It’s time for the anti-Joe Mauer crowd to accept reality. Take a large chill pill and look at the truth.
Mauer is grossly overpaid at $23 million per season but don’t expect him to cut his own salary. Who does that?
The Twins gave him one of the richest contracts in baseball history in 2010 when he was fast-tracked for Cooperstown. Raise your hand if you thought it was a bad deal then? Nah. You probably didn’t and I didn’t either.
Back in 2009 Mauer was a superstar and Sports Illustrated cover guy. The thought of baseball’s best catcher—and the 2009 AL MVP—going to the Red Sox or Yankees made Twins fans puke. The Minnesota front office saw a three-time batting champion and hometown hero who needed to be the centerpiece in the new ballpark the club had invested millions of dollars in to build.
Nobody locally wanted to lose the 26-year-old box office magnet, and so Mauer received the most lucrative contract ever for a catcher. He and agent Ron Shapiro had mega leverage in the negotiations, and they capitalized with a $184 million contract that runs through 2018.
Mauer’s best years were before the new contract that was agreed to in 2010 and started in 2011. This season has been a disaster with puny offensive numbers that include a .276 average, three home runs and 30 RBI. The venom directed toward Mauer by critics is based on more than anemic 2014 production and the embarrassing salary. There is also his history of injuries with the latest career setback the strained oblique that caused him to miss games from July 2 until August 10.
Boo-birds rip Mauer for being hurt and out of the lineup so much over the years. It’s true he is hardly an Iron Man. If Mauer played in every remaining Twins game this season—hardly probable—his total for the year will be 122 out of 162 possible games. More likely this will be the third season in the last four that he has played in 120 games or less.
But get over the constant criticism about injures. Mauer is 31 and it’s obvious injuries and being out of the lineup is who he is.
By now we should all be pretty much authorities on Mauer who was moved from catcher to first baseman this season to lengthen his career after suffering a concussion in 2013. He is 6-foot-5 and weighs about 231 pounds—a big man who lacks home run power because his physical strength doesn’t match the physique. Also, he sends minimal balls over the fences because his batting style is to hit a lot of opposite field singles and doubles.
During the last five seasons, including this one, Mauer has 36 home runs—an average of 7.2 per year. During the same period he is averaging 53.4 RBI annually.
Get the point? Mauer isn’t and won’t be a home run man, although with better hitters in front of him in the batting order he could certainly produce more runs batted in. Moan if you will that in big league baseball a first baseman needs to be a power hitter when he makes the big bucks, but our guy is more likely to some day win a fourth batting title than hit 20 home runs. He does have a career .320 batting average and that’s better than some Cooperstown Hall of Famers. To his credit the career average is among the best in baseball since 1950, and often his on-base percentage has been outstanding.
The anti-Mauer crowd can also complain about Joe’s personality and perceived lack of clubhouse leadership. Mauer is soft-spoken and isn’t an assertive personality. You want a Torii Hunter in-your-face player in the clubhouse? Go get someone like that but don’t expect Mauer to be anybody but himself.
Critics who think about trading Mauer should know he isn’t likely to continue his career anywhere but in his home state. The Twins can’t trade Mauer without his approval, and maybe he could be tempted to join a club with realistic World Series ambitions. But this is home, with parents and other family here. This is where Mauer was married to local nurse Maddie Bisanz and the couple is raising their children in Minnesota.
If you wish, dream about the Twins having a season-ending meeting with Mauer where he agrees to train like never before in the offseason and emerge next spring as a home run hitter and clubhouse holler guy who tore up his contract in November so the Twins could use part of his old salary to sign expensive free agents.
I am not fantasizing that dream. But I do expect Mauer to hit better than .300 in a bounce back year in 2015 that could see him share time at first base with Kennys Vargas while the two also split the designated hitter role. Mauer will be 32 next May and maybe his body makes him an old 32 but the guess is he is far from done as a .300 hitter—and on a bad ballclub like the Twins that’s a major asset, and so, too, is having a good guy in the clubhouse who with more time will become a polished fielder at first base.
Part of the fans’ frustration with Mauer is driven by unhappiness with the team’s awful play for more than three seasons since winning the AL Central in 2010. It’s up to the front office to figure out how to finally make the Twins a winner again after four poor seasons. The club’s decision makers need to do that knowing Mauer’s rich salary can’t hold back the assignment and neither can his liabilities.
Mauer’s critics may want to back off him and direct full fire at the franchise’s leadership.
If the Twins were competitive and Mauer was putting up the numbers he is now, the criticism would be far less. But since the team has been atrocious since he signed the mega-deal, he becomes the lightning rod for the critics.
If the Twins had let Mauer walk back in 2010, the people in this town would have burned Target Field to the ground.
Thanks Dave for a insightful article. Mauer is not the same player he was before the contract and his salary has ‘hamstrung’ the organization from making moves that would benefit the team. To add injury to insult, he is hurt to often to help the team. Chill pill is right!
Ray
Good article. Well done.