AaronGleeman.com

Mauer had a career-best performance versus left-handed pitching this year, faring much better against lefties than he did against righties, but that's the result of random chance and a small sample of plate appearances. Nearly all left-handed hitters are significantly worse against left-handed pitchers over the long haul, and even including his 205 plate appearances against southpaws this year that's certainly been true of Mauer during his career:

              PA      AVG      OBP      SLG      OPS
vs RHP      1626     .326     .417     .493     .910
vs LHP       762     .300     .361     .383     .744

Mauer is obviously a good enough hitter that he warrants being in the lineup regardless of the pitcher's handedness, but catchers need regular days off and over his career he's been about 18 percent worse against lefties. Redmond was actually better against righties than lefties in an even smaller sample of plate appearances this year, but like Mauer he's been far better against opposite-handed pitchers over his 11-season career:

              PA      AVG      OBP      SLG      OPS
vs RHP      1479     .273     .329     .332     .660
vs LHP       809     .327     .382     .426     .809

Redmond has been 23 percent better versus lefties over his career, including 32 percent better during the past three seasons. In four years with the Twins he's hit .308/.347/.372 overall and thrown out 37 percent of steal attempts while never complaining about averaging just 182 plate appearances per season playing behind Mauer. There's tremendous risk of decline with any 37-year-old catcher, but for a one-season commitment Redmond is a perfect fit on the Twins' payroll and roster.

Thanks to the ideal combination of Mauer and Redmond, the Twins have ranked first, fourth, first, and third among AL teams in OPS from the catcher spot over the past four seasons.

                      YEAR      AVG
Tony Oliva            1964     .323
Tony Oliva            1965     .321
Rod Carew             1969     .332
Tony Oliva            1971     .337
Rod Carew             1972     .318
Rod Carew             1973     .350
Rod Carew             1974     .364
Rod Carew             1975     .359
Rod Carew             1977     .388
Rod Carew             1978     .333
Kirby Puckett         1989     .339
Joe Mauer             2006     .347
Joe Mauer             2008     .328

Over the 15 seasons from 1964 to 1978, Rod Carew and Tony Oliva combined to win 10 batting titles, including six in seven years from Carew. Not surprisingly Carew is the Twins' all-time leader in batting average at .334, followed by Kirby Puckett (.318) and Mauer (.317). No. 4 on the list may surprise you.

Right, so "the Twins won't talk about it," but the 88-year-old columnist who serves as a mouthpiece for every team in the state has the inside scoop. Meanwhile, here's Walters:

Oh, to be a "journalist" and write stuff like "it wouldn't be surprising if" before throwing a random rumor against the wall. Amusingly, Walters mentions Bengie Molina leading the Giants with 16 homers as if Young's arrival would change that, except that he hit 10 homers this year. My take was that the Twins vastly overrated Young's potential long before that become a relatively popular opinion and dealing him now would alleviate the outfield logjam, so hopefully some teams still have a rosy view of his upside.

It's tough to say how much of a loss Knapp represents considering how little media coverage is given to the non-MLB members of the organization, but certainly during his decade-plus on the job the Twins have had tremendous success developing young pitchers. Hopefully his departure follows the same script as longtime assistant general manager Wayne Krivsky's exit a few years ago, because the last thing the Twins need is to lose an important piece of their system while making the Tigers stronger.

To put Rhodes' bonus in some context this year's fourth-round pick, Danny Ortiz, signed for $253,000. BA notes that Kang "signed for a low six-figure bonus" and calls him "a 6-foot-1, 202-pound lefty-hitting first baseman" with "a fluid swing and a chance to have above-average power." Internationally signed teenagers are impossible to project and the Twins sadly lag behind other teams in foreign spending, but given the system-wide lack of impact bats Rhodes and Kang at least sound like interesting players.

Obviously "that stuff never happened when he was with the Twins," because as every Twins fan knows when it came playoff time Hunter never made big, game-changing mistakes defensively. Some things never change and the emperor is still making that whole no-clothes look work for him.