Bleacher Bums Forum

Minnesota catcher Joe Mauer has been placed on the DL with bilateral leg weakness.
 
Sentiment in the Twin Cities is strongly in favor of moving him to another position.

The NCAA has come out with a midseason statistical study that shows that, because of a 25 percent reduction of trampoline effect on aluminum bats this year, home run production and runs scored by baseball teams across the country are down by nearly 50 percent. The reigning Big Ten champion Gophers, who perennially hit about .300, are hitting only .256 this season. The NCAA this year required that aluminum bats, in an attempt to get results more in line with wood bats, have thicker walls and new balance regulations. The study also shows lower scoring, improved pitching statistics and overall defensive stats, and a 25 percent reduction in the distance of balls hit.
 
Strange that no mention is made about pitchers being safer.

Joe Mauer is now on the DL for a while.  It's really too bad Kevin Slowey ended up getting hurt for them...now the Cubs could offer catching (Hill or Ramirez) and middle infield (DeWitt) depth for him.

Joe Mauer is now on the DL for a while.  It's really too bad Kevin Slowey ended up getting hurt for them...now the Cubs could offer catching (Hill or Ramirez) and middle infield (DeWitt) depth for him.

In addition to going on the DL for his leg problems, Mauer spent the night in a Minneapolis hospital with the flu.

Chris Welch, on tonight's Reds telecast, said that Aroldis Chapman is experiencing "a little elbow tenderness."

Which, I believe was a top 40 hit for ABC in the 80s.

That's a little more specific information than I've seen before.  Yesterday, Dusty Baker was quoted on MLBN's bottom line as saying Chapman had "arm inflammation."

Brandon Guyer, the other OF the Rays got from the Cubs in the Matt Garza trade (in addition to Fuld), was batting .370 through seven games at Triple-A Durham.

Fuld's play has made him topical, but he already was a pretty interesting topic of conversation. Consider: He has Type 1 diabetes (and has to give himself 4-5 shots a day), is one of the few Jewish big-leaguers, grew up carrying around a stats book as his "security blanket," began playing baseball with his grandmother, attended the highbrow Exeter Academy (at the same time as Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook), earned an economics degree in four years from Stanford (with a 3.15 GPA) and spent an offseason interning at Stats Inc. His mother, Amanda Merrill, is a New Hampshire state senator, and his father, Kenneth, is dean of the College of Liberal Arts and a psychology professor at the University of New Hampshire.