Is Joe Mauer the Best Player In Baseball?

Flashback time...

April 2006 - Crishad and former WRFW Sports Director Paul Winkels...

Radio: And Justin Morneau grounds out to first...Morneau is now 0-4 and hitting just above .200 on the season...

Winkels: [Sighs] Morneau sucks...he's supposed to big this big power hitter and he can't even hit a                  single.

Crishad: He's still young. He'll turn it around.

Winkels: We're going to have to face it, Crishad. He may not be the player we expect him to be.

Justin Morneau would go on to win the AL MVP later that year...

May 2008 - Crishad and his friend Andrew Moscho...

Crishad: Hit for some freakin power Mauer. Good God! All he does is hit singles or ground to                     second. He'll never develop any power. They swung and missed on that one.

Moscho: HE'S 24!!! GIVE HIM TIME!!!

Open mouth. Insert Foot.

The point I'm trying to get to here is that apparently Joe Mauer has learned the art of terrorizing the baseball diamond with bomb after bomb. Mauer's 10th bomb of the season traveled approximately 435 feet. That is incredibly incorrect. I estimate that the ball would have been put into orbit had it been hit at Target Field next year.

After hitting 9 all of 2008, Mauer already has 10. As you can see from the picture above (which isn't doctored) Mauer's eyes have been glowing red in his past 21 games since returning from the disabled list. Mauer's average hasn't dropped either with this power binge. He's still hitting .438. Steven Linzmeier also suggested that Mauer could eventually break Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak. I even think that Mauer could wind up getting close to .400 this year or in the near future.

So, now to look at this morning's Star Tribune, Jim Souhan says that Joe Mauer may be the best player in baseball because of his addition of power to his game. Fans have always bashed Mauer because of a lack of power, but now it's a very valid argument.

Mauer not only has to hit and field like everyone else, but he also has to be intelligent. Any big lug can hit bombs but not too many people can handle a pitching staff like Joe Mauer can. Mauer's pitching staff is all under the age of 27. With all do respect to guys like Brian McCann and Ivan Rodriguez, it helps a lot when you have a defenite ace like Roy Oswalt or Tom Glavine on your team.

This could be the beginning of something beautiful for Joe Mauer and his fans, and what could really be interesting here is that maybe we'll be screaming MVP for Mauer instead of Morneau this September. Maybe they can split the award?

PS. Dear MLB, please do away with the patriotic hats. Your pal, Crishad.