A Salute to Joe Mauer's Illustrious Career
Joe Mauer has announced his retirement from Major League Baseball, and taking a look back at his career sheds light on the fact he is one of the greatest catchers of all time.
Mauer, a 6 time all-star, is going to be an interesting topic of conversation when he is on the ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Looking at his accolades, many people may question his case for making it into the Hall, especially considering he was never a World Series champion. But today, I’ll make the case that Mauer should be enshrined into Cooperstown and live on in baseball royalty.
Joe Mauer has long been known to be one of the best contact-hitting catchers in baseball, and that is supported by his career .306 batting average. He won three batting titles as a catcher, the most ever at the position. The .306 career batting average ranks fourth among catchers, and while he did play a considerable amount of time on the back end of his career at first base, he still caught for the majority of his career, having played 921 games as a catcher. On top of the batting average, Mauer ranks ninth all time in hits among catchers, where he posted 2123 knocks. His name is above widely-considered great hitting catchers like Johnny Bench, Gary Carter and Bill Dickey. He had as pure a swing as there was in baseball, and his hitting ability was in elite territory both amongst all-time catchers, as well as all position players throughout his tenure in the Major Leagues.
Mauer, while not considered a power hitter by any stretch of the imagination, was able to drive the ball from gap-to-gap, having accumulated 428 doubles in his career, which ranks third all time for catchers. While home runs weren’t his primary source of power, his career .439 slugging percentage is good enough for 18th all time for catchers. While that may not sound very impressive, it is tied with widely-regarded slugging catcher Gary Carter, who just produced his power in a different way, by hitting the ball over the fence. Mauer’s slugging percentage is just a tick below some of the great power hitting catchers, where Ivan Rodriguez, Carlton Fisk and Johnny Bench all have about .030 better slugging percentage than him. That is a fairly narrow margin, and to me, it puts Mauer into an elite group of catchers who were able to drive the ball and be run producers for their respective teams.
It doesn’t hurt that Mauer was one of the most disciplined hitting catchers of all time, with the third most walks at the position with 939. This obviously boosted his on base percentage, and in turn, his career .827 OPS ranks ninth all time amongst catchers, higher than Ivan Rodriguez, Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk, all current members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. He also had six seasons in which he walked more times than he struck out, which is crazy to comprehend considering he played in an era where strikeouts weren’t seen as taboo.
If you want to dive deeper into sabermetrics to get an in-depth view of how valuable Mauer was to the Twins over the course of his career, let’s see where Mauer ranks in the advanced hitting stats. Joe Mauer ranks second all-time in win probability added (WPA) among catchers, where his career 27.72 WPA is behind only Mike Piazza, who is widely considered the greatest hitting catcher of all time. He is also ranked 7th all time in Baseball Reference WAR for catchers, where every other catcher in the top 9 is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The average WAR for Hall of Fame catchers also stands at 53.5, a mark where Mauer meets the criteria. If Baseball Reference WAR isn’t your cup of tea, that’s okay. His WAR7, a number that only factors in a player’s 7-year peak is 39.0, which ranks him fifth all time for catchers. Mauer’s JAWS stat, which accounts for a players 7-year peak along with total WAR, has him with a JAWS stat of 47.0, which is higher than the Hall of Fame average of 44.0.
On the other side of the ball, Mauer was an elite defensive catcher in his time at the position. A three-time Gold Glove recipient, Mauer was a premier player with the leather in the American League for a long time. A career .995 fielding percentage as a catcher is just a tick below perfect. Not to mention, Mauer had one of the best arms behind the dish over the course of his career, where he led the American League twice in caught stealing percentage, and where he threw out 33% of baserunners over the course of his career.
Over the course of Joe Mauer’s 15-year career, he accumulated a league MVP, three gold gloves, five silver sluggers, and six all-star appearances. He was also the cover athlete for Sony's MLB The Show videogame twice, a feat no other baseball player has accomplished. In the Free Agent era, Mauer also spent his entire career with his hometown team, the Minnesota Twins, a rare feat for a player who has the option to change uniforms at a certain point in his career, and something you just don’t see very often in modern-day baseball.
Yes, he never won a World Series with the Twins. Yes, he transitioned to play first base for the ladder part of his career. But that doesn’t take away from the incredible, illustrious career Mauer pieced together. Will he get into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot? Probably not. But is he deserving of getting into the Hall of Fame at some point over his future 10 years on the ballot? Absolutely. He was one of the best players in baseball over the course of his career, and statistically ranks as one of the most elite whole-package catchers of all time.