somewhat related story on the late le grand orange as a not-quite-hof on-base machine:

 

4,050 Reasons to Appreciate Rusty Staub

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/sports/baseball/rusty-staub-statistics.html

For a guy looking to walk, Joe sure has done a lot of hitting. Call me crazy, but I’m left scratching my head with ascertaitions that a three-time batting title winner (as a catcher no less) somehow has a flawed approach at the plate.

 

For a guy looking to walk, Joe sure has done a lot of hitting. Call me crazy, but I’m left scratching my head with ascertaitions that a three-time batting title winner (as a catcher no less) somehow has a flawed approach at the plate.

His 162 game average for hits is 186. Ichiro who batted leadoff most of his career and had more PAs per game averaged 189 hits per 162 games. Miggy Cabrera: 192.

Edited March 31, 20188 yr by jimmer

 

I think there are a lot of situations where a Sac fly is better than a walk.

 

A run is a run, and a sac fly scores a run (most sac flies, at least). But I don't see how a walk with a runner on third and less than two outs hurts a team's ability to score.

13 more hits to go. I think he plays this year and then two more.  He should get over 2500.

Edited March 31, 20188 yr by jimmer

 

For a guy looking to walk, Joe sure has done a lot of hitting. Call me crazy, but I’m left scratching my head with ascertaitions that a three-time batting title winner (as a catcher no less) somehow has a flawed approach at the plate.

I wasn't questioning his approach back the days when he was a catcher winning batting titles.  That is YEARS AGO at this point.  I am referring to the last seven or eight seasons and how things have evolved.  The league adjusted to him and he's being defensed with an over-exaggerated opposite field shift, the likes of which I have never seen in over 40 years of watching major league baseball.  It is uncanny and he seems to have ignored it.  Maybe there isn't anything he can do about it because he so set in his ways and he can't pull the ball anymore?

 

There is also the fact that when he comes up in tight games or when runners on base he walks a lot more than he normally does.  Way more than any of the really good hitters like Trout and even Joey Votto.  You watch the games. Don't you notice how he goes into take mode so often in these spots?  Is this not an honest observation?  Please let me know if it isn't.

 

We are talking about Joe as he has been the last four or five seasons.  This isn't the HOF catcher batting champ Mauer.   Please make the distinction.

 

somewhat related story on the late le grand orange as a not-quite-hof on-base machine:

 

4,050 Reasons to Appreciate Rusty Staub

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/sports/baseball/rusty-staub-statistics.html

To say Rusty was an "on base machine" slights him.  He was much more than that as a hitter.  This is a guy who drove in over 280 runs for four separate ball clubs for a total of 1,466 for his career.

 

As much as I love Rusty, he is not a HOFer.

No more so than assuming Mauer approaches those situations exactly the same.

I don’t see where I would have done that. And of course he would approach those at bats differently, just like the pitchers would.

 

Yet another reason I find it a bit ridiculous that some late inning walks are being used to justify anything about Mauer’s approach generally.

11 more hits to go

 

I don’t see where I would have done that. And of course he would approach those at bats differently, just like the pitchers would.

Yet another reason I find it a bit ridiculous that some late inning walks are being used to justify anything about Mauer’s approach generally.

 

YOu are welcome to do an analysis on the numbers whenever you are ready

11 more hits to go

1989. A good year. Lots of good things happened that year. However, it may have to wait until tomorrow.

 

1989. A good year. Lots of good things happened that year. However, it may have to wait until tomorrow.

That was year I left the US for the first time. I spent a few months in Cyprus. 

Beautiful country.

Edited April 1, 20188 yr by jimmer

That was year I left the US for the first time. I spent a few months in Cyprus.

Beautiful country.

I lived in Cyprus for a time too, tracking down the Byzantine remnant in the Troodos. Marvelous country. I don’t currently have plans to go back, but I will.

 

I lived in Cyprus for a time too, tracking down the Byzantine remnant in the Troodos. Marvelous country. I don’t currently have plans to go back, but I will.

I'd like to take my wife for a visit some day. I think she'd love the beaches and the laid back people, especially when shopping, 'For you my friend, special price'

 

Anyway, 11 more hits to 2K.

Edited April 1, 20188 yr by jimmer

1989: 6-year old Joe Mauer is introduced to football by childhood crony [name redacted], who coaxed him away from the quick-swing contraption in his back yard by telling him "you could be a radical QB for us. Your arm is totally tubular. Like, to the max." 

 

On hearing the rules of football, a Zubaz-clad Mauer was suspicious. "Grody. You mean I just throw the ball where I want? I don't have to hit it with a stick, or bounce it off the Andersons' Volkswagen or anything?." 

 

Mauer softened his skeptical attitude after winning the city championship with an MVP performance during the notorious blizzard of '89. The following spring he reflected, "Guess I gotta do something when the weather gets all gnarly. Maybe I'll even get a college scholarship some day and play football in a really sweet climate". 

 

"Not even!" said older brother Jake, uncorking his best fastball. 

 

"Even", retorted Joe, lacing a double off the Anderson's Volkswagen.

 

Edited April 1, 20188 yr by walt-o-meal

So, Mauer gets two knocks last night. Brings him up to the total of 1989, which was a pretty momentous year. Aside from Rainman, NWA’s Straight Outta Compton, the birth of the Nintendo’s Gameboy and Taylor Swift, 1989 saw perestroika under Gorbachev and the fall of the Berlin Wall, widespread political upheaval, uprisings and revolutions in such places as Poland, Estonia, Georgia, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and Romania, the election of FW DeClerq in South Africa and the beginning of the end of apartheid, a fatwa issued by Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses, Pete Rose accepting a lifetime ban from baseball, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Tiananmen Square protests, the house arrest of Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize for the Dalai Lama, and the deaths of Nicolae Ceacescu, Ted Bundy, Emperor Hirohito, the aforementioned Ayatollah Khomeini, and Lucille Ball. A 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit the Bay Area right at before the start of Game 3 of the Oakland-SF World Series, delaying the series by 10 days. Voyager 2 passes Neptune, Thomas and Friends and Seinfeld debut, and the first internet service providers are established.

 

Other than that, nothing much.

All this talk of 1989 and not a single mention that it was the birth year of Taylor Swift.

 

You’re all just a bunch of haters who are gonna hate hate hate hate hate.

All this talk of 1989 and not a single mention that it was the birth year of Taylor Swift.

 

You’re all just a bunch of haters who are gonna hate hate hate hate hate.

Read closer, Brock.

Read closer, Brock.

too many words

I've waited nearly 5 years for Twins Daily to have a Taylor Swift thread

I've waited nearly 5 years for Twins Daily to have a Taylor Swift thread

That would be 2013. That was a very good year for me. I'll save that story for another time, though.

YOu are welcome to do an analysis on the numbers whenever you are ready

Reach a conclusion. Ask someone else to do the analysis. I think that's what they called the Scientific Method back in high school, but I'm a bit rusty.

^{https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=5&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=4,a}

 

Joe is third from the bottom swinging at pitches in the zone.  The idea that it is ridiculous for anyone to say Joe has a penchant for keeping his bat on his shoulders in close games or with men on isn't being fair.  We all watch the games so without even consulting any statistics anyone here should readily admit that Joe is in take mode more than almost any other player in the game.

 

No real analysis required when that fact is readily researched (and observed over the course of many years).  It just is.

10 more hits to 2000

All this talk of 1989 and not a single mention that it was the birth year of Taylor Swift.

 

You’re all just a bunch of haters who are gonna hate hate hate hate hate.

Can long time users ban an owner? Asking for a friend.

 

Actually, this might be post of the day. But still. Asking for a friend.

Mauer racks up another hit, bringing him to 1990. That was the year of German reunification, Baltics declaring independence, the Human Genome Project, West Germany winning the World Cup, Nelson Mandela released from prisom, Driving Miss Daisy, the ADA and Taylor Swift turning 1.

All this talk of 1989 and not a single mention that it was the birth year of Taylor Swift.

You’re all just a bunch of haters who are gonna hate hate hate hate hate.

That deserved an LOL, not a simple like.

Up to 1991. Twins won the World Series that year, and Taylor turned two.

Joe continues his hit parade with a hit on Thursday afternoon, his fifth consecutive game with at least one hit to start the season. His career total stands at 1992, which is the year that brought us the Rodney King trial, NAFTA, Silence of the Lambs, CDs overtaking audiocassettes, Bohemian Rhapsody, Somalia, Neymar, Bryce Harper, Nirvana, and the election of Bill Clinton.

Joe continues his hit parade with a hit on Thursday afternoon, his fifth consecutive game with at least one hit to start the season. His career total stands at 1992, which is the year that brought us the Rodney King trial, NAFTA, Silence of the Lambs, CDs overtaking audiocassettes, Bohemian Rhapsody, Somalia, Neymar, Bryce Harper, Nirvana, and the election of Bill Clinton.

Ummm, Bohemian Rhapsody is from 1975. Unless there is another Bohemian Rhapsody, aside from the Queen song, that I'm not aware of.