Reusse: On court, pals Moe Hargrow, Joe Mauer put on a show

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Ope3 said:
I would explain the Salary Cap to you, but I fear you may be suffering from a concussion.

Phil Hughes also wound up to be worse.
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Any contract less than 8 years was better. Oh, and explain the cap for me.
 

Goldteam said:
For 8 years Mauer stepped in the box and you never felt any excitement.
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How to measure a contract: Did Goldteam feel sufficiently "excited" when you stepped into the batters box? No? Bad contract!
 

Goldteam said:
His contract was brutal for 8 years. You won't find a worse contract in Minnesota history. If you disagree, maybe you should quit.
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Ricky Nolasco. Phil Hughes. Wiggins. Just to name a few.
 


howeda7 said:
How to measure a contract: Did Goldteam feel sufficiently "excited" when you stepped into the batters box? No? Bad contract!
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Do you want me to post the production numbers instead?
 


GopherBlood666 said:
Completely agree. He never lived up to that contract, he was paid for what he had already done with the hopes it would continue. Basically the same as every other player that signs a contract in pro sports whom is still in their prime. It is only an issue when that player regresses in performance which was the case with Mauer. If he had produced accordingly or exceeded expectations, no one would have complained. I don't think it is a coincidence they are having success this year now that we are free of that contract.
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Joe's contract had nothing to do with the teams lack of success, they gave contracts north of 15 million to guys like Pelfrey, Hughes, Worely, Correia, Santana etc. Last year they struck out on guys like Morrison and Lance Lynn. To be fair they hit in guys like Willingham and to an extent Suzuki and Castro. This year they hit on their targets at relatively cheap deals. Cron wasn't guaranteed anything, he had to beat out Austin who got waived, Schoop was on his last rights this off-season after last year. Marwin was suppose to be a utility player,. Cruz was the prize signing and even that was realtively cheap. It's painful to watch Cron field, I would absolutely take Mauer back at the 10-12 million he would've been offered. Twins spent wisely, that's why they're winning, not Mayer's fault Terry Ryan was mailing it in from 2012 and on

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Goldteam said:
Minnesotans are so passive on sports I highly doubt that.

burned target field down is the phrase always used.

Can you imagine if we'd have let Joe go to the Yankees. I'd feel sorry for Joe had that happened.

joe would have flamed quickly and the Minnesota faithful may have just had their eyes open quickly.
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Joe would've hit so many home runs to that short post in left field, it would look like wiggle ball. Fenway he probably would've broken records for doubles off the green monster. Those parks were Taylor made for him

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Goldteam said:
short contracts......they sucked, but mauer sucked for 8 years at 23 million a pop! Do you have any recollection of this? The wolves should have sold T-Hud as their franchise.

Mauer performed on their level.........except for 8 years at 23 million a pop!
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Mauer was All-star in three of those years,

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bemidjigopher said:
Joe would've hit so many home runs to that short post in left field, it would look like wiggle ball. Fenway he probably would've broken records for doubles off the green monster. Those parks were Taylor made for him

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oh, for sure!
 




KoolAid said:
I still have nightmares about playing Jimmy Lee as a kid. We couldn't even get the ball past mid-court most of the time.
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They were always tough to play against during my Traveling days as well.

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bemidjigopher said:
Joe's contract had nothing to do with the teams lack of success, they gave contracts north of 15 million to guys like Pelfrey, Hughes, Worely, Correia, Santana etc. Last year they struck out on guys like Morrison and Lance Lynn. To be fair they hit in guys like Willingham and to an extent Suzuki and Castro. This year they hit on their targets at relatively cheap deals. Cron wasn't guaranteed anything, he had to beat out Austin who got waived, Schoop was on his last rights this off-season after last year. Marwin was suppose to be a utility player,. Cruz was the prize signing and even that was realtively cheap. It's painful to watch Cron field, I would absolutely take Mauer back at the 10-12 million he would've been offered. Twins spent wisely, that's why they're winning, not Mayer's fault Terry Ryan was mailing it in from 2012 and on

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No one is saying it's anyone's fault. What I'm saying is he sucked balls over that massive contract.

You can call out Wiggins, Cousins, Parise,(all who have at least the equal production) etc.........................but Joe is off limits.

Why?
 

Willingham in 2012, Mourneau was voted the starting first baseman in 2010 before he got hurt breaking up a DP. Believe Perkins also made in 2013. Not sure Delmon Young made it in 2010, he had 110 RBI that year

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Goldteam said:
No one is saying it's anyone's fault. What I'm saying is he sucked balls over that massive contract.

You can call out Wiggins, Cousins, Parise,(all who have at least the equal production) etc.........................but Joe is off limits.

Why?
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You're moving the goal post, they're not relavant to the conversation. Parise been a 30 goal scorer when healthy and is one of the best two players in the game, plus he scores in the post season, Wiggins sucks, pure waste of talent, should've moved him instead of Lavine. Cousins I'll give another year, need to fix the online as well. Mauer will be an HOF, after five years, they'll remember that in a ten year span there wasn't a catcher in the history of the game who hit as well as him and was the best behind the plate as well. Piazza was terrible in the field and he got in

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Goldteam said:
They weren't 8 year contracts, so how could they possibly be worse? Please explain! Thanks
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Why is length of contract the only measure? Mauer was still an All-star catcher on 2012 and 2013. If he wasn't worth $23 million he was still worth an awful lot. Until he got the severe concussion in August 2014, he mostly performed as expected except for 2011 which was ruined by knee issues. Anyone who thought he was going to hit 28 HRs every year just because he did in 2009 was an idiot who didn't pay attention from 2004-2008.

Nolasco stunk and provided almost no value for the $ at all. Same with Wiggins. The Hughes extension was phenomenally stupid for how unnecessary it was. He signed a 3 year deal, had one great year and we immediately gave him a huge extension while he still had 2 years left on the original deal. We're still paying for it to this day. Hughes hasn't pitches a meaningful inning for us in 3 years. Mauer contributed to some extent in all 8 years of his contract. Was he worth $23 million in the last 4 years? No. But he was worth more $0, which you can't say for Hughes and Nolasco (and arguably Wiggins who is worse than a replacement player in some aspects.)
 
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bemidjigopher said:
Joe's contract had nothing to do with the teams lack of success, they gave contracts north of 15 million to guys like Pelfrey, Hughes, Worely, Correia, Santana etc. Last year they struck out on guys like Morrison and Lance Lynn. To be fair they hit in guys like Willingham and to an extent Suzuki and Castro. This year they hit on their targets at relatively cheap deals. Cron wasn't guaranteed anything, he had to beat out Austin who got waived, Schoop was on his last rights this off-season after last year. Marwin was suppose to be a utility player,. Cruz was the prize signing and even that was realtively cheap. It's painful to watch Cron field, I would absolutely take Mauer back at the 10-12 million he would've been offered. Twins spent wisely, that's why they're winning, not Mayer's fault Terry Ryan was mailing it in from 2012 and on

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
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The main reason we're better this year is internal improvement (Buxton, Kepler, Polanco, Garver, Sano, Odoroizzi) and smarter/luckier FA signings (Cron vs. Morisson; Perez vs Lynn.) The payroll last year was ~$130 million. This year it's $119. So a good chunk of the $ saved on Mauer is not being spent anyway. At best, if Mauer had come back to play this season for $5-7 million, maybe we don't sign Nelson Cruz. This would cost us perhaps 2-3 wins from our current pace given the time he missed with injury.
 

It's not just the money that is making the difference. Mauer being gone has left a giant hole for new players to step up and be leaders, it feels like addition by subtraction. I am not disputing Mauer's greatness in any way, I firmly believe he is a first ballot hall of famer for what he accomplished as a catcher and completely got side swiped in his prime by bi-lateral leg weakness. He just wore out his welcome eventually and started holding back the organization from moving forward, now with him gone the new front office can operate freely. New coach, and no Mauer this year has made a difference this year. It's the law of diminishing returns and happens in sports all the time.
 

Ope3 said:
The Twins paid the 23 million annually assuming for the bulk of the contract he would be playing Catcher with perhaps part time First Base/DH. The numbers Mauer continued to put up would have been stellar for Catchers along with Gold Glove defense, the salary would be totally worth it. The dollars for a non-power hitting 1B (a move dictated because he had several concussions behind the plate), not so much.
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You nailed it.
The only gripe I have and this is with both Mauer and Twins Mgmt, is that they should have started playing him 50% of the time at 3b or left field earlier. They guy was an amazing athlete and it would have kept his bat at a high level and plus defense at either of those positions while maybe prolonging his career at the plate.
I think the Giants took this approach with Posey.
 

Nice piece by Reusse. Like him or hate him, nice piece.
 

WorkingMyTailOff said:
You nailed it.
The only gripe I have and this is with both Mauer and Twins Mgmt, is that they should have started playing him 50% of the time at 3b or left field earlier. They guy was an amazing athlete and it would have kept his bat at a high level and plus defense at either of those positions while maybe prolonging his career at the plate.
I think the Giants took this approach with Posey.
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If you want to criticize Mauer for anything, I sense he was pretty stubborn and wouldn't have gone for that as long as he felt he could still catch.
 

GopherBlood666 said:
It's not just the money that is making the difference. Mauer being gone has left a giant hole for new players to step up and be leaders, it feels like addition by subtraction. I am not disputing Mauer's greatness in any way, I firmly believe he is a first ballot hall of famer for what he accomplished as a catcher and completely got side swiped in his prime by bi-lateral leg weakness. He just wore out his welcome eventually and started holding back the organization from moving forward, now with him gone the new front office can operate freely. New coach, and no Mauer this year has made a difference this year. It's the law of diminishing returns and happens in sports all the time.
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They'd have a new manager regardless, and as far as player leadership, you could just as easily argue that Dozier being gone has a bigger impact than Mauer, since Dozier anointed himself the clubhouse leader.
 

What a great story. Lots of fun to read. So interesting that people here on GH knew Jimmy Lee and played against them. That's pretty fun to read. Really cool that Moe and Joe played together.
 

Great piece.

I'm a year younger than Mauer/Hargrow, and played on a team that had some absolute battles with Jimmy Lee in middle school. We managed to beat them a handful of times, including by 11 in the state title game.

Weird flex/humble brag, but don't care :D
 

Goldteam said:
So did we pay him back enough to make up for it? LMAO
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What's the problem then? Over the course of his whole career he probably got paid about what he should have. Underpaid early on, overpaid later on based on his production. No matter what people try to say, his big contact didn't hold the Twins back. Mauer could have put up MVP numbers every year and most of those teams wouldn't have been close to going to the playoffs. Lack of internal development, especially pitching, is why the organization was so bad the past 10 years or so. Mauer gets most of the heat for it but really shouldn't.
 

Zeppelin Gopher said:
Great piece.

I'm a year younger than Mauer/Hargrow, and played on a team that had some absolute battles with Jimmy Lee in middle school. We managed to beat them a handful of times, including by 11 in the state title game.

Weird flex/humble brag, but don't care :D
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I like hearing these stories so humble brag is totally welcome.
 

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