I hope you enjoy the season. GO TWINS!

OT- How do you make it so you do not recieve e-mail notifications from the Twins message boards?

You see where it says "log out"...a little to the right it says "my stuff". Click on that and then click on "my preferences". The email option will be on that page.

Then you didn't read my post correctly. I meant it won't effect how they go after free agents or even sign thier own players. I also made note that since this team is essentially rebuilding, our future success depends on drafting and player devolopment. Again, Mauer's contract has no effect on that.

"I don't give a rats behind how much money he is making or anyone else for that matter...NO player can be as perfect as you all want a player to be."

I guess this is just a fundamental difference many of us on this board seem to have. There are those of you in the camp where you ignore the amount of money he is making and accept Mauer for what he is. There is nothing wrong with that, and you're right, he is not perfect. He's human.

And in my opinion, that's exactly why you don't pay him that much money. HE'S HUMAN. HE'S PRONE TO MISTAKES. HE'S NOT PERFECT. Yet you are going to shell out a huge portion of our salary to this one guy. The way I see it, for 23 million dollars a year you better be as close to perfect as possible. But again, a lot of you don't feel that way and usually throw out the old "we had to sign him" schtick.

Then there are those of us who feel that for 23 million dollars, we should be getting a perrenial MVP candidate type player who has high HR and RBI numbers. I personally think the amount of money you make should reflect the performance you give on the field. However, contracts in baseball are guaranteed and are given out before you so much as play a single game. I think that is an enormous problem that needs to be addressed, but that is another discussion for another time.

Who you to say that the Pohlad's were going to pocket the money if they had twenty etc more to spend ? They did sign Willingham right ? With the new stadium and the revenues and as you said that the fans would have been angry for not resigning Mauer, you think the FO wouldn't have spent money in the free agency ? And did I say particularly that they were gonna sign an Ace for twenty million ?

The team was only one or two free agents signings away to make a serious push in the early 2000 and 2006. And if you had that etc twenty million dollars to spend every year in the next three years, you think we had to wait two or three years to be competitive again building from with in ?

The team couldn't sign free agents before because we had shortage of money. Look at the teams who has won the championships in the last ten years. You build from within and sign a few from outside the organization to fill in the holes. Twins needs to change that building from with in only to be competitive.

" We are now in rebuilding mode. If we draft well and develop players well, we can be competitive in a few years agian. The money Mauer is making will have no effect on this. "

This isn't garbage ? and I am the one smoking something ?

Any my bad telling you to shut up. I take that back.

I didn't reference anything regarding they had to sign Mauer.

As for money and what the player does on the field...ALL players get paid too much.

It wouldn't matter one bit with people on this board what Mauer does because it will never be good enough for them. Right now that is their excuse he doesn't hit HRs or drive in runs...well if he did it wouldn't be any different than right now...because whining about he didn't drive in a base runner here or there or didn't swing at the first pitch or grooms the batter's box too much or scratches the left nut more than the right...and yes that's exactly how petty this is getting. As I said, IF Mauer didn't get the money he did, it would go right back in Pohlad's pocket. It would not be used to get sign top pitchers or any other top line player...because the Twins build from within and that's the way it will always be. So, who cares what Mauer or any other player is being paid because for this team it doesn't mean anything more than a talking point.

"" IF Mauer didn't get the money he did, it would go right back in Pohlad's pocket. """

I totally disagree with that. If we hadn't sign him the fans sure would have been angry and the FO for sure would have gone outside the organization to sign a few free agents to be more competitive to please the fans.

Here is the deal. You, and a few others have no ability to be objective when it comes to Joe Mauer. What should we expect from him? No, he cannot be perfect. But for cripes sake, the guy has zero power! He absolutely cannot turn on a pitch and drive the ball. He simply cannot. He should be a guy who hits the ball hard to all fields. He should be driving the ball to RF as much as he does to LF. And as far as CF goes, Mauer rarely hits the ball hard up the middle any more except on the ground once in a while. He should hit a HR every week. Is that too much to ask? He should drive in around four runs every week on average. Over a ML schedule, that is 105-110 RBI per season. He should bat in the .320-plus range and should have an equivalent or better BA with RISP. He should be a bit more flamboyant and be a team leader. He is clearly neither of these things. In summary, Joe Mauer is a bad contract. A real bad contract. PERIOD!

If you say so

Alright thanks righty

It's a bad contract no doubt, but the Twins don't have to let it totally handcuff them. Look at how many terrible contracts the Yankees have shelled out over the years: Hideki Irabu, Kei Igawa, Kevin Brown, Pavano. Those guys were total busts for the Yankees but the Yankees didn't just sit idly by and suffer through those contracts while not trying to improve. They went out and got other players.

Ideally, I'd just like for the Twins front office to make better personnel decisions, I don't think payroll is necessarily the problem. But when you give too much money to a guy who isn't earning it you can either spend more on other players, try to trade the guy with the bad contract(good luck) or suffer through the contract without trying to correct the situation.

The Twins have selected option 3, suffer through it. And you are seeing the results.

Here's what bothers me about Mauer's final at bat . . . He watched two strikes go by.

He should be smart enough to know, that with the game on the line, in that situation, he needs to adapt a little bit. He might not be able to be his same ole, picky self. He might need to take a pitch for a ride just to put the ball in the air and score Carroll. He has the ability to do that. But he didn't. His final at bat was awful, given the circumstances. I'm sorry.

8th inning, lead off triple, good speed at third, and your 3 hitter up to the plate and he watches two strikes go by. I don't care what he did in the game prior to that at bat, nothing forgives that. I'm sorry. He didn't have the luxury of being picky and choosy . . . he was called upon to drive Carroll in and he watched two hittable pitches go by. He could've pulled one. He could have lifted one. If he's going to hit third and make 23 million dollars, he NEEDS to be able to do that. Period.

It's not about expecting perfection.

That kind of stuff doesn't happen to other teams. When teams lead off an inning with a double or a triple against the Twins, it seems like 95% of the time that run scores. However when the Twins lead off an inning with a double or a triple, we fail to score the run 75% of the time!!!

Why is that?!?!?

I never argued it was a good at bat...not once. Everyone knows he should have been more aggressive and gotten the runner in. I've gotten on his case too about letting first pitch meatball go by time and time again, and that he needs to jump on those a bit more often to keep pitchers honest; however, in the end, it's hard to argue the results....or it is for me.

If you look at what I wrote, what I pointed out is that it doesn't matter how well the guy does, every failure of his will be slammed mercilessly. And that's fine. Some people enjoy doing that. I like looking at the big picture.

I'm still waiting to find out how the numbers below...which are the numbers he had going into last night's game...aren't great.

.467 w/RISP going into last night's game with an OBP of.500 and a slg% of .750 tallying 9 RBI in 16 AB with RISP.

I haven't seen anything on that...those numbers have been completely glossed over....which is also my point.

But again, this argument now bores me...it is what it is...and now personal insults are getting thrown around and, you know, I don't need to be on a site that has people so narrow minded they have to call someone an idiot because that person wrote something he disagrees with...and I mean, right out the gate too...first words....not after a long debate...just right away.

We have posters threatening other posters with physical violence, posters calling other poster idiots, and others who decide to go off on a fellow poster in long paragraphs attacking that poster's character. Who needs that stuff? We're supposed to be talking baseball, right? This place is a shadow of it's once haven of knowledgeable fans. Perhaps it's all the losing...whatever...but I don't need it.

I hope everyone enjoy the season...GO TWINS!

I wasn't necessarily arguing with you, your post just happened to be the one I responded to. I was just venting how frustrating the ending of last nights game was. And I put it on Mauer and that at bat.

History repeats itself Puck. There was a time a couple of years ago that me, Auto, jack and a few other started another forum on a completely different site. We had a good time over there too, I'm not sure why we quite posting there. And that was for the same reasons that you expressed in your post, too many people were getting personal and the board was full of BS and drama everywhere you looked.

"Here's what bothers me about Mauer's final at bat . . . He watched two strikes go by."

EXACTLY!!! WHen I played high school baseball, if we came to bat with a runner on 2nd or 3rd with less than 2 outs and we watched a strike go by we would have to run laps after the game...thats the rule I've always been taught, its your job to move runners up in that situation.

" A real bad contract. PERIOD! "

I really don't know how any Twins fan can say that the Mauer contract has been a great thing so far...even the ones that staunchly defend Mauer.

So, what makes you think the Pohlad's will change what their father and the twins have done for OVER 50 years. Your dreaming...