Well the move has finally arrived, we all knew it was coming sooner or later. Now it’s time for the panic and the uninformed cliché’s to fly. However before you curse the contract or start making inaccurate comparisons; stop, take a breath, and look at some facts.

Yes it’s true that Mauer is more valuable at catcher then at first base. It’s a simple fact that the catcher position is far more valuable than first base. But with Mauer having a concussion and so little known about what can happen with multiple concussions I would rather have a somewhat diminished valued Mauer then no value at all if another injury happens.

The most common phrase I have heard and no doubt most of you have heard is something along the lines of “well now we have a 23 million dollar singles hitting first basemen.” I am so tired of this phrase, all it does is show that the people who utter it are focused on HRs and RBIs. I have also seen people comparing Mauer at first to other players, the three most common are Doug Mientkiewicz, John Olerud, and Todd Helton (after the power went). The Mientkiewicz comparison is drawn from him hitting .300 without much power. The problem with this comparison is that Mientkiewicz only hit .300 2 times in his career with a high of .306. Mauer has hit .300 6 times and often hits .320 and higher. Also Mientkiewicz never posted a .400 OBP in a season. The Todd Helton Comparison doesn’t really work when you factor in the Coors field effect. As for the Olerud comparison he posted a .400 OBP six times in his career, so has Mauer but Mauer still has several season ahead of him. Also Olerud was a pretty darn good player and Mauer is on pace to pass many of his career marks.

So what can we expect from Mauer at first? First is an offensive first position so how will Mauer’s bat play there? Well let’s take Mauer’s numbers and compare them to the rest of the 1^st basemen in the Majors. As far as batting average Mauer would rank 1^st. Batting average doesn’t tell the whole story though so let’s look at on base percentage. Among 1^st baseman Mauer is 2^nd trailing only Joey Votto. So how bout power? If your rank Mauer’s slugging percentage among first baseman this last season he ranks 10^th. Now I prefer isolated power (ISO) to SLG% which basically measures extra base hits per at bat, in this Mauer ranks 21^st among 1^st base this last season. So just looking at those numbers it kind of points to what most fans suspect, a high on base low power hitter. So what is Mauer’s overall value with the bat? Probably the best way to gauge this is to use either weighted on base average (wOBA) or weighted runs created plus (wRC+). wOBA takes the idea that not all hits are created equal. Each type of reaching base is assigned a weight with HRs being weighted the highest. Comparing Mauer’s wOBA to the first basemen this season he would have ranked 6^th. wRC+ is very similar except it is park and league adjusted. 100 is the league average and ever point is a percentage above or below average. Joe Mauer’s wRC+ for this last season was 144, so 44% above league average in offensive production. He would have ranked 6^thamong first basemen. So overall Mauer’s offensive production will work pretty well at first base as long as he can keep up his swing. Also since he should get more plate appearances and not have to deal with the wear and tear of catching there may be a small increase in offensive production. We could be looking at a possibility of reaching base 280-300 times.

Now if your wondering were the RBI comparisons are I refuse to use them. RBIs are the most overrated offensive stat in the game. It is a number of opportunity. Mauer has a career AVG. of .324 with runners in scoring position, granted this year he only hit .239 with runners in scoring position but at the same time he only had 113 plate appearances in such situations and walked in 23 of those. It’s really hard to rack up RBIs when youonly swing the bat 90 times in that situation. If you’re of the frame of mind he just needs to hit the ball over the fence more often that would be nice but you still don’t guarantee a larger production of RBIs all you guarantee is 1RBI per HR. If you’re wanting him to change his swing to try to pull and lift the ball more ask yourself this, how many outs are you willing to trade per home run? On base has been proven to be more productive then slugging percentage. I heard a sports talk show host saying now Mauer needs to move into the number 3 spot and drive in runs. I heartily disagree and argue that wouldbe highly counterproductive. First of all who is Mauer going to drive in? After Mauer the highest OBP were Willingham at .342 and then Justin Morneau at .315. Morneau is gone and Willingham is injury prone and aging. Also Neither one of those is a top of the order hitter. Mauer needs to stay in the number 2 spot and get on base ahead of Willingham, Arcia, and eventually Sano. Also adding to his value hitting at the top he averaged 4^th most in the majors for pitches seen per PA the ability to wear starting pitchers down is a nice advantage to have.

Mauer will probably lose some value moving from behind the dish but it’s not going to be as bad as what many people say. Besides it’s starting to become more common in the game. Buster Posey and Carlos Santana play first 20-30 times a season. Rumor is Brian McCaan will sign with an A.L. team and move to DH in 2 or 3 seasons. Yogi Berra eventually played games in the OF and Jonny Bench moved to the corner IF late in his career. We will miss Mauer as a catcher but he will still be highly effective at first so sit back and enjoy the ride.