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Twins manager: Mauer shouldn't worry about being bumped down in lineup

Jesse Johnson / USA TODAY Sports / Reuters

Despite stumbling through a difficult 2014 campaign, Minnesota Twins first baseman Joe Mauer need not worry about being bumped below the third spot in the batting order this season.

"I've toyed with how different things might shake, but it's hard to be presumptuous because we have a few positions where we don't know who that will be," manager Paul Molitor told MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger. "It might influence what happens. I don't think he's going to have to worry about being anywhere on the backside of three."

Once regarded among the game's elite catchers, Mauer played first base on a full-time basis for the first time in 2014 after battling concussion problems the season prior. His transition wasn't entirely smooth, though, as an oblique strain limited him to 120 games and he managed just four home runs with a .732 OPS, the second-worst mark of his career.

Still, Molitor maintained that Mauer's spot in the middle of the order isn't in jeopardy, though further development from Oswaldo Arcia and Kennys Vargas - and the potential arrival of top prospects Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano - may compel Molitor to re-evaluate.

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