| Douglas Benton. 9th June, 2006 - 5:35 pm
 When the 2001 draft rolled around and the Minnesota Twins held the number one overall pick, many people in the Twins City area weren’t able to contain their excitement. Their Twins were the surprise darlings of the early season and right before them was USC pitching prodigy Mark Prior. Instead, the Minnesota Twins took a high school catcher Joe Mauer and the calls of stupidity started flowing in. Well five years later, Mark Prior is just beginning another rehab process through the minors, while Mauer leads all of baseball with a .379 average.
Mauer has battled injures throughout his young career, much like Prior, but this season, he is fully healthy and is showing off the bat that made the Twins pass on Prior in the first place. In concert with his average, Mauer sports an OPS of .978, which is good for 16th best in baseball. Remember that Mauer is a catcher, but ranks higher than power hitters Ryan Howard, David Wright, Barry Bonds, and Miguel Tejada. To further show Mauer’s prowess, the greatest offensive catcher of this generation, Mike Piazza, only surpassed Mauer’s mark five times in his career.
His defense is solid as well, though it isn’t up to the caliber of his bat. He has only made eight errors in 193 games behind the plate and has done a nice job of handling the staff up in Minnesota, though it hasn’t been his best work this year.
Prior on the other hand torched the baseball world as soon as he was drafted with his effortless motion and overpowering, sometimes nasty stuff. Still, too many innings in 2003 have led to some injuries recently as he still is a month away from being back and ready for major league action.
So, while you look at this most recent draft and try to decipher who will be the next clean-up hitter for your team, just do yourself and your new players a favor. Hide the result of the draft for a few years and then look back on them and see that maybe that unknown you took in the first round isn’t so bad after all. |
