I hate the formula approach to sports. That includes doing anything because going “by the book” in baseball, such as a 100 pitch count as a maximum for a pitcher, or a sacrifice bunt when a good hitter might be more likely to advance a runner and ignite a rally by swinging away.

It happens with management, too. The Twins are rebuilding, and might be in Phase 8 or the current rebuilding phase. That means that all through the Major Leagues teams fall into different categories every season, with a few at the top as the leaders and top contenders, a whole mess in the middle, just outside the ring of contention, and those in the bottom third, which are out of the running, and start looking at building for the future.

The Twins have been our stalwarts, rebuilding or not. Among the reasons are the M&M boys who have been our favorite dependable standouts for a decade. Joe Mauer is the hometown kid who is as good a catcher as there is in the game, and one of the absolute best hitters in the game. Justin Morneau is the big first baseman who came from British Columbia to find a home in Minnesota. Other players came and went, some good some bad and some mediocre, but always there was Joe Mauer hitting his line drives and Justin Morneau pounding his high, arching home runs.

Mauer went through some injuries a couple of years ago, and it took that long for him to get back into his unique groove. He’s back at it this season, although he’s been out for a couple weeks with a concussion suffered when he got clanked on the face mask, just right, by a foul tip. He’s supposed to be back in the lineup Friday, which is a good thing.



While Mauer has been out, Morneau finished a spectacular August. He had been suffering through a tough season. It happens. He was one of the sport’s top stars until a freak play where he and Toronto in 2009, where Morneau went in hard to break up a double play and hit his head on the knee of Blue Jays infielder John McDonald. It was a concussion -- the same thing that just knocked out Mauer -- and it was a bad one. Morneau couldn’t function on a baseball field without a headache and other effects of a concussion, and his All-Star season was over. The symptoms continued, and last year was another write-off for Morneau.

This season, he was back, but it took a while for him to get up to full speed. Baseball is a rhythm sport. You can have spectacular moments, but when you get in a groove, it seems as though opposing pitchers can’t throw a pitch past you. Rumors started that if and when Morneau got healthy, the Twins would be wise to trade him, to get rid of his huge contract, and to let his problem be somebody else’s problem.

That made no sense to me. I’ve loved baseball since the days when a young player could come up and play his entire career with one team, a team he helped win, maybe a championship, but a team that became his identity just as he became the team’s identity. Kent Hrbek was like that. So was Kirby Puckett. And not many more. But Joe Mauer is one of those franchise players, and so is Justin Morneau.

But after testing the waters by putting Morneau on waivers, the Twins could trade him to anyone. They didn’t, though, for a couple of weeks. And during those weeks, Morneau found his rhythm and hammered the baseball. That was good, because Mauer was still out. Just when I thought it was safe to plan for a trip to Minneapolis to see a Twins game with Mauer and Morneau leading that impressive batch of young prospects in a late-season game, the Twins traded Morneau to Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh is thrilled to have him, and Morneau could provide the added punch the Pirates need to run deep into playoffs, and maybe the World Series. I hope he does, and they do. The Pirates pay the rest of Morneau’s lofty season contract, and then he becomes a free agent.

There is that one delectable possibility -- that after this season, the Twins could rehire Morneau on a smaller contract to return to the club for next season.

That seems pretty bizarre, and it’s hard to imagine it would come through. Besides, if Morneau helps the Pirates win the pennant and win the World Series, he might get real comfortable in Pittsburgh in a hurry.

You look down the list of Twins players who are genuine prospects to be very good Major Leaguers, and there are some. If they develop, and get good -- real good -- they might someday become All-Stars. They might help lead the Twins to success. They might even get as good as Justin Morneau, and be right up there with Joe Mauer as one of those unique, special players who could make you buy a couple of tickets at any price to watch a team in September that’s a mile out of contention.