Kuzul

Joe Mauer is now officially on the trading block for the Minnesota Twins. The Twins started shopping the former AL MVP once he cleared revocable waivers and can now be traded to any team.

However, the Twins will have difficulty trading Mauer for several reasons, including contractual obligations and a declining ability to perform at the catcher position.

Mauer is in the midst of a resurgence this season after missing significant time during the 2011 season. In only 82 games in 2011, Mauer put up career lows across the board while also performing poorly behind the plate due to injuries.

Thus far in 2012, Mauer was elected to the AL All-Star team and is yet again tops in the majors in many hitting statistics at the catcher position. Mauer is also among the top-ten in the league for batting average and on-base percentage.

Mauer has his fill of awards through a nine-season career, among which are 2009 AL MVP, five All-Star appearances, three Gold Gloves and four Silver Slugger awards. He is also positioned very well this season to earn another Silver Slugger award.

However, with all the awards aside, Mauer will prove difficult to trade for the Twins. At the age of 29, he has a history of injury problems and decreasing defensive abilities, both major red flags for a catcher. Mauer has shown no signs of being accepting of a position change at this point, which could scare off potential suitors.

What is more worrisome for teams looking to deal for Mauer is his contract situation. His current contract, signed prior to the 2011 season, pays $23 million each year until 2018—currently the largest contract ever signed for a catcher in the MLB. That’s an exorbitant amount of money for an injury-prone catcher with declining defensive skills.

There’s no question that Mauer will continue to hit and be one of the most prominent hitting catchers as long as he remains at the position, but the questions of money, defensive value, and physical health are going to drive away many potential trade partners.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Joe Mauer is a terrific hitter for the Minnesota Twins, but despite his smooth stroke, he still gets a lot of criticism for his lack of power. Some argue that a team’s best hitter should have a slugging percentage higher than Mauer’s .423 this year. His career numbers align with Wade Boggs. That’s not so bad, is it?

For 2012, Mauer is ninth in the AL in batting average (.307), second in on-base percentage (.411) and sixth in walks (37). It’s not like he’s out there stranding runners left and right. He does lead the AL in double plays grounded into with 14, but that’s really the only negative statistic to see.

During Boggs’ best years, he hit in the .360s with on-base percentages in the .450s. He walked much more than he struck out and even led the league in grounding into double plays.

It’s not like Mauer doesn’t hit well with runners on base

With runners in scoring position, Mauer hits .368 with a .500 on-base percentage. He’s walked 15 times and struck out just eight in 72 plate appearances. He’s only hit one home run, but can’t singles and doubles be strung together as well?

The double plays that he’s hit into have almost exclusively come in the same situation. With a man on first only, he hits just .231 and has grounded into 12 of his 14 double plays.

Couldn’t coach Ron Gardenhire put the runner in motion more often in that situation? Shouldn’t he take some of the criticism in that situation?

Mauer is extremely important but can he really be blamed?

As Mauer goes, so do the Twins. In their wins, he hits a remarkable .418 with a .545 on-base percentage and a .620 slugging percentage. In losses, he hits just .243 with a .309 slugging percentage.

It makes sense that the best player on the team would be so instrumental to his club, but what doesn’t make sense is how the rest of the team seems to go to sleep when Mauer isn’t performing. They deserve and should share the blame.

The only thing that needs changing is the players around him

Denard Span and Ben Revere have done a reasonably good job getting on base in front of Mauer. They have .351 and .349 on-base percentages, respectively. The concern for me comes from the players behind Mauer.

While Trevor Plouffe is crushing the ball right now, he’s still only hitting .240 with a .315 on-base percentage. That’s better than former MVP Justin Morneau, who’s hitting .240 with a .311 on-base percentage.

Baseball is a team game. Yes, Mauer makes a ridiculous amount of money and is expected to produce more than anyone else on the roster. Could you imagine how prolific Mauer would be on a team like the Texas Rangers?

It’s not Mauer’s fault. He’s playing a great brand of baseball and shouldn’t change a thing. Hopefully, management can work hard to develop players to play behind Mauer who can hold up their end of the bargain.

Like this article? Show your support by becoming my fan here on Bleacher Report and follow me on Twitter to be the first to know when my newest articles arrive!

Follow @iambabyd13.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

As Opening Day for Major League Baseball approaches (not counting the two-game series in Japan), every team, no matter how they look on paper, has a shot to win it all.

Getting off on the right foot and winning on Opening Day, while not crucial to a team’s success, can go a long way towards building momentum, especially for clubs whose expectations for the 2012 season may be on the lower side.

As with any team, there is always an “X-factor” or wild card that can change the outcome of anything from one game to an entire season. These players can be anyone from a superstar returning from injury or an “off” season, to a young player trying to make a name for himself, yet somehow can find that his performance, or lack there of, will be directly related to his team’s performance.

Who will be the biggest X-factors this Opening Day? Who will surprise, disappoint, help or hurt their teams as the 2012 season begins?

Begin Slideshow

Remember when there was hope on the banks of the Allegheny River in 2011?  The Pittsburgh Pirates, after suffering their 18th losing season in a row, hired manager Clint Hurdle before the start of the 2011 season.  

That season began with great promise: On July 4 the Pirates had a record of 44-41 and were only 1.5 games back of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Pirates even went as far as to be buyers at the trade deadline, where they acquired Ryan Ludwick from the San Diego Padres and Derrek Lee from the Baltimore Orioles. 

As the cynical Pirates fans might have predicted, the moves did not pan out and the team dropped to 62-75 by September 1. The Pirates were 18.5 games back of the Milwaukee Brewers and the franchise headed to their 19th losing season in a row.  Without A.J. Burnett in the rotation to start the season because of a facial fracture, it is unlikely that the Pirates will repeat the 2011 magic. 

Every year in Major League Baseball there is a team (or two) that gets their fans excited and then fades in the dog days of summer.  Ordinarily, this occurs with young teams or teams where everyone starts off with a career year but peter out once they start playing teams for the second or third time.  Occasionally, these teams that surprise the baseball world keep it up through vernal equinox and end up making the postseason. 

Here are six teams that could start off well this year but will likely fade after the All-Star break.

Begin Slideshow

A quick look at the Twins‘ projected starting lineup for 2012 poses one serious question: where will the runs come from?

So far this spring that question remains unanswered.

With only eight spring games played so far, there is plenty of time for things to fall into place. However, the results so far are not creating a lot of excitement for the upcoming season at Target Field, and it looks like the three-year-old ballpark will once again be the biggest draw for Minnesotans this season.

In their eight games the Twins have only scored 22 runs. At a time when supposedly the hitters are  ahead of the pitchers, Minnesota is averaging less than three runs a game. At the same time they have been yielding 4.5 runs per game. 

So far the 34 players the Twins have used this spring have a total of  only 19 RBI. The projected starting lineup, with Ryan Doumit as the designated hitter, has only seven of them. Compare that to former Twins Michael Cuddyer with the Rockies and Delmon Young with the Tigers, who have combined for nine.

The long ball has consistently been a problem with Minnesota, and so far the team has hit only two spring training home runs—neither by any projected starter in the lineup. Young by himself has already hit two for the Tigers.

An argument can be made that spring training doesn’t mean a whole lot, and that the results can be thrown out once the regular season opens.

However, a quick scan of the records for the American League Central teams so far aligns pretty close to how I expect the division to finish in 2012.

The Tigers have the best record this spring at 6-1, followed by Kansas City at 4-3, the Twins at 3-5, Cleveland at 2-4 and the White Sox bringing up the rear at 1-4. 

There are some bright spots, however.

Second baseman Alexi Casilla is hitting .455 this spring, after struggling last year in Grapefruit League play, batting only .200. That struggle carried over into the season and he only hit .260 in 97 games.

With Casilla’s strong spring, it means Tsuyoshi Nishioka is left battling for the Twins’ utility infielder role. Nishioka, who leads the team with 18 at-bats this spring, is hitting .278.

Center fielder Denard Span looks to be fully recovered from concussion symptoms that kept him out of the lineup for a good portion for the season in 2011. So far in four games he’s batting .500. 

And while Justin Morneau is struggling with only one hit in eight at-bats, his likely successor at first base, Chris Parmelee, is batting .300 in four games, with one of the two home runs the Twins have hit.

Perhaps the brightest spot so far this spring is the fact that catcher Joe Mauer has played in four games and appears fully recovered from bilateral leg weakness that limited  him to only eight games in all of spring training last season. 

While the Twins will be improved over their 99-loss season from 2011, they still have a long way to go to get back to the 94-win season of 2010.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Minnesota Twins lost to the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, FL this afternoon.

The pitching staff for the Twins was solid, allowing three runs on nine hits and three walks. Jason Marquis started the game for the Twins and had a much better outing than his last start. He went three innings, giving up three hits, walking two and allowing one earned run.

It was much improved from his 1.2 inning outing against the Red Sox on the 5th.

The story, however, remains the Minnesota Twins bats. After only managing five hits yesterday against the Tampa Bay Rays, they only got six in today’s contest. Jamey Carroll, Joe Mauer and Ryan Doumit combined to go 1-for-8 at the plate with two strikeouts.

If the Twins hope to be competitive this season those three will need to do better than that.

Glen Perkins, with the ink still drying on his contract extension, had another beautiful outing for the Twins. He worked one inning, faced three batters and struck out two. It is very possible to believe that if Twins closer Matt Capps struggles like he did last year, Perkins will be the Twins new closer.

Matt Capps worked an inning today and struck out two. Unfortunately, he also allowed two hits, one of which was a home run. The only nice thing is that the home run came with the bases empty.

Capps has been struggling some this spring, allowing far too many hits.

Next up for the Twins is a trip to McKechnie Field in Bradenton, FL to play the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates have given up five or more runs in four of their six games this spring, so it’s hopefully an opportunity for the Twins to get their offense going.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

2011 was a season which the Twins and their fans would like to forget sooner rather than later. The team is approaching the start of spring training with a lot of question marks throughout their 25-man roster. Most notably, will the bullpen be better? can Mauer and Morneau regain their MVP form? And most importantly, what are the playoff chances looking like?

The following are six bold predictions I have for the Twins in 2012 which will help to answer those questions and more.

Begin Slideshow

2011 was a season that Minnesota Twins fans have not endured in nearly a decade.

From the beginning of the season to the end, the hits kept coming…and they were not during the course of a game. Injuries riddled the Twins lineup and kept players like Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Denard Span, Glen Perkins and Delmon Young on the bench. As the slide continued, the bullpen blew leads, the starters struggled and the team could not seem to get a run across the plate.

By nearly every account, the Twins season was horrendous. The Twins managed to score a mere 619 runs; the lowest amount in a non-strike shortened season since their inception. Their 63 wins tied for the lowest in franchise history and the team allowed the most runs (804) since 2000.

For a team that has been used to regular season success (the postseason being a glaring exception), such a depressing season hits hard. Over the last 10 seasons, the team produced five 90-win seasons and six postseason appearances with players winning batting titles and MVP awards. Despite lack of success in the playoffs, the Twins received a new ballpark and has now generated the second-highest attendance total in the American League.

But past successes don’t make the 2011 failures any easier to cope with for Twins fans, especially considering that there is not much in the way of hope on the horizon. However, despite the stats, injuries and poor play, this is hardly the most depressing offseason the Twins have faced in their history. Ten years ago, the Twins faced an offseason with more uncertainty and with more at stake.

In November, 2001, a Minnesota judge ordered the Twins to honor their Metrodome lease as MLB Commissioner and then-Twins owner Carl Pohlad worked towards contracting the Twins. For Twins fans, the offseason between 2001 and 2002 was filled with the understanding that after the coming season, the Minnesota Twins would cease to exist. The team finished the 2001 season with 85 wins, the highest since 1992—the year after the team won the World Series and the team had a promising core of young players.

With the fourth lowest payroll in baseball ($40 million), no one expected massive free-agent signings, especially with contraction imminent. Baseball owners from Seattle to Atlanta supported the plan that would have removed the Expos and Twins from the baseball map. Selig went to Congress stating that without a new ballpark, the Twins could not compete. Things looked bleak for the Twins and it was a long offseason.

But the saving grace came from the play of a virtual group of “nobodies” that kept playing while the Titanic was sinking. Their play in 2002 made it impossible for Commissioner Selig to contract the team and their success in the following years brought them a brand-new stadium, now lauded by the league.

Of course, the Twins that take the field now bring different expectations of success. Many fans saw the elimination of the Twins in 2002 as inevitable and therefore only hoped for one last hurrah to stick it to Bud Selig and an owner that they thought had betrayed them.

This year, with a beautiful new ballpark and huge contracts to superstar players, expectations are justifiably high. Offseason chatter has turned to speculating on moves the Twins need to make to turn the team around, and there are a lot of holes to fill.

This is not to say that Twins fans should just be grateful to have a professional baseball team but more of a positive way of looking at a season that by all accounts was lost before the end of the first series. The Twins need to prove to the state that the recent investments have been worth it and the front office must find a way to finally win in the postseason.

What the Twins have that many other clubs have do not is the fact that while the last season was a debacle, the organization has faced worse. Yes, the expectations are different and we as Twins fans are warranted in our high expectations; getting to the playoffs is no longer enough to consider a season a success as it was ten years ago. But if any organization can face these challenges, it would be the Twins. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It’s obvious after the Minnesota Twins finished the 2011 season with the second-worst record since the franchise moved to the Twin Cities, the team has plenty of needs.

The team needs a couple of solid starting pitchers, an effective reliever, a power-hitting corner outfielder and an effective middle infield combination.

For general manager Terry Ryan, it appears that the wheeling and dealing is done, and from the looks of things, with no blockbuster deals, the team will be taking a long, slow ride to respectability.

Ryan, taking no big swings to improve the Twins, is relying for the most part, on the current roster of players to improve over last season. The hopes on the 2012 season is that many of these players will return to form that had the Twins winning six division titles over nine seasons.

The only changes to the lineup appear to be Ben Revere taking over one of the corner outfield positions, Josh Willingham the other, and Jamey Carroll manning one of the middle infield positions.

Here are 12 things the Twins need for a successful 2012 season.

Begin Slideshow

The short answer to the question posed in the headline is very simple: Because he plays in Milwaukee.

So why write an entire opinion piece on the subject? Because Ryan Braun should be a superstar.

Ryan Braun does everything you want a superstar to do. Does he hit for average? .312 career, .332 this season. Does he hit for power? More than 30 homers a season every year except 2010, when he hit 25. His career OPS is .933; did you just read that? .933!

Do you know who has a lower career OPS than Braun? Jason Giambi, Ryan Howard, Carlos Delgado, Mike Piazza, Ken Griffey Jr., Joe Mauer and even his more-famous teammate Prince Fielder.

But Fernando, you might say, I don’t like your old school “Joe Morgan” stats. What’s his WAR?

In 2011: a preposterous 7.8 WAR. He’s averaged five WAR in his career. The kid is freaking good.

So why isn’t he on the cover of any baseball video games? Why doesn’t he have a lucrative paper towel endorsement? Come on, the Braun-y paper towel guy? This stuff writes itself.

He’s even got a cool nickname (according to Wikipedia): The Hebrew Hammer. Fear his mighty hammer, and his, er, Judaism? Anyway, awesome nickname!

Braun also isn’t the Darryl Strawberry type. He doesn’t get into any trouble, no drug problems, or DUIs or arrests (that we know of). He’s got those wholesome good looks, and he appears to be a nice guy; in April, a female fan made a marriage proposal to Braun via a stadium sign, even including her phone number. Even though Braun has a girlfriend, he called the number and tried to leave a voicemail, but the mailbox was full.

What more do you want from him?!

The East Coast bias in sports coverage is obvious to everyone who lives west of the Mississippi. ESPN refuses to acknowledge any team outside the East Coast (except for the Dallas Cowboys), so our sports knowledge suffers. Can you even name three players on the Indiana Pacers? I know they have Danny Granger, and…um…I’ll get back to you on that.

If Braun played for the Red Sox or Yankees, you’d be sick and tired of him. You’d hear his name 10 times a day, every day, and Buster Olney or Ken Rosenthal would be writing sonnets professing their love for the mighty Braun.

Instead, Braun’s not even the most famous guy on his own team. Instead it’s Fielder and his enormous waistline that get all the publicity.

In fact, the only people who seem to give Braun any attention are the employees in Milwaukee’s front office—because he got paid.

Milwaukee was facing a tough decision a few years ago: You have two offensive monsters (Braun and Fielder), both in their 20s, but you can’t possibly afford them both. So who do you choose? You choose the Hebrew Hammer.

So first the Brewers signed Braun to a $45 million extension in 2008. Then they saw that Braun continued to hit a baseball really, really far, and now he’s signed through 2020 for about $145 million. That will buy you a lot of beer and brats.

Milwaukee clearly understands the kind of superstar it has on the roster—so why don’t you, America? 

Fernando Gallo promises he is not a publicist for Ryan Braun. Find more foolish analysis, along with the occasional witty comment, on his  feed.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com