I like Mauer but he's never been or will be my favorite player. It just *seems* like he should be better. Part of that is because he does everything so effortlessly - really quite in the batter's box, no wasted movement. Doesn't seem excited (which is why my all time favorite Mauer play was him jumping and tagging out Gardner at home plate in NY). He's physically bigger than Morneau yet he doesn't seem to *want* to hit homeruns. He doesn't seem to let the situation affect him - usually this is good but sometimes it's bad. In a late game, I'd rather Mauer tried to get a hit of a situational lefty rather than take a walk and let the next guy face a shutdown relief pitcher, something that happens quite a bit. He also *seems* tone deaf - esp in 2011 - towards fans and teammates. I hate reading things that suggests that he's "just one of the guys." That drives me nuts.

But the guy was, at his best, one of the 5 best players in baseball over several seasons. Seems hard to nit-pick that. It'll be interesting to see if he can be one of the 5 best first basemen this year. My guess is that he puts up a series of pretty quite - high onbase, low counting stats - but solid 4 WAR seasons the next few years and that Sano/Buxton become the face of the franchise and Mauer remains under rated in Twins history. He won't be the best player on our team the next time we have a winning season.