True story: I was thinking about maybe writing one of my old "happy birthday" posts for today, and the easiest way to get to Baseball Reference's birthdays list is to go to the home page, type in the first player I think of, and then click on his birthdate. Well, today, the first player I thought of was Mauer (which you might think just happens all the time with me, but really, it was almost as likely to be Cory Snyder or Rusty Greer or Joaquin Andujar), and as is bound to happen one out of every 365.25 times I do this, it happens to be his birthday today! Joe was born on April 19, 1983, and so turns 28 today.
I don't have all that much to say about Mauer, because I don't really like to tell people what they already know. But I think it's a good time to remind people exactly how good he's been, and not for just that one unbelievable year. If Mauer had retired the other day, rather than being placed on the DL with a strange and confusing mix of maladies, he'd have a career that didn't look anything like anyone else's; a lovely .326/.406/.479 line, but in just six full seasons. Barely 1000 hits, fewer than 100 home runs, fewer than 500 RBI.
Yet, he's already one of the greatest catchers who has ever played. By wWAR, which weights wins above replacement in a way that places special emphasis on truly great seasons (I wrote about it here), Mauer would already qualify for the Hall of Fame -- or the Hall of wWAR, if you will. He's been that great, and great catchers are just that rare.
That's the thing a lot of people are missing. As much as Mauer has been injured, as much as it seems like he should be hitting more homers, as much as he's got a ton of work to do to live up to that huge contract, it's so rare for a catcher to perform the way Mauer has performed that he's already an elite all-time player. Of the thirteen greatest seasons catchers have ever had, by WAR, Mauer has had three of them; only Johnny Bench even has two (list here). Those would, of course, be the three seasons -- 2006, 2008 and 2009 -- in each of which I believe Mauer should have been named A.L. MVP. His "off" year of 2010 ranks 56th all-time at his position.
So. He's just 28, and he should have a whole bunch of great, healthy years ahead of him. But whatever he does in the future (and whatever position he plays while he's doing it), it's worth taking note of exactly how much he's done already and how rare all that is. You just don't see catchers like this guy.
8 comments:
So 0 playoff wins plus 0 100+ RBI seasons plus 0 30 HR seasons plus one 20+ HR season = $184 million? You have to stop comparing him only to other catchers with this kind of contract. This kind of money is reserved for franchise cornerstones, not opposite field singles hitters who play 120-140 games a year. Is he one of the best hitting catchers in the game today? Yes. Of all time? Get back to me when he equals Berra's 3 MVP awards and 10 World Series rings. If Mauer is worth $184 million, Pujols is worth at least $500 million.
This is the single most poorly-reasoned comment that has ever been left on this blog (among those that actually try to make arguments). Literally every word of it is just ludicrously off-base.
- I didn't say anything about the contract, other than that it's going to be hard for him to live up to it. I do think it was a good gamble by the Twins at the time, as it happens, but this post has nothing to do with his contract.
- No player has ever won a playoff game or a world championship. Those are team things.
- Arbitrary numbers like 30 and 100 don't by themselves have monetary value, especially not when you're talking about mostly-worthelss stats like RBI.
- Mauer is as much a franchise cornerstone as any player in the game today. He's had 50+ extra-base hits each of the last two years. Catchers have to rest, and Mauer doesn't rest any more often than others.
- Wait, are you suggesting that Mauer's just "one of" the best hitting catchers (not THE best, hitting and overall) in the game today? Because that's just funny.
- Berra's the second greatest catcher ever. There are fourteen in the Hall. He doesn't need to match the second-greatest ever to be "among" the all-time greatest.
- As I said in the post, Mauer's already earned his 3 MVP awards (which is more than you can say for Berra, whose 1955 win was a farce).
- As I said above, individual players don't win World Series. Berra's getting to play on a squad with Mickey Mantle rather than Torii and Denard doesn't make Berra a better player.
"I didn't say anything about the contract, other than that it's going to be hard for him to live up to it. I do think it was a good gamble by the Twins at the time, as it happens, but this post has nothing to do with his contract."
A gamble? They obviously wanted to re-sign him from the start and really had no choice unless they wanted to alienate the entire fan base. Gambling would have been not signing him.
"Arbitrary numbers like 30 and 100 don't by themselves have monetary value, especially not when you're talking about mostly-worthelss stats like RBI."
So home runs and RBI are arbitrary numbers, but wWAR is credible, right? A stat that takes no less than a paragraph to explain and is still confusing?
"Mauer is as much a franchise cornerstone as any player in the game today."
Really? So if you were starting a franchise, you'd be just as glad to have Mauer as Albert Pujols, Roy Halladay, or Tim Lincecum?
"As I said in the post, Mauer's already earned his 3 MVP awards (which is more than you can say for Berra, whose 1955 win was a farce)."
Just because you think he should have won the MVP in those other two years doesn't mean he actually did. But I guess I'm ludicrously off-base (Kind of like Joe Mauer this year: off the bases).
"So home runs and RBI are arbitrary numbers, but wWAR is credible, right? A stat that takes no less than a paragraph to explain and is still confusing?"
Read better, please. Numbers like 30 and 100 are arbitrary. Pretending there's some special significance to those numbers, such that 30 and 100 mean something special that 28 and 96 do not, is silly. RBI, on the other hand, is not "arbitrary," just worthless. It doesn't reflect Mauer's hitting ability, it reflects his hitting ability + his teammates' ability to get on base for him + luck. There's just no point, when there are so many better ways of finding out what we want to know.
"Really? So if you were starting a franchise, you'd be just as glad to have Mauer as Albert Pujols, Roy Halladay, or Tim Lincecum?"
Considering age and position scarcity, absolutely. On the other hand, I'd probably put Tulowitzki a touch ahead of him. The point was that your implication that "franchise cornerstones" have to hit a bunch of home runs and pile up RBI is really, really wrong.
"Just because you think he should have won the MVP in those other two years doesn't mean he actually did."
OK, feel free to rely on what a handful of writers have to say about who is the "most valuable." They picked Justin Morneau in 2006, who wasn't half the player Mauer was, and Yogi Berra in 1955, who wasn't even in the same universe as Mickey Mantle that year. And then there's Andre Dawson in '87, Dennis Eckersley in '92, Mo Vaughn in '95, etc. If I'm going to hand out millions and millions of dollars, I'll do it based on who actually provided the most value to his team, in terms of runs and wins. But if you'd rather see the pretty little trophy, enjoy.
Your statement that you would "absolutely" rather have Mauer than Pujols proves that either a) you haven't seen Albert play (unlikely) or b) your Twins blue and red colored glasses have been permanently affixed to your face and affect your perception of the game. It is clear we will never see eye to eye on this topic.
No, it's that I'd rather have Mauer's age 28-35 seasons than Pujols' age 32-42 or so seasons at something like 175% of the cost. I don't tend to see eye to eye with people who aren't willing to spend half a minute and think about things, no.
Which brings me back to your earlier comment--I love the implication that being "confusing" to someone who has made no effort to understand it somehow diminishes a statistic's value.
Pujols at his worst is better than Mauer at his best and his career numbers are better than Mauer in literally every statistical category (including batting average). Let's compare Mauer's MVP year to Pujols' year in '09, which is generous considering 2009 was not even Albert's best season:
Mauer: .365 28 HR 98 RBI 30 2B .444 OBP 1.031 SLG
Pujols: .327 47 HR 135 RBI .443 OBP 1.101 SLG
Now let's look at the career postseason numbers, and I'll restrict it to just the division series since Mauer's team has never advanced further:
Mauer: .286 10 hits 1 RBI 0 HR .359 OBP .673 OPS
Pujols: .299 23 hits 16 RBI 4 HR .419 OBP .939 OPS
As far as projecting into the future, all you can do is look at the season by season numbers. There is nothing to indicate a dropoff with Pujols while there is a signifcant dropoff with Mauer when you compare his '09 season to last year or any of his other years.
As far as durability, the edge goes to Pujols as well. Read Three Nights in August by Buzz Bissinger. Pujols played half a season when he literally could not throw a ball from first to second. Mauer has shown himself to be as fragile as antique china.
This is so absurd that it's really not even worth arguing. I doubt there is anybody in baseball that will tell you that Mauer's production will exceed Pujols over the next several years. The guy is simply a machine. It's okay to admit that Pujols is the better player and always will be. Everyone else knows already knows it.
And by the way, I did make the effort to understand wWAR but then I realized that I can just watch and enjoy the game on the field instead of look at hypothetical numbers that analyze what might happen to a team if a player gets injured.
Might I remind you that this is what you wrote about it in the article "The wWonderful wWorld of wWAR":
"There’s nothing terribly scientific about wWAR, and there are a number of cogent criticisms of it"
You may not deem my criticism cogent, but regardless, I will take a guy who drives in runs and produces on the field vs. the guy who is better than his backup, which is essentially what WAR is.
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