2007 Twins Preview: Catchers

The Twins are back and so am I. This year my musings may be a little sparse. I am busier, at work and at home, than I was last year. But I hope to add some original material and keep the blog up to date on standings, game lines, inane commentary, injuries and other Twins’ issues.

I plan on doing a team overview and an AL Central overview. My first step is to look over the Twins position by position starting with Catcher.

The Twins are obviously doing well at the Catcher position. They have an MVP candidate and batting champ in Mauer and very capable veteran back-up in Redmond.

Redmond had a batting average only 6 points less than Mauer’s. But for him to be valuable as a hitter he has to hit that well since he doesn’t do any of the secondary things a hitter needs to do like walk and hit for extra-bases. With that being said he is a better than capable back-up. He is fine defensively, throwing out 1/3 of all base-stealers last year with no errors which is about his career norm.

He is a perfect back-up for Mauer since he is a .332 vs lefties over last 3 years and hit .447 against them last year. Now if we can get Gardy to start platooning him against the tough lefties it would make Mauer a better hitter.

In my eyes Mauer was the MVP last year. But that was already discussed, so I won’t re-hash it.

He has a little speed, a great eye, has some pop in his bat and plays excellent defense. He probably won’t hit .347 again but as he gets older he will likely walk more and hit more homeruns. I look for another great season out of Mauer but the Plexi-glass Principle states that he will come down to earth a bit.

The Twins should still have one of the best Catching tandems in the baseball. Last year the Twins catchers were 3 in OPS but were way ahead of everyone else in OBP, the single most important stat to determine run production.

Mauer and Redmond will continue to be a quality catching tandem. They would be even better if Gardy would learn to platoon them better.