Notes from the weekend

The Twins didn't exactly dominate the Royals over the weekend, but they won two of three and had plenty of baserunners in the Sunday loss. It wouldn't have taken much more at the plate or in the field to flip that result.

Sunday's loss puts the Twins at 47-23 -- still, by percentage points, the best record in the American League and 10 games ahead of the second-place Cleveland Indians in the AL Central. Minnesota's magic number is 83.

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Weekend roster move: Fernando Romero back down to Triple A after a poor outing on Friday, Zach Littell back up. Just another round of bullpen musical chairs.

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The Joe Mauer tribute weekend appears to have gone well. I took note of this Twitter exchange:

I predict he’ll be voted in. His 10 years as a catcher are enough https://t.co/jQVNwELlEh

— LaVelle E. Neal III (@LaVelleNeal) June 15, 2019

My recollection from the past is that Neal has been a bit cool about Mauer's Hall of Fame chances. I suspect he's heard support for Mauer from enough BBWAA colleagues in the past few months. Mauer has long been more highly regarded outside his home market than in, something I blame on KFAN and a couple of dunderheaded metro columnists.

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You may have noticed Martin Maldonado, the Kansas City catcher, wearing a blue tie over his chest protector Sunday. (The names he wrote on it are those of his father, brother and friends, presumably all fathers.) He wasn't the only one. Einar Diaz of Pittsburgh -- who entered his game late -- had one also. And down in Rochester, Willians Astudillo:

Here’s Willians Astudillo wearing a tie at work.

Enjoy... pic.twitter.com/ewwQQVu5kx

— Morrie Silver (@MorrieSilver8) June 16, 2019

All the same solid light blue with an identical logo.

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Plenty of rumors Sunday about one particular potential Twins trade target, Madison Bumgarner. 

I don't think a starting pitcher is as big a need for the Twins as is the bullpen, and I doubt that either Martin Perez or Michael Pineda are good bullpen candidates. Bumgarner is certainly a name, but his pitching the past few years hasn't matched his reputation. There is a theory that getting out of the morass the Giants are stuck in and onto a team with October ambitions will fan his competitive fires.

Bumgarner's a free agent after the season, and he's expected to be dealt. We'll see, obviously, where he lands.

No. 7

The Twins announced Tuesday that they will officially retire the number 7 in honor of Joe Mauer during the 2019 season, specific date undetermined. This is not a surprise.

Yep it was just a matter of time until my #7 was going to be retired. Just another milestone in my a lustrous career in the Twin Cities https://t.co/lkrMDWuHuw

— Denny Hocking (@bigleagueswings) December 18, 2018

Mauer and Hocking are far from the only No. 7s in Twins history, of course. Baseball Reference lists 17 players as having worn 7 for the Minnesota Twins, 35 including the Washington Senators years. (One of the Senators bearing the number is a Hall of Famer -- Al Simmons, who wore it in 1938, well after his prime seasons.)

The Twins' No. 7s include some notable names in Twins history -- such as Greg Gagne, Frank Quilici and Jimmy Hall -- and at least as many who-dats -- Greg "Boomer" Wells, Dave Meier and Paul Ray Powell.  

The Star Tribune's Phil Miller pointed out on Twitter that the Twins are a shortstop away from a lineup with the retired numbers. Getting there requires playing a few guys at suboptimal defensive positions, but they are all positions they had considerable time at, so it's legit:

C: Mauer (7)

1B: Kent Hrbek (14)

2B: Rod Carew (29)

3B: Harmon Killebrew (3)

SS: vacant

LF: Jackie Robinson (42)

CF: Kirby Puckett (34)

RF: Tony Oliva (6)

P: Bert Blyleven (28)

Mgr: Tom Kelly (10)

Basically, the Twins retire two kinds of numbers:

• Cooperstown inductees who are chosen for their Minnesota accomplishments (Killebrew, Carew, Blyleven, Puckett)
• Really distinguished figures who spent their entire career with the Twins (Oliva, Hrbek, Mauer, Kelly)

Robinson's in a different class, of course, and Puckett fits in both groups. Someday, I expect, Mauer will fit in both also.

Mauer's spray chart

This graphic fascinated me over the weekend:

Congratulations to @Twins Joe Mauer on an excellent career!!! Here's a spray chart of all 2123 of his career base hits. 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/owZH3NhubG

— Daren Willman (@darenw) November 9, 2018

Feel free to check the count of the little dots.

This is a true spray chart -- Mauer's hits were truly scattered all over the field. I dare say that such a chart for Kent Hrbek, to pull an example out of the previous generation, would look markedly different. 

We think of Mauer as an opposite-field hitter, and there is no question that this chart shows that he peppered the left-field line for doubles. But his singles flood the middle depth of the outfield, pretty much foul line to foul line. He went opposite field more often than his peers, for sure, but he is not lacking for pulled extra-base hits.

I also dare say that a chart of Mauer's outs would look markedly different. A lot of ground balls to the right of second base, a lot of fly balls to left field. Mauer -- this was unique -- almost never hit infield popups. Much less unique, he seldom hit ground balls to his opposite field. The vast majority of grounders are pulled, and Mauer was no exception to that principle. 

Joe Mauer's Friday night news dump

You -- a business, a government official, a person of reknown -- have a piece of news that you know is of great public interest but that you would prefer get little attention.

So you send out the press release at 6 p.m. or so Friday evening. It's known in the biz as a "Friday night news dump."

Joe Mauer's retirement announcement was treated as a Friday night news dump. It wasn't really a surprise, not after the emotional final game of the regular season and its theatrical one-pitch return to catching. It was impossible to watch that moment without knowing that it would be the last thing he did as a major league player.

Friday's letter to the fans, in which Mauer specifically connected his retirement to his 30-day stint on the disabled list with another concussion, merely made official what we all sensed in that damp-eye moment in late September.

Regular visitors to this space, or of my in-season weekly print columns in the Free Press, know well my view of Mauer's career. He had a decade in which he was as productive as any catcher in baseball history. He milked enough out of the first base years to reach the miminal career milestones expected by the Hall of Fame electorate. He deserves induction at Cooperstown, and I believe he will eventually get that induction.

I have nothing but admiration of his accomplishments, acceptance of his decision to walk away from the game, and gratitude for having gotten to see so much of it.

A season's, and maybe a career's, end

An emotional Joe Mauer caught one, presumably final,
 major-league pitch in the ninth inning Sunday, five years
after a concussions forced him to abandon the position.

The final day of the regular season is always one of the saddest of the year for me. Some years I'm eager for the postseason, but even in those years I know I'll miss the rhythm of the schedule -- and winter is coming.

On Sunday we got a glimpse of how much Joe Mauer misses being a catcher. His postgame description of having put the gear in a bag five years ago and never opening it until Saturday night, when he put it on over his clothes -- that helped explain the tears as he stood on the field one more time in the "tools of ignorance" to receive one more pitch.

I was unenthused about the stunt while it was happening, just as I frowned at the one-pitch return to third base by Jim Thome in 2011.  But it clearly meant a lot to Mauer, and apparently to Mauer's family.

It occurred to me in these past few days of trying to ferret out of Mauer's deeds and words what his intentions are that much may hinge on how he defines "Joe Mauer" to himself. If his first thought is "baseball player," it's a lot less likely that he'll retire than if it's "husband and father," and vice versa.

Sunday made me wonder if "catcher" isn't still top shelf in his self-image, more than five years after he last caught a competitive pitch.

And I wonder, too, if the theatrics the Twins worked into Sunday's game -- his daughters visiting first base for the usual Sunday kids starting lineup (which he didn't know about before hand), the one-pitch return to catching (which he had know about), the old promo commercials on the scoreboard -- if all that was intended to nudge Mauer in the direction of retirement.

Mauer will decide what he deems best for himself. It's not for me to substitute my judgment for his. I expect him to walk away, but it's certainly plausible that he'll decide he wants to live baseball's rhythms at least one more season.

Celebrating Mauer

The Twins wrap up this homestand tonight against the Yankees, then trundle off to Kansas City, Detroit and Oakland before returning home for their final six games of the season.

Which will be the final six games of Joe Mauer's contract, and perhaps the final six games of his illustrious career.

Mauer on Tuesday hit the fifth grand slam of his career. His career batting average with the bases loaded is .378. That is a fact. Also a fact is that Minnesota has a vocal set of Mauer haters, fueled by a popular but cynical set of media voices (radio and print) that are adverse to facts. They are, at least for the moment, drowned out by the public embrace of the hometown hero who may be on his way out.

Nobody knows, perhaps not even Mauer, what his future holds. He could retire, he could return. He could even sign elsewhere, although nobody appears to think that likely.

We've toted up before reasons for him to keep going and reasons for him to hang it up, and all of them still hold. Neither decision should surprise anybody.

Meanwhile, there is this: seven more games in Minnesota for Joe Mauer. There may be more, but there may not. Cherish them.

Mauer's milestone

Joe Mauer passed Rod Carew on the Twins' career hit list Friday. That's hardly an insignificant accomplishment, but it's also not something likely to make it onto a Cooperstown plaque.

Still, Mauer is surrounded on that list by Hall of Famers: Kirby Puckett above him, Carew below. (Mauer does have more than 500 more at-bats as a Twin than Carew.)

If we take the longer view and add in the Washington years of the franchise, No 1. becomes Sam Rice, a Hall of Fame outfielder who spent almost all of his 20-year career with the Senators, 1915-1934. Rice, who hit .322 for his career in the highest era for batting average, had 2,889 hits for Washington; he is, I believe, the player who came closest to the 3,000 hit club without reaching that round number.

Rice, Puckett, and then two other old-time Senators, Joe Judge and Clyde Milan, neither of whom is in Cooperstown. Mauer is likely to catch Milan this year. Judge, he's going to need a couple more seasons -- and the same for Puckett, who is ahead of Judge by just 13 hits.

Nobody other than Mauer, and maybe not even him, knows if Mauer's going to try to play next year. No matter how one slices and dices his stats, 2018 is shaping up as the worst of his distinguished career. He's 35 now, he has another child on the way, he missed about a month with concussion symptoms earlier in the season -- he has reason to hang 'em up if he so chooses.

And he has reason to want to keep going. Even in his worst season, Mauer still has the team's highest on-base percentage (unless you count the likes of trade acquistions Logan Forsythe and Tyler Austin).

I'll accept either decision.

Notes, quotes and comment

Paul Molitor finally walked his talk about a bullpen committee Friday night.

After giving the first three save opportunites since the trade of Fernando Rodney to Trevor Hildenberger, he turned a two-run lead over to Matt Magill. Thirty-some pitches later, Molitor turned a one-run lead over to Taylor Rogers, who got the final out and his first major league save.

We'll see where Molitor goes from here.

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Tyler Austin's mammoth homer Friday night prompted a collegue to ask me about him, and I gave him the "Sano light" comp: Right-handed, big power, strikes out a lot, not as athletic as Miguel Sano.

Nobody would play Austin at third base. And Molitor seems reluctant to try him at first base. Having decided to sit Joe Mauer, Molitor played Ehrie Adrianza at first base on Friday (with Sano at third).

Austin, in his limited playing time this year, has an OPS (On-base Plus Slugging) more than 200 points higher against lefties than righties. That sounds like a platoon player, and it's really tough to carry a platoon DH on a 13-pitcher roster.

A better comp for Austin than Sano might be Byung Ho Park, who showed prodigious power in his brief Twins tenure but failed to hit consistently. Part of Park's problem, however, was that he couldn't stay healthy enough to stay in the lineup.

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Joe Mauer didn't start Friday night, but he certainly played, pulling a three-run homer while pinch-hitting for Adrianaza. And then he flashed about as much emotion as we've seen from the even-keeled Mauer.

When he stepped out for a curtain call, the thought flashed through my mind: He's going to retire.

As with the stucture of the bullpen, we'll see.

No Mo Lo Mo and other notes from the weekend

Logan Morrison is now on the disabled list and done for the season, with hip surgery pending.

The Twins could pick up his $8 million option for 2019. My instinct is that they will pay the $1 million buyout and let him hit free agency again.

I will go so far as to say that there's no way both Morrison and Joe Mauer are back in 2019. They are both left-handed hitters, both over 30 and both limited to first base in the field.

My current reading of the Mauer situation is:

• He wants to play in 2019
• He doesn't want to go elsewhere to do so

If both those assumptions are accurate, Mauer will be back for his age 36 season. And I think the roster makes more sense if there is a right-handed hitter complementing him for the 1B/DH roles.

The Morrison signing made sense. It didn't work. I don't know how much the hip issue had to do with his struggles this year, but I think the Twins will move on.

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Baseball Reference's team pages display mug shots of that team's top 12 players by WAR. For the Twins at this typing, the top 12 includes two guys no longer with with the team (Eduardo Escobar and Brian Dozier), a DL-list pitcher with four starts (Adalberto Mejia), a shortstop still shy of 150 plate appearances (Jorge Polanco) and an outfielder likewise shy of 150 plate appearances (Jake Cave).

Mauer is not among the top 12, even though he leads the team in the most important hitting stat, on-base percentage (150 PA minimum).

It has been a disappointing season for the Minnesota icon, especially after such a solid 2017. He had the lengthy DL stint with concussion symptoms as well, so his return is far from a foregone conclusion. Both parties, the Twins and Mauer, could logically say no. I just think they're both inclined to yes.

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Kohl Stewart's debut Sunday matched  the Keith Law scouting report referenced here last week. He throws strikes and lacks an out pitch. That might work if the defense is of genuine high quality, but that's not the 2018 Twins. In his fatal fifth inning, the balls in play turned into hits.

His plus is a lot of ground balls. His minus is that the Twins aren't particularly adept at turning ground balls into outs. Paul Molitor gave him a shortstop at third base to try to help with that, but ... ultimately, it's real tough to be a starting pitcher in the second decade of the 21st century with a below-average strikeout rate.

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I see I forgot to do a Pic of the Week. Probably a sign that I should retire that Sunday feature of the blog.

Two two-base hits, two hit-by-pitch

Important update: Season pace of 75.#pace https://t.co/xzdSJlolEO

— Dave Campbell (@DaveCampbellAP) June 20, 2018

Every double helps, I guess. 

Really, that scoring ruling changed nothing except Escobar's doubles count. It went from a single and error on Jackie Bradley Jr to a double and error on JBJ, since Escobar wound up at third. It doesn't affect anybody's ERA, batting average or even fielding percentage. 

Escobar has played in 66 games so far this season and has had at least one double in 25 of them. His longest doubles streak is four (June 3-6, a span that includes an off day and, natch, a doubleheader). 

I'm about ready to embrace his chances of getting this record. 

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Joe Mauer was hit twice with pitches on Tuesday. They were his first two HBPs of the season. His career high is three, which is higher than I expected. 

So I guess Mauer is now on pace for a career high in a statistical category.

Mauer is at 25 career HBP. This does not put him in the top 100 of active players. In comparison, Mike Trout (tied for 37th among active players) has been hit 58 times, Miguel Cabrera 60 and Carlos Gomez -- who does get under some people's skin -- 96. 

The current career leader in HBP is Chase Utley with an even 200.  That's a few bruises.

Awaiting Joe Mauer

The Twins announced Sunday that Joe Mauer, who last played May 18, will begin a rehab assignment  today with their Triple A affiliate. If all goes well, they apparently envision a two-day stint: DH today, first base Tuesday, rejoin the team Wednesday in Detroit.

That's the best-case scenario. When it comes to Mauer's health, best case is a rarity, and we'll see how things actually transpire.

I view Mauer's return with some trepidation. Not so much about him in the lineup; I remain convinced that this is a better team with Joe Mauer than without. I fret, instead, about Mauer himself. He has had some severe brain injuries, and that this occurrence of symptoms appears to have come without an actual blow to the head strikes me as worrisome.

Coming into the season, I was relatively confident that Mauer would play beyond 2018. I am less confident of that today.

I want Joe Mauer and his thoroughly professional example in the Twins lineup. But more than that, I want Joe Mauer to have a good life beyond his playing career. I'm hardly a neurosurgeon, but it's difficult for me to see how playing helps that latter goal.

Darn close to must win

It's only the first of June. The Twins have more than 100 games to play. But these next two games against Cleveland feel darn close to must-win for Minnesota.

Cleveland now has a 6.5 game lead on the third-place Twins. Add a couple more to the margin, and it's hard to see how the Twins can stay in the race with the surging Tribe.

Cleveland's not the nearly perfect team it was last year; the bullpen is notably weaker, with Andrew Miller injured, Bryan Shaw gone and a number of guys who had big years in 2017 suddenly ineffective. But other than the starting rotation -- which itself has suddenly sprung a leak -- the Twins aren't nearly as good in any aspect as they were last year either.

The Twins were good enough last year, barely, to grab the last wild-card spot. This year, it appears, the best chance of making the playoffs is winning the AL Central. And two months into the season, that chance seems to be rapidly vanishing.

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In Thursday's post I made an offhand comment about the imminent return of Ervin Santana. A few hours after I typed that, I learned what many others knew Wednesday, that Santana's rehab assignment had been aborted.

I have, from time to time, voiced caution about Santana's return. The role of the fingers in pitching is subtle but vital, and if the surgery on his right middle finger winds up imparing flexibility or feeling in the digit, that figures to be a significant problem. I should have been more skeptical Wednesday, especially considering the reports of diminished velocity in Santana's first two outings.

In other bad news, Joe Mauer's concussion symptoms apparently aren't getting any better. The chatter from the broadcasters late in the road trip was positive, but the standard broadcaser optimism was misplaced.

I think the Twins really miss the consistent quality of Mauer's at-bats and the example he sets. He plans his work and works his plan. We see so many flail-and-fail at-bats; we should appreciate Mauer's quiet professionalism more than we do.

Notes from the weekend

I'm not a neurologist who has examined Joe Mauer. Even if I were a neurologist who has examined Joe Mauer, I doubt I would have a definitive opinion on what the return of "concussion-like symptoms" means for his future.

But clearly this is not a positive development for him, or for the team. He left Friday's game early and went on the disabled list Saturday. (Technical note: He went on the 10-day DL, and I wonder if they abolished the seven-day concussion DL when the 10-day DL came into being.) All we know for sure is he won't play for more than a week.

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The Twins finally played a clean game Sunday. And they won. What a novelty.

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I am amused by the reaction to Tampa Bay's newest pitching innovation: The one-inning starter.

The Ray's rotation had left-hander Ryan Yarbourgh scheduled for Saturday's game at Anaheim, but manager Kevin Cash announced earlier in the week that he would open the game with veteran reliever Sergio Romo, who once closed for a team that won the World Series and had never started a game in his career. The rationale: The Angels don't have a left-handed bat in the top half of their lineup, so the right-handed Romo can deal with the Mike Trouts and Justin Uptons in the first inning and Yarbourgh can have a slightly easier time of it when he came in in the second.

I heard somebody, I'm not sure who, on MLB Radio ranting about this. What sabermetrics, what analytics, tell you that a guy who's never started in his life is a better matchup?

Hey, it's one inning of pitching. One inning at a time is what Romo has done in the majors for 11 years. First inning, sixth inning, ninth inning -- it's all short stints for him.

He struck out the side in the first. Yarbourgh entered to start the second inning and went 6.1 innings, his longest outing of the season. (And got the W.)

And on Sunday, Romo started again. This time Cash stretched him out to 1.1 innings. The Angels won Sunday -- it was Shohei Ohtani's day to pitch, after all -- but Romo gave them another shutout inning at the start of the game.

After which Angels infielder Zach Cozart complained that using Romo this way was "bad for baseball." Seriously.

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Cozart's may not have been the single silliest utterance of the weekend, however. I bow in this regard to the Dutch Master of old-school, Bert Blyleven, who complained mightly during Sunday's telecast about the pulling of Jake Odorizzi in the sixth inning. At one point he declared that Odorizzi is like Justin Verlander and capable of going 120 pitches.

What Odorizzi has in common with Verlander is that they're right-handed and have spent their entire major league careers in the American League. Verlander has 10 seasons with more innings than Odorizzi's career high. Odorizzi has thrown 120 pitches (his career high) exactly once, in 2016.

Odorizzi is a good major league starter. He's not Verlander. It insults the listeners' intelligence to pretend they are equivalent pitchers. We were all better off when Blyleven was on his extended break from the booth.

Mauer 2K

Joe Mauer is hitting .412 so far.

Joe Mauer got career hit number 2,000 Thursday night, a ground ball through the box against a drawn-in infield that drove in a pair of runs and doubled Minnesota's lead.

Regular readers of this blog know that I see Mauer as having done the heavy lifting for the Hall of Fame. His decade of excellence as a catcher stands with anybody in the game's history, and he will this year, barring a recurrance of the injuries that have occasionally limited his output, steadily climb up career lists.

Hit number 2,000, for example, put Mauer past Jimmy Collins for No. 287 on the all-time hits list. Collins, a third baseman whose career straddled the 19th and 20th centuries, is enshrined in Cooperstown.

Another 100 hits, which (again assuming good health) figures to come no later than August, would take him to a tie for 228 on the list (with Clyde Milan, who spent his career with the Twins' Washington predecssor) and past Hall of Famers Gary Carter, Johnny Bench, Deacon White, Chuck Klein, Dave Bancroft, George Kell, Bobby Doerr, Earl Averill, Bill Mazeroski, Johnny Mize and some guy named Harmon Killebrew.

Two thousand hits ain't 3,000; it's not an automatic entry to Cooperstown. But it is a milestone that is typical of Hall of Famers. A couple of years ago it was widely assumed, including in this corner of cyberspace, that 2018 would probably be the end of Mauer's career. His bounceback season of 2017, and his hot start this year, make a return much more likely. And the longer Mauer can go, the more impressive his career totals will become.

From the Handbook: Bill James leaders

Over his long career as a pioneer of sabermetrics, Bill James has concocted a number of analytical stats. Some. such as runs created, have become foundation pieces for further metrics; some never caught on in the sabermetric community.

Win shares is one of the latter. I took note earlier this offseason of the philosophical debate on social media over WAR -- wins above replacement -- which has the same goal as win shares (to put one all-encompassing number on a given player's contributions). James' criticism of the various formulas for WAR is that, despite its name, the stat is disconnected from wins. Win shares is not.

In the leaderboard section of the 2018 Bill James Handbook, following the traditional stats (common and obscure) comes the Bill James Leaders. And I see that Joe Mauer is nestled between Robinson Cano and Chase Utley in career win shares, 290, seventh among active players. The top 10 is, really, made of guys I expect to get to the big stage at Cooperstown some induction Sunday down the road -- Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Adrian Beltre, Ichiro Suzuki, Joey Votto ... and, yes, Mauer. 

From the Handbook: Baserunning

We all know Byron Buxton is fast. We also know that speed alone does not equal outstanding baserunning.

But as Baseball Info Systems figures such things, Buxton was the best baserunner in baseball in 2017, at +55 bases.

The essay that preceeds the numbers notes that Buxton gained at least 27 bases from both basestealing and from "bases gained" -- for example, going first to third on a single or advancing on a wild pitch -- making him "the most balanced of the leaders."

Plus he grounded into just one double play. I'm not completely sold on BIS' inclusion of GIDP in the baserunning metrics, but I don't make the rules for them.

Joe Mauer has long been viewed -- accurately for the most part -- as an outstanding baserunner without outstanding speed. He has become visibly slower in the past few years (he is 34, after all) and in 2017 he scored a -7 in BIS's metric. For his career -- the Handbook contains career baserunning totals for players with 1,000 career games started in 2002) Mauer is +86, which isn't close to being the active leader but is certainly no embarrassment.

From the Handbook: Hard hit balls

OK, Twins fans: Who on this team was most likely in a random plate appearance to hit the ball hard? Now, hold that thought.

The second topic in the 2018 Bill James Handbook is on hard-hit balls. James wrote a essay introducing the topic, which is new to the annual reference work, delving into the meanings, implications and distortions of the metric. As always, context is key.

For example: When Giancarlo Stanton on Miguel Sano hit the ball hard, the result is often a home run. When Victor Martinez or Joe Mauer hit the ball hard, the result is more often a line drive or hard grounder on which a play might be made. (And since Mauer and Martinez are both converted catchers and run like converted catchers, infielders can afford to play them deeper.)

On average, the batting average on hard-hit balls is .538, the average on medium-hit balls is .268 and the average on soft-hit balls is .158. Those averages are not universal. Austin Jackson last year hit .360 on soft-hit balls, .400 in 2016. This is part of his skill set.

Anyway, to the question posed at the start: Joe Mauer is the sole Twin to place in the top 50 in hard-hit ball frequency (100 plate appearances minimum), 27.1 percent. He hit 162 balls hard, 85 of them for hits.

From the Handbook: Mauer and the Hall of Fame

The annual Bill James Handbook arrived last week in my mailbox -- year 29 and counting of its publication. I have 'em all, which is probably indicative of something wrong with me, but so be it.

The bulk of the book -- identified in the table of contents as the Career Register -- is, frankly, obsolete. When the Handbook begin, it served as an annual update to the Baseball Encyclopedia, the best place to find accurate answers to such questions as "how many career homers has Kent Hrbek hit?" Today Baseball Reference has all those stats and more online. And if the Career Register were still all the Handbook offered, I probably wouldn't still be buying it.

But this isn't 1989, and there's a lot more in it. This year -- if only to give me an organizing principle to guide my persual of this reference work -- I'm going to go through the non-Regster portions, front to back, and examine something Twins-related in it. Some days there'll be news that supercedes this project. It may take to spring training to finish.

We start, as the book does, with Bill James' reworking of his Hall of Fame Monitor system. This, as James takes pains to point out, isn't about who should be selected for Cooperstown, but about identifiing the players who are compiling the things that typically get players selected for Cooperstown. It's a prediction system based on previous selections, a tracking system. James devised the Monitor almost 40 years ago, there's been dozens of additional honorees, and he has updated the system.

Players get points as they reach accomplishments "typical" of Hall of Fame players. The point scale is set up to balance at 100 -- a player scores 100 on the Monitor, he's probably done enough to get into the Hall. If he's under 100, he probably hasn't. The"gray area" -- in which players may get in and may not -- is roughly 80 to 130. Again, it's not about who should be in, but about who's doing things that the ever-changing selection process has valued in the past.

So ... Joe Mauer. Mauer is listed, for what should be obvious reasons, as a catcher for this purpose, even though he hasn't caught since 2013. His bounceback 2017 gave him his first real boost in the Monitor since his move to first base.

Mauer stands at 89 on the revised Monitor, which, as it happens, is the same score as Carlton Fisk (enshrined). He's six points ahead of Ted Simmons, eight up on Thurmon Munson, 13 ahead of the still-active Yadier Molina, none of whom are in.

Mauer added four points to his total in 2017, which equals his total from the previous three seasons put together. Let's imagine that:

• he has another such season in 2018 and
• decides to retire at age 35.

That would leave him with 93 Monitor points. That might suffice to get him into Cooperstown; it might not.

First base with and without Mauer

A year ago I figured that Joe Mauer would retire at the expiration of his contract after the 2018 season. His 2017 resurgence may change that equation, but he'll be 35, his daughters will be about ready to start school, he'll have collected more than $200 million in salary over the course of his career -- yeah, he might well decide to hang 'em up.

Then what for the Twins at first base? For that matter, who's behind Mauer for 2018?

Mauer played more than 72 percent of the team's innings at first base. Kennys Vargas picked the majority of the rest. But Vargas

• hasn't been very productive as a major league hitter
• is finally out of options
• isn't a lock to remain on the 40-man roster this winter and
• is seriously contemplating playing in Japan or Korea

Byungho Park might be seriously contemplating a return to his native Korea. He slugged a mere .415 in Triple A, and if Park ain't hitting for power, he ain't doing much. His walk to strikeout ratio with Rochester (28 bases on balls, 130 strikeouts) was ugly. He has one more year on his Twins contract, he's not on the 40-man roster and this front office has no investment in him.

In my opinion, it's likely that neither Vargas nor Park is with the Twins next year.

Many assume that Miguel Sano is destined for first base once that position is vacated (he played 65 inning there this year). My guess is that if he's too big to stay healthy at third base, he's not real likely to stay healthy at first either. The Twins have long ought to avoid a full-time DH, but that is, in my view, his more likely destination if third base doesn't work for him.

Sano is right-right -- bats right, throws right. John Manuel, for this week still the editor of Baseball America and after that a member of the Twins pro scouting department, had a recent piece about the scouting bias against right-right first basemen. (Byungho Park certainly isn't a data point to discredit the bias.)

The hitter in the system who most interests me as a post-Mauer first base candidate is also right-right: Brent Rooker, who raked at two levels in the farm system after the Twins plucked him with a supplemental pick between the first and second rounds.

He's right-right, he's probably not athletic enough for the outfield and as a college senior draft he was older than his competition at both Rookie and High A ball. These are significant drawbacks. He also hit 11 homers in 40 games in the Florida State League with Hammond Stadium as his home park, and that doesn't happen very often.

Presumably Rooker will advance to Double-A in the spring. Then we might get a better read on his future.

Mauer and a Gold Glove

For some reason the subject of Joe Mauer and a possible Gold Glove award for him at first base kept popping up on my Twitter timeline Monday.

One ignornamus insisted that Craig Biggio won one of the big ugly trophies during his catching days and might have won one in the outfield. Not true. All four of Biggio's came at second base.

Reality: Only two players have won Gold Gloves at two different positions. Darrin Erstad at first base and outfield (for most of the award's history, the voters made no differentation between left, right and center. This is no longer the case.) and Placido Polanco, who won twice at second base with Detroit and once at third for the Phillies.

Biggio did begin his career as a catcher. He was the Astros regular behind the plate for three seasons and made an All-Star team. Then he shifted to second -- precisely BECAUSE he wasn't a Gold Glove-caliber catcher, and he was an All-Star caliber hitter.

The Astros wanted to keep his bat in the lineup and figured they could improve on Biggio's defense behind the dish. Had he been a high-quality defensive catcher, he probably would have remained a catcher.

Mauer was a legitmate Gold Glove catcher, and those types seldom change positions. Mauer moved because more is known about concussions than in decades past. Move his career forward a decade, and he probably doesn't move to first base -- and he might well have had more brain damage and had his career curtailed, as was the case with Mickey Cochrane, Mauer's closest historical comp.

Should Mauer win the Gold Glove? That is the conventional wisdom in Twins Territory, in large part because Dick Bremer and Co. started beating that drum by midseason. For what it's worth, John Dewan of Baseball Info Systems says Mitch Moreland of the Boston Red Sox had the most runs saved among American League first basemen.

I'd like to see Mauer win it, not because the award changes anything about him but because it would be a little bit more on his side when his Hall of Fame credentials are up for debate. I've said this before, repeatedly: He's done the heavy lifting for Cooperstown.