Random Thoughts about Joe Mauer, a Space Travel TV Show & the guy whose name is spelled wrong a lot

I've always felt that the MVP in a sport, in this case Major League Baseball, should come from a contending team, because how can one be the most valuable player if their team has no value in September? Hence, I was never terribly happy about Alex Rodriguez winning it with the Rangers during a down year for the team. However, watching Joe Mauer this year, as his numbers are rising this month (which should not be possible for a catcher in August), I might have to change my opinion. The Twins are still technically "in it" but they need to get more than 1 good start every 7 days if they'd like to cut into Detroit's lead. What Mauer is doing now though, is enough to transcend wins & losses.

He's leading the world in hitting, up to .383 after Tuesday's win over the Rangers, a team he has historically struggled against until this week (Ichiro is at .365, and Hanley Ramirez leads the NL at .359). He's on top of the MLB on base percentage list at .448; yes, he is currently ahead of the machine, Albert Pujols (.441). His Slugging percentage (.653) is behind Pujols, but is nearly 80 points ahead of the next AL competitor. If you had told anyone in baseball back in April that he'd be leading in BA & OBP now, they wouldn't bat an eye, but slugging? Naturally, his On Base + Slugging (OPS) numbers lead the AL at 1.101, just behind Pujols for MLB lead.

His 25 homeruns are tied for 17th in baseball, ahead of traditional sluggers Miguel Cabrera, Paul Konerko, Jim Thome & Alex Rodriguez. He's also tied for 11th in the AL for number of hits for the season, even though he missed an entire month! He's 8th in the AL for total bases - did I mention he missed one of the 5 months played? 20% of the season to this point?

I could keep talking about him for hours, but I'll spare you the pain of that. I'm sure in his spare time he's also rescued a baby from a burning fire and stopped a runaway train, but the media is too busy looking at his stats to have time to check out his activities outside of baseball. I just might be convinced that an MVP can come from a non-contender, though I hope the Twins make another late season push to make that a moot argument!

Now for the random thoughts:

• NASA and the Space Program is essentially an obsession for me right now, which my family & friends know all too well. I adored it as a kid, then sort of forgot that these missions were going on in outer space, and now, thanks to Mike Massimino being on Twitter, and Apollo 11's 40th Anniversary, I am catching up on everything I'd missed, before & after I was born. However, as I have watched 3 of the first 4 episodes of ABC's "Defying Gravity" about missions through the solar system 40+ years in the future, I pray that our real astronauts aren't like the "Grey's Anatomy in space" characters on this show. There seems to be a lot of, um, extra-curricular activity among these fictional astronauts. It is fairly entertaining so far though, so I think I'll stick with it, even if it's just to support a show about space travel. Plus I need to start watching it as it's shown, so I can see some of the hilarious comments on Twitter that occur under the hashtag #defyinggravity on Sunday evenings.
• Because we have all been bombarded by him today (and for months prior to that) I'll keep my Brett Favre thoughts to a minimum. I am on the side that is happy to see him in purple, as I feel like the Minnesota Vikings would once again fall short at the quarterback position, allowing defenses to stack the box to stifle Adrian Peterson. I don't expect #4 to be a savior, just to complete some passes to help open up the running game, which in turn opens up the opportunity for some fun long bombs to Bernard Berrian & Sidney Rice that we'd all enjoy seeing. Plus, anyone who can get on Twitter's trending topics list twice at the same time, is pretty impressive, even if it's due to half the country spelling his name correctly & the other half phonetically sounding out "Farve."
• University of Minnesota Football & Baseball player, Eric Decker, continues to make decisions & behave in ways that impress those around him. Now it's the Minnesota Twins, appreciating his honesty during their efforts to sign him (he was a 27th round pick of the Twins): http://bit.ly/uWtee I'm curious to see which sport he'll be in 5 years down the road, but I think he'll be successful in whatever he does.

That's all for now. Nothing too deep - just some random thoughts!

Why is Nick Punto playing?

While I must disclose that I am personally am a fan of Twins SS/2B Nick Punto because of his fielding, hustle & tenacity, I can’t quite understand why he’s seen so much playing time when he’s batting a paltry .209. Being a fan of someone does not mean I’m blind to numbers like that, so I did about 8 minutes of research. I was somewhat surprised what I found.

Punto’s on base percentage is .326. Who is above him? Mauer (.432), Morneau (.399), Kubel (.385), Span (.370), Cuddyer (.354), & another .209 hitter, Brian Buscher (.347; no wonder he pinch hits so often). If the top two spots in the batting order should go to guys with some speed, who get on base, then considering Kubel, Morneau & Cuddy are middle of the line-up guys (and have no speed anyway), it actually makes numerical sense for Punto to be at the spot, as much as he is struggling with hitting this year, unless the Twins wanted to move everyone up again to have Mauer batting 2nd. The goal is to get on base for the guys that come next. He didn’t have a good showing there in game 1 in Oakland (his 0 for night is what led me to look into why Gardy plays him so much), but even with those numbers from tonight, in terms of getting on base, he may actually be a better option than the other choices currently on the roster.

Since these numbers are for the whole season, and I think more recent play is always important when looking at stats, I also looked at his June & July numbers. Turns out in the past month & a half, he is batting .250 with a .369 on base percentage (which is just below Span’s .370 OBP for the season). Walks (logically) seem to be the key. While he’s only had 17 hits in that span (no pun intended), he has 16 walks as well.

Then I thought I’d see how the Twins do when he plays in the games, as winning would be the top goal. Since he has often been a late inning replacement in games where the Twins are leading, I only looked at games in which he had 3 or more plate appearances. This season, the Twins are one game above .500 overall, barely sneaking in with a .505 winning percentage. However, when Punto plays the majority of the, the Twins are 4 games above .500, with a .534 winning percentage. Huh. That doesn’t seem like a big difference, but game 163 last year showed the importance of each and every win. Maybe this Ron Gardenhire guy actually does know what he is doing.

Even as a Punto fan though, I would like to see him start getting some extra base hits again, as he only has 6 of those, and 0 triples. But if he can keep increasing his batting average and on base percentage throughout the year, and is batting in front of Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, Cuddyer, and/or Crede, he should start scoring a lot more runs, which would make everybody in Twins Territory happy!

As for the pitching debacle & less than shining defense in Oakland, topped off with a pathetic call on the game tying run for the Twins by an out of position umpire, well, I just don’t want to think about that game anymore.

Nick Punto Photo taken by me, Liz Strand, 05/03/07 at Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, FL