Will Joe Remain Twins Catcher?

As the ongoing debate about whether catchers should block the plate when a runner is coming home and getting ready to take out the catcher, you continuously hear of one catcher that should be moved from behind the plate. That name would be Joe Mauer. All the outrage about the catcher blocking home plate started about a week ago when Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants broke his left fibula and severely strained some ligaments in his ankle. He will miss the remainder of the 2011 season.

Thus began the debate whether teams should put such valuable players behind the plate. My thought is to keep them behind the plate. You can’t move a catcher to a different position just because you are afraid he might get hurt on a play. If you did that then you wouldn’t have anyone playing defense, because then you could make the case that a second baseman could be taken out with a hard slide or whatever the situation is.

During all this talk about Posey and the thought of moving players from behind the plate, you hear a lot about the Minnesota Twins possibly moving Mauer to a different position. I totally disagree with their opinion on that. Not only is Mauer one of the best catchers in the game right now, but where would put him? They have Justin Morneau at first base through the 2013 season and Danny Valencia at third base for the foreseeable future. Those would be the only two positions I would put Mauer at if I was the Twins.

If you were to move Mauer, who would take over as the full-time, starting catcher? Drew Buetra? No thanks. Rene Rivera? No thanks. Steve Holm? Okay, you have to stop being funny. Wilson Ramos? Oh wait, the Twins traded him for Matt Capps. With the Twins payroll exceeding $100 million for the first time in franchise history, you wouldn’t have much wiggle room to go spend on a quality starting catcher, so that brings us back to keeping Mauer behind the plate. Also, don’t forget that Mauer is in the first year of his new 8 year, $184 million contract. So you can’t even think about moving him to a different position this early into his contract.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire put it perfectly the other day when asked about the possibility of moving Mauer to a different position: "He signed an eight-year deal to catch in the big leagues for the Minnesota Twins," Gardenhire said. "So we're trying to get him back as a catcher. If it doesn't work out when he comes back, then we're going to have to figure somewhere else. And that's a lot harder than everybody makes it out to be, because we have some corner people that are pretty good baseball players.”

I think the only way they move Mauer to a different position is if he continues to have knee issues during the off-season and into Spring Training. To me, the earliest you can think about moving him is after the 2013 season, but that would only work if the Twins don’t re-sign Morneau and then move Mauer to first base. That doesn’t mean I don’t want Morneau to stick around, as I certainly want him to stick around, but the Twins will have to really think about what is best for the organization.