Where should Joe Mauer's Rehab assignment be?

by lookatthosetwins on Apr 24, 2009 2:08 AM EDT

As we all know, Joe Mauer is in Fort Myers on a rehab assignment. Thinking about Joe playing games for our minor league affilliate, I couldn't help but wonder why he couldn't "rehab" with the Twins. Here are the Pros and Cons that I can think of of this scenario.

Pros

1. Obvious. We go from an adequate but unspectacular backup catcher to the best catcher in the league. We're struggling pretty bad right now, but they don't call him Baby Jesus for nothing.

2. The quick to jump off the bandwagon fans will have something to get excited about and jump back on. Hopefully there aren't too many fans that upset over 15 poor games, but you never know.

Cons

1. I think this is the main one. Joe would feel more pressure to compete and to play at a high level, instead of relaxing and focusing on how his back feels.

2. Bringing Joe up would mean sending someone back down. The obvious choice would be Morales, but I think the better choice would have been to just leave Mijares in the minors for a while until we were sure Joe was 100%. That way, if Joe needed to only play every other day, or needed to come out of a game, we wouldn't be holding our breath whenever Redmond got hit in the groin with a baseball.

3. The afformentioned bandwagon jumpers would be more than a little upset if he came up then had a setback and had to go back on the DL. Even for the rest of us, it would be a lot easier to see him get a setback in Fort Myers and push his arrival back then to see him for a few days then have to wait again.

4. That's not the way teams usually handle these matters, and I wouldn't look to the Twins to start a trend. (I'm at least partially kidding about this one)

Looking at it, it does seem like letting him rehab in Fort Myers is the right choice, if just to keep away all the "Move him to another position" posts off the message boards if he had to go back on the DL. In a perfect world*, Joe would be able to "rehab" while helping the team out, because 75% of Joe Mauer is still better than most catchers in the league.

*Yes, I realize that "in a perfect world" not only would Joe not be injured, he would be playing 8 of the 9 positions in the field, including pitcher. Nick Punto would obviously still be the starting shortstop, and would slot nicely in the two hole.

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Comments

He should rehab at

Gluek’s!

beer can cure anything… mmmm beer!

by caluofmn on Apr 24, 2009 10:26 AM EDT reply actions

Most of rehabbing

is about the ability to follow a routine, in ideal conditions, with plenty of rest and focus on the task at hand. AIUI, Mauer has a home in Fort Myers, his brother is there, there is extensive training staff, facilities, etc. IOW, it is the ideal situation for a guy to get a handle on his body and get it back together.

Why risk something going wrong, or putting extra stress and disruption into his process?

Nothing personal, but this is not well thought through.

by Old Twins Cap on Apr 24, 2009 10:38 AM EDT reply actions

not well thought through

I’m not sure if you read the whole thing, but all I really did was pose a question. I went through the pros and cons, and surely there are others that I left out, and the only conclusion I made was that “letting him rehab in Ft. Myers is the right choice”. You obviously agree with that point, so you somehow think the mere posing of the question was wrong. The point of this site is to provide community discussion, and I thought this was an intersting thing to discuss. I appreciate your input about the training staff, etc., but lets try to be more constructive.

by lookatthosetwins on Apr 24, 2009 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions

Dont want to butt in, but I will

because I agree with both you and Old Twins Cap at the same time and so will offer a little bit of mediation.

I think there should be a lot of leeway for people to post both comments and fanposts, if for no other reason than without the liberal application of comments and posts we wouldn’t have a Twins Baseball “Community” – we would have a traditional blog (boring). Therefore, all of us need to think twice before we summarily dismiss someone else’s opinion, or posting, with scathing sarcasm or simple negativity that attempts to kill the conversation rather than further the dialogue.

However, I also think Old Twins Cap, didn’t just dump icewater on your post. He instead replied with a disagreement that he supported; thereby furthering the dialogue with a rebuttal. As a counter example,had Old Twins Cap simply replied with “This is pretty stupid” or “This article is a waste of space” or been scathing in his comments towards you, that would have been poor “community” based dialogue.

Having said that, I would also suggest that when I had finished reading this piece, I thought to myself, it is so clear that the Twins are making the right decision, and the author himself clearly concluded they had, that I don’t understand why the author didn’t scrap this piece before he published it – there just doesn’t appear to be any debatable question?

by montanatwinsfan on Apr 24, 2009 2:38 PM EDT up reply actions