http://i.imgur.com/WIw2U8Om.jpg

I was having a discussion with an old friend of mine over a beer last night. (I was drinking a Guinness and he was having a Bell’s Two-Hearted.) We were talking about Joe Mauer, and we had very different perceptions about what kind of year number 7 was having. As I recalled several key hits he’d had over the last week, I thought he was doing fine overall. It seemed to me he was delivering more often at the plate when the Twins needed it. My friend, however, thought Mauer was having his worst season ever.

How could we have such different views?

Maybe I’m getting too old and can’t remember much anymore. But, he was born four months before me, so maybe it was his memory that was failing. Looking to prove my sanity, I decided to leverage Baseball Reference’s Play Index to take a better look. (all stats as of 5/26)

First the obvious stuff. Mauer’s slash line for the year is the lowest of his career overall (.271/.333/.371). He had a slightly lower slugging percentage in 2011, but otherwise they are all career lows. This clearly supported my friend’s view of Mauer’s year. But, what about Joe’s productivity with runners on base? Didn't he clear the bases with a single in Pittsburgh, or was that all a dream?

Mauer’s stats with someone on base:

http://i.imgur.com/CU5J3RJ.png

.378/.467/.500! Those are outstanding numbers! It looks like Joe has been productive at the plate this year. But, if these numbers are that good, how are they when the bases are empty?

http://i.imgur.com/Mr1S1PZ.png

Ugh! Those numbers are horrible no matter how you want to spin it. Roughly the same sample size for each, and even though it's early in the season, that’s a crazy difference! .378/.467/.500 vs .188/.212/.271.

Well, maybe we both had a valid point and didn't need to look into retirement homes quite yet. But with that solved, I was still wondering what was happening. I can’t ask number 7 because I’m just a regular Joe (get it?) drinking at the 573 club and don’t have clubhouse access. But, that won’t stop me from digging further into the stats to see if there are any clues to the reason for this huge dichotomy.

When there’s nobody on base, Mauer has 45 plate appearances with two outs, 28 with one out, and 26 with no outs. Drilling into the largest set, the plate appearances with two outs, give us a little more information.

http://i.imgur.com/memCRIX.png

He has 19 strikeouts with the bases empty, and 13 of them are with two outs. That’s 68% even though it’s only 45% of his plate appearances. Maybe he’s trying to swing for the fences in that situation, and coming up short? If he’s being more aggressive, we should probably see that in the number of walks. In fact, he only has one walk in 45 plate appearances. One! Checking his overall numbers with the bases empty, he only has three walks in 99 PAs. That doesn’t make sense, Joe walks a fair amount doesn’t he? Yes, Mauer still works the walk quite a bit. In 90 PAs Mauer has 13 walks (plus four intentional passes) with runners on.

Checking the rest of Mauer’s numbers with the bases empty, they aren’t much better.

http://i.imgur.com/p3ii5Sf.png

Some improvement, but still really poor numbers by any standard.

So, what does this mean? In my opinion, it shows that this year Mauer is very focused with runners on, and is outstanding at doing whatever he can to contribute. Whether it's walks, productive outs, advancing runners or driving them in, he's doing it at a stellar rate so far. However, I think it also shows that Mauer is taking a very different approach when there aren’t any runners on base, and approach appears to be to his detriment so far. As good as his performance is with runners, his performance is equally bad with the bases empty.

It's like a tail of two Mauer's this year. Why? We can only guess. I have my own theories, as do you I bet. Maybe we can chat about them sometime in the 573 club over a Surly.

Thanks for reading. Cheers!

twitter: @kamarainen