The New Kent Hrbek?

A new addition to our “It’s Early” post is the Minnesota Twins slugger Chris Colabello.  The new version of Kent Hrbek is leading the American League in doubles and RBI.  To boot he is batting .350 through 16 games.

Perhaps you haven’t heard of Mr. Colabello.  That’s because he played seven years of baseball in the Canadian-American Association.  The Twins signed him out of Indy ball at age 28 and sent him to double-A.  He moved up to triple-A last year and raked.  In 2013 he led the International League in slugging percentage while cranking 24 home runs.

Again, it’s early and this is a very small sample size.  Twins fans and Colabello should enjoy the ride.

who leads the AL in OBP?

It’s a catcher…

from the Midwest…

who gets PAID…

who’s in commercials…

Take a look at the 2012 batting splits of Joe Mauer, by half:

1st Half – 44 BB/44 SO

2nd Half – 34 BB/34 SO

The future Hall-of-Fame catcher is posting career highs in walk rate (14%), Hits/BIP (37%) and Line Drive rate (25%).

What do you think, should the Twins trade the 29 year-old soon to be 1B/DH?