Mauer and the not so mighty Young

One last thing about Homers...(grabbed from Gleeman today)

Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote an article earlier this week about the Twins' lack of power, including the following about Joe Mauer:
Quibbling about Mauer's home run total is like quibbling about a top point guard's lack of dunking skills. Chris Paul, for example. Mauer is good at everything else. He is superb defensively at catcher, the most demanding position on the field. Entering Monday, he led the American League in batting at .338 and was third in on-base percentage at .416.If that sounds familiar, it's probably because you read the following in this space last week:
After collecting multiple hits in each of the past three games, Joe Mauer now leads the AL with a .336 batting average. He also ranks fourth in the league with a .406 on-base percentage and only Kurt Suzuki has logged more innings behind the plate. For all the silly, Dan Barreiro-style talk about Mauer not coming through in the clutch or not making a huge impact because of a lack of power, Mauer ranks third among AL hitters in Win Probability Added, trailing only Manny Ramirez and Josh Hamilton.Once you adjust for catcher being the worst-hitting position in baseball and throw in his considerable defensive value, a WPA-based analysis likely shows Mauer as the league's most valuable position player thus far. Some homers would certainly be nice, but anyone complaining about a player hitting .330 and getting on base at a .400 clip while playing the most physically demanding, least-offensive position is merely doing a fine job showing how little they really know about baseball.As always, it's nice to see the local mainstream media picking up on some of the things that I've been harping on here for a while, and it's nice to see Christensen stretching his writing legs a bit with some analysis and opinion. Some readers have questioned why Mauer gets a free pass here for his lack of power while Delmon Young draws plenty of criticism for the same thing, but the difference between the two players is huge and goes well beyond their nonexistent homer totals.Mauer has tremendous defensive value and stands out from the rest of the pack offensively at catcher, hitting .329 with a .414 on-base percentage and .816 OPS that ranks second in the AL among players at his position. Young has marginal defensive value and lags behind the rest of the pack offensively in left field, hitting just .262 with a .318 on-base percentage and .651 OPS that ranks dead last in the AL among players at his position. Both players have yet to homer, but that's where the comparison ends.