Mauer. And I would argue that neither of those guys are worth that kind of money either. There's simply no way for the Twins to field a competitive team with 1 good-but-not-great offensive player taking up 33% of their payroll. An expensive offensive catcher is a nice luxury for a large market team - you can't build an offense around that though, so no small market team should be building around that.
I'm sure he'll end up on the Yankees once Posada retires. Or If the Sox choose to not get Martinez back.
You got to quit with the weak smack of he gets tested like every other player. How many drug test did Bond's fail that were administered by MLB? For that matter, how about A-Rod, Clemens, Sosa, Mcgwire, or any of the other big names that never got popped. And why would they be testing Pujol's more, unless they had a reason to? That just didn't even make sense. On the Lebron thing, How many times has he even averaged 30 points in a season, or 10 assists, or 10 rebounds? Those are not even numbers of greatness, but of a good season. He is a great all around player, but is not dominate in one area so much so that he stands out as being one of the best ever at it. You don't think him reaching 15,000 points 2 years quicker has anything to do with the fact he was NBA ready out of highschool? Most players went to college for 3 or 4 years back in the day, and most these days came out of highschool or 1 year of college now for a payday, while everyone knows they are not ready. They draft them on potential though. Again, there is no comparing Lebron and Pujol's. It doesn't even make sense to try and do so.
So let me get this straight. You believe Pujols took steroids because of this evidence you have right here____________________________. Thanks stop throwing out accusations when you have nothing reliable to go back on.
So let me get this straight. You believe Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, and whoever else is lumped in that group took steroids because of evidence you have right here____________________. It is the exact same thing other than some he said/she said. Most are not going to ever buy that they didn't use though. I guess with Pujol's, it is just more of a holding on to the last supposedly great clean player. If he is tarnished, then what big player does baseball have left? That is the only logic in refusing to acknowledge that his numbers in this era are suspicious at best. He fits the profile of the others to a tee, but he came into the league after PE's were prevelant, so we don't have a before and after with him. We are only seeing the after.
Exactly, we have no evidence for any of those players. We simply can conjure our own opinions whether they be right or wrong we will never know. I just refuse to assume all players took steroids because they played in the "steroid" era.
Double Post: Is it unreasonable to just think that possibly Pujols is a naturally great player. He was a beast in High School, beast in College, beast in the Minors, and now a beast in the majors. The guy is a flat out beast. After all he is the machine.
I'm not surprised when people throw out the steroids accusations at Pujols, but I still haven't really found someone who's presented an argument for why they think he has, apart from that he's been a tremendous hitter whose career began during the steroid era. I don't buy it. He's been a model of consistency and excellent performance, but he's not putting up the other-worldly numbers that Bonds was posting from 2001-2004, or the freakish power numbers of Sosa and McGwire. He's also been remarkably consistent from year-to-year, without posting any remarkable outlier seasons over the course of his career. I'm not going to say that I think he definitely HASN'T used PEDs, but it'll take a lot more evidence to convince me. Not that I really even care about PEDs.
Joe Mauer is good-but-not-great? Were you paying attention to baseball last season? The guy was injured the first month and promptly started raking. I'm not gonna waste the time looking it up, but I swear I remember he even led the AL in home runs at some point even after missing the first month. Sorry, but a good-but-not-great player doesn't lead the AL in batting average, on-base %, slugging, and OPS in the same season.
He hit 28 home runs last year...before last season, his HR totals were 9, 7, 13, 9, and 6. He is an very exceptional hitter...but I would not call him a great hitter, at least not yet. He has yet to drive in 100 runs as well. Last season, 3 players on the Twins hit more doubles, a couple hit more HRs, and 2 had more RBI's. He's got to improve his power numbers before you can call him a great hitter. Definitely not worth the contract he signed.
He's won 3 hitting titles and a MVP award while playing gold-glove defense at probably the most difficult position on the diamond and the toughest for sure to find decent hitting at. His career OBP is over .400 and he strikes out rarely. And he's 26 years old. I'd say he's worth the money.
Yep he's young and the best catcher in the game. Once again the Twins really had no choice even if this deal was more than what they wanted. If they didn't resign Mauer there was going to be an uproar in Minnesota.
Simple question: If you were starting a major league team using the players today (current age, abilities, etc.), who would be the first 3 position players you would take?
I would probably take Chase Utley, Hanley Ramirez, and Evan Longoria. All young, all the best at their position (in the case of the first two, by far), and all are elite hitters. Two of the three positions are offensively challenged (2B / SS). With three guys capable of 35 HR's and 20 SBs, the core of your offense is set. You could potentially replace Longoria with Ryan Braun, Ryan Howard, Miguel Cabrera, or Prince Fielder if you want more of a pure power hitter or a LF/1B instead of a 3B. All of those guys would be cheaper than Mauer and are substantially better offensive players. With those three, you could afford to spend cheaply on a defensive catcher.
Mauer is arguably the 2nd best player in MLB. Health is the biggest concern with him over the length of that deal.
To clarify, if you believe last year's Mauer is the real Mauer, then the deal could sort of make sense for the Yankees. Personally, I don't believe Mauer is going to maintain that level - nothing in his history suggests it. I expect more of a 15-18 HR type guy, 0.900 OPS guy. There were 10 catchers last year that hit 15 HRs - the OPS would certainly be very good though. 50 yr old Jorge Posada put up numbers similar to what I expect from Mauer (22 HRs, 0.880 OPS). That said, looking at my list, I didn't realize Utley was as old as he actually is, so he might not be ideal. Kinsler might be a better option if you really want a 2B, but I'm not totally sold on him. Depending on how long your time frame is, Braun might make more sense.
