Bandguy

It may seem like just yesterday that Joe Mauer donned his catching equipment one last time before saying farewell to a roaring Target Field crowd. But it’s now been five years since his 2018 retirement, meaning the lifelong Twin is eligible for Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
And for the most miserable bastards in Minnesota, it couldn’t come soon enough.
“As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve missed him since he retired,” said Tom Hanson, 58. The Anoka resident and classic North Metro redass has been banned from every social media website ever created. “He’s the worst baseball player I’ve ever seen and he should be in jail for stealing money from hard-working Minnesotans. But all the same, I’ve missed sending angry emails about him to our bought-and-paid-for local media shills.”
Hanson, who is no longer welcome in the IHOP family of breakfast restaurants, foresees a multi-year campaign against the former American League MVP.
“The first year, I expect the baseball writers to step up and keep him out because they do that to good players, too,” said Hanson. “Patriots will do the heavy lifting after that. A sustained barrage of complaints to talk radio, comments left in newspaper comment sections, skywriting. My stepson who no longer talks to me does raps on the internet, it would be nice to bring him into the fold if (ex-fourth wife) Bonnie would quit being such a [INCREDIBLY VILE EXPLETIVE].”
Hanson isn’t alone.
“All I know is players used to play hurt or they didn’t play,” said Bruce Schafer, 62, of Dayton. “Mauer didn’t even play when he was healthy and now the woke mob wants me to act like he’s a Hall of Famer? Hell no.”
Schafer, who frequently shares inaccurate stories about vaccine efficacy and Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate on Facebook, said the opportunity to set the record straight about the three-time batting champ is one he welcomes.
“This is like Christmas and the 4th of July all in one,” said the unloved man. “There are kids out there who’ve never heard the term ‘bilateral leg weakness’ used to mock someone with a brain injury. Just another example of cancel culture going too far.”

204 RBI. That’s the number of RBI Byron Buxton has had in his seven-year career. But this isn’t going to be a screed on what a stupid stat RBI is, nor is it going to be a tirade against modern players.  Instead, it’s about how a guy who averages less than 30 RBI per year is worth $100M, or how to reconcile traditional counting stats with modern player evaluation
First, since talking about RBI is like waving a red flag in front of a sabrmetrically inclined bull, let’s point out that it isn’t just RBI. Buxton’s injury history means that almost all of his “counting” stats are far lower than one would expect. Buxton has averaged 10 home runs over those seven years. He’s averaged 15 doubles. 11 stolen bases. Even defensively, where everyone admits he shines, he’s only saved, on average, about 5 runs per season.
Counting stats aren’t great for predicting the future, but they are usually valuable for talking about past production. And Buxton’s inability to stay healthy means that he hasn’t been able to demonstrate much productivity using traditional counting stats. If you do a comparison between him and other MLB players, he looks more like a utility player than potential superstar.
Check out the list of 10 players to whom he is most similar on Baseball Reference. It’s not exactly stocked with Hall of Famers. Domingo Santana? Wily Mo Pena? Pena didn’t make $7M over his entire career. So why is Buxton worth so much more?
Baseball nerds will talk about Buxton’s WAR or Wins Above Replacement, which is not at all similar to that of Wily Mo Pena and Domingo Santana. But that statistic just moves the disconnect to another arena. Why is WAR so much different than traditional (and far more intuitive) counting stats?
There are two fundamental differences between a player that puts up middling counting stats over 70 games (which is what Buxton has averaged over the last seven years) and a player that puts up middling counting stats over 162 games. The first is 92 games. The second is the last initial in WAR: Replacement.
In those other 92 games, a replacement player is in center field, and the stats that player puts up also help out the team. So when Buxton is not available, the team gets slightly below-average productivity. But when he is available, he performs like a superstar. Average those out and you get a very good center fielder, even if Buxton continues to require frequent trips to the 10-day IL.
How much is that worth? Figuring out the value of a single MLB Win Above Replacement is fairly simple math: just take the total amount paid to the last free-agent class and divide it by the total WAR they had. The answer lately has been around $8M. Buxton is making $9M this year and is guaranteed $15M over the next six years. So he needs to be post a WAR of 1 this year and a WAR around 2 for the next six years.
He’s already at 1.6, and that’s through just 24 games played.  Yeah, he’s worth it.
This naturally leads to the question about how he and the Twins can keep him in the lineup even more. That’s the same question the Twins are attempting to answer by working a plan to keep him healthy for at least 100 games, a mark he has only reached one time in his career.  It may not be the right plan, but you can see value in trying something, anything. He’s certainly worth the effort.
 

The pace of the Twins offseason went from zero to 100 once the lockout ended, with a flurry of moves by Minnesota’s management duo (President of Baseball Ops Derek Falvey and GM Thad Levine) leading to a radically different opening day lineup.
And the pace has not slowed down.
Shortly after moving closer Taylor Rogers and prospect Brent Rooker to the Padres for pitchers Chris Paddack and Emilio Pagan, the team announced that they traded team mascot TC Bear to the Jacksonville (FL) Zoo and Gardens. In return, they’re receiving a significant number of snakes, reptiles, and other creatures.
“I’m just going to come right out and say that I don’t know what we’re going to do with a half-dozen Burmese pythons,” said Falvey. “But we hadn’t made a trade in a good 2-3 hours, and the rush of acquiring and sending away assets is unbeatable. We’re hooked, baby!”
Levine, who said he hasn’t slept since Monday afternoon, was equally enthused if unclear about the trade.
“Do you know if a monitor lizard is cool with letting relievers ride him out of the bullpen,” said Levine. “I don’t want to get on PETA’s radar, but I’ll be honest, I don’t know where we’re going to put him otherwise. GOD I LOVE TRADING, CAN’T BEAT IT.”
Neither Falvey nor Levine would comment on the fact that TC Bear is not a real bear, but in fact a person in a pretend bear costume who is being sent to a zoo to live among real bears that will likely visit mind-bending violence upon him.
“He’s dealing with it as best he can,” said a source close to the man who wears the costume. “Is it as bad as when (former Twin) Andrelton Simmons demanded to speak to the mayor of the talking bear village where TC Bear lives about repealing their mask mandate? No. Still, the threat of mauling is one he takes seriously.”
The team says there are no further moves in the offing, and rumors that Minnesota is trading an old Metrodome urinal trough for a shoebox of expired prescription drugs are unfounded but they're very open to it and would throw in a gently-used Mike Maksudian.

Subject: Matt Capps
Why You Remember Him: Once upon a time, the Twins had a promising catcher named Wilson Ramos stuck behind Joe Mauer. They didn’t have a closer. Joe Nathan was hurt. Terrifying actual giant man Jon Rauch was ineffective. This was also right about the time when people were noticing how much more valuable a good catcher was than a position you could fill with literally any Tom, Ric, or Eddie who could hurl a decent fastball for one inning.
But. But! The Twins were still in “we need a proven closer” mode, and they were not going to head into the meat of the schedule without one. What would Goose Gossage think? WHAT WOULD GOOSE GOSSAGE THINK? So, they sent Ramos to Washington for Matt Capps. And Capps was...fine-ish. And “bilateral leg weakness” became a familiar term. And the light-hitting Drew Butera was the catcher instead of Mauer or Ramos. And then the Twins were bad for a long time. Not that I’m bitter about it.
What You Don’t Remember: His middle name is Dicus. And he was the winning pitcher in the 2010 All-Star Game.
What’s He Up To: Working in the TV booth for the Pirates. One of his co-workers? Former FSN staple Robby Incmikoski. Where have you gone, Telly Hughes? 
Anything else: The spoonerism for his name is the best one for a Twins pitcher since Willie Banks.

The owners of Major League Baseball locked out the players just after midnight on Thursday morning, ensuring baseball’s first work stoppage in over a quarter century. And Shad Browne knows who to blame.
“These players are greedy and entitled, I’m sick of ‘em,” said the Fairmont landscaper. “They get paid money to play a game and sometimes you’ve gotta take a stand.”
The owners, wealthier than the players by a monstrous degree and living lives of unimaginable luxury, do not receive the same level of disdain from Browne.
“Lotta these owners are entrepreneurs who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to make their money,” said Browne incorrectly. “Meanwhile, the modern player just takes a day off when they feel like it. The way I see it, you don’t play, you don’t get paid.”
Browne, who took PTO last Monday because the Vikings lost and he was “super hungover,” said he sees a lot of himself in owners, despite this being remarkably untrue.
“They’re just trying to run a business same as anyone else,” he said with the steady resolve that only the deeply ignorant possess. “I guess I’d just like to see a little more gratitude and a little less attitude from the millennial generation.”
Browne, who used the word “meritocracy” in reference to a country where you don’t have to work a day in your life if your great-granddad sold mustard gas to Kaiser Wilhelm, dismissed the notion that the owners should take some of the blame for instigating the lockout they instigated.
“At the end of the day, they’ve got a business to run,” said Browne, for whom the concept of generational wealth has never so much as registered for one second of one day. “If the players can’t handle that, they can get a job just like anyone else.
“It’s just not right,” said the cornfed rube.