A Joe Mauer-ish Day

Good news Twins fans, Joe Mauer had a very productive, "Joe Mauer-ish" day yesterday.

Tell my dad who is obsessed with batting average and fairly representative of the old school baseball philosophy that 'Mauer had a good day' and he would probably ask, "Why? How many hits did he have?"

Well, one. A single.

"How many RBIs?"

Just one.

"Couldn't have been that good..."

That's old school and it's wrong. Earl Weaver used to say, "On offense, your most precious possessions are your 27 outs." He was ahead of his time. Earl Weaver would have been Billy Beane's dream manager. I love this scene from Moneyball which summarizes my point:

(Billy's scouts are dismissive of Scott Hatteberg because he walks a lot)

"He gets on base a lot. Do I care if it's a walk or a hit?" (Brad Pitt [billy Beane] points at Jonah Hill)

"You do not."

Joe Mauer made five trips to the plate yesterday and the White Sox could only get him out once. That's a good day. According to fangraphs' Win Probability Added metric, only Tommy Milone contributed more to the Twins win yesterday.

"What about Dozier? He had 2 hits and one was a home run."

Yeah, he had a good day . He contributed roughly 9% of the win. But the four outs he made limited his input from being even higher. The Patrick Reusses and the PogueBear dads of the world need to accept that Joe Mauer will never be Miguel Cabrera or Justin Morneau. He's John Olerud.

Cue Jonah Hill: "He gets on base."

If he keeps having days like yesterday, 2015 Joe Mauer will have about as "Joe Mauer-ish" of a year as a player could have.

That's a good thing. That's an elite year.

PogueBear out. (drops mic)