Article: Forecasting Mauer's Remaining Years

[Cody Christie]

When the Twins signed Joe Mauer to the largest contract in team history, fans were excited to see what the future could hold. He was coming off an MVP season where he rewrote the record books when it comes to offense from the catching position. Minnesota was annually in the playoff hunt and optimism was running high.

 

Flash forward six seasons and that optimism has run out. Mauer is no longer behind the plate and Minnesota is in the midst of one of the franchise's worst stretches. So what can fans expect from Mauer with two years left on his monster deal?Mauer will turn 34-years old during the first month of the coming season. He's slowly moving out of his prime and many Twins fans might argue that he's already past his prime. There are still two years remaining with Mauer in a Minnesota jersey and there have been glimmers of hope when it comes to the offensive side of the ball.

 

During last March/April, Mauer got off to a fast start as he hit .321/.453/.440 with seven extra-base hits and a 20 to 9 strikeout-to-walk ratio. By the end of April, he hit for five home runs and posted a .741 OPS. The season was off to a strong start.

 

The season's middle months didn't go so well and a quad injury bothered Mauer starting at the middle of August. He still ended that month hitting .337/.419/.533 with 13 extra-base hits. However, the injury continued to bother him into the season's final month. He posted a .111 batting average and a .468 OPS while being limited to 12 games during September/October.

 

There was good in 2016, like Mauer sharing co-American League Player of the Week honors with rookie teammate Max Kepler. There was bad like the month of June where he hit .223/.308/.287 with 22 strikeouts and 12 walks. There was ugly as he tried to fight through the final month of the season and posted the number mentioned above.

 

When Mauer's quad injury was originally reported, he was hitting .284/.384/417. Those are numbers most fans could handle especially since his defense at first base ranked among the best in the American League. So what version of Mauer will show up in 2017?

 

Over the last three seasons Mauer has combined to bat .267 with a .733 OPS while averaging 40 extra-base hits per season. FanGraph's ZiPS 2017 Projections predict Mauer will hit .262/.350/.378 with nine home runs and 23 doubles. Injuries will tell the tale of Mauer's future. If Mauer has other nagging injuries, those numbers seem accurate. If he can stay healthier in 2017, I'd expect those numbers to be higher.

 

Mauer's final year under contract will be an interesting one. Is he going to want to continue to play? Does he want to finish his career in Minnesota? Do the Twins want to keep him around into his late-30's? Earlier this off-season, I projected the 2020 Twins line-up and it didn't include Mauer in the picture. In fact, another current member of the roster has taken over for him at first base.

 

Trying to make predictions can be a murky proposition especially in the baseball world. Mauer was one of the best hitters in the game before concussions and injuries took something away from him.

 

Even if these are his final two years in Minnesota, I am going to continue to appreciate him every time he steps up to the plate. He's one of the best players in team history and he deserves fans' respect especially if his tenure with the Twins is concluding.

 

What are your expectations for Mauer over the next two seasons? Leave a COMMENT and start the discussion.

 

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[TheLeviathan]

In a word: disappointing.

 

 

[D.C Twins]

When the "good" is "sharing co-American League Player of the week honors" .... that's pretty much all that needs to be said.

[frightwig]

Over the past 3 seasons, Mauer has hit .267/.353/.380, 100 wRC+ (2.8 fWAR, 5.9 rWAR). 2015 was the one season of the three in which he didn't miss a significant amount of games, but then Fangraphs says that he was practically replacement-level that year.

 

I suppose that's about what we can expect from him in the next couple seasons. A good OBP, light pop, quality defense, probably some nagging injuries. Not a total hole in the lineup, but below-average production at 1B.

 

I'd be glad to see All-Star Joe come back, of course, even if it would present the front office with a problem after 2018.

[Jordan1212]

Well I will say this much as he was a great singles hitter for so many years but his .260 avg don't you think it actually hurts his hall of fame chances? Before 1st base he was a hall of famer he hit .330 now he can't nor do I think he is gonna get better than .260 but Molitor is actually thinking about sitting him so if he only plays 3 days a week he might hit .300 again that's his only chance otherwise were really looking at maybe .250

[Oldgoat_MN]

There was really no good reason not to believe that Joe Mauer was Hall of Fame bound when they inked that contract. He was an excellent catcher as well as one of the best hitters in the game. I don't think people expected him to have every year look like 2009, but had his decline been gradual his HOF case would have been pretty sound.

 

Two more years of roughly what we got this year, I expect, though I also expect him to play a good deal less as Park and Vargas (or someone else) begin to give him days off more frequently.

[HitInAPinch]

 

Well I will say this much as he was a great singles hitter for so many years but his .260 avg don't you think it actually hurts his hall of fame chances? Before 1st base he was a hall of famer he hit .330 now he can't nor do I think he is gonna get better than .260 but Molitor is actually thinking about sitting him so if he only plays 3 days a week he might hit .300 again that's his only chance otherwise were really looking at maybe .250

Even tho he's been an average .267 hitter over the past 3 years, his lifetime BA is .307.  I think the HOF voters will remember him as an elite catcher for a decade.  And they also won't forget the concussion and blurred vision after 2013.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I suppose it's possible for him to have a healthy year and post a couple .800 OPS seasons towards the end of his career, but unfortunately, he's really fallen off the proverbial cliff.  Wish him well.  I hope Molitor is smart enough to play him a bit less going forward, especially with Park and Vargas likely to make the team. That might help keep him fresh. 

[Boom Boom]

I expect him to be playing less. Two days off per week and more than that later in the season. Mostly only home games and even then as DH.

[Teflon]

I make myself feel better by imaging Dozier's production comes at 1B and Mauer's at 2B and that the two are each paid $16 million. It still works out the same, but everyone's a little happier.

[Platoon]

How one view injuries in the context of a players career will likely influence that persons perception of Mauer. And here is, IMHO, another. Mauer and Carew had a couple things in common, one was the enormous natural talent to make being an athlete look effortless, and two is the publics misconception that they weren't going all out. The game looked so easy for them. That said, I look at Mauer as someone who's final numbers will be severely blunted by his concussion(s). That he was one of the outstanding two way catchers in baseball history. That batting titles by catchers happen less often than we walked on the moon. And that using the end of a ten year contract to analyze a players career worth is not a useful exercise. The Twins and Mauer did what anyone else would have 8 years ago. The Twins locked up a great player in his prime, an absolute necessity after the TF promise of competitive payrolls, and Mauer took the money and played efficiently and quietly. How the Twins use Mauer in these last two years, is on the Twins, not on Joe Mauer!

[mike8791]

I, too, take nothing away from Joe's former accomplishments.  He truly was one of the greatest Twins/ ever - until concussed.  As a fan, at the time I was happy the Twins signed him to a long term contract.  But not so any more.

 

With a long rebuild in store, isn't it time now to move on from the Mauer years?  He has become a millstone at a position that historically has required above average power numbers.  His presence limits the AB's of some players,e.g., Vargas and Park, already on the roster, not to mention the one or two year signing of a veteran free agent power hitter currently still on the market(Napoli, Trumbo, Davis) who by their very presence in place of Mauer improves the team and allows the younger players to develop.

 

A franchise intent on turning things around would eat the $46MM remaining on his contract(perhaps by contributing a large portion, they might find a contender in need of a veteran bat).  After all, this money is a sunk cost, anyway.  If ownership is truly interested in building a championship contender as soon as possible, then the money should be secondary to unblocking position openings, like done with Plouffe.  But if F&L's hands are tied by ownership to make such a bold move, as they have been with Molitor, one has to question the ballclub's true commitment to winning at all costs. Other than the monetary angle, there can be no other reason for keeping Joe on the field.

[mikelink45]

I am sorry to say that I believe his HOF chances are gone and each of the years he has played since moving from catcher have cost him more votes.  It is a shame, but the vote should look at a career.  A couple of past the prime years are okay, but we are moving to a point where he will have half a career well below his standards.  The injuries took their toll and that is regrettable.  The money belongs to Polhad so I could care less.  With a payroll at $70million when you remove the three high paid and injured players we have not invested enough where it counts.  

 

Other teams have big contracts that they regret because most sign them when they have already peaked.  Mauer was at his peak and the investment did not look as bad.  However, having made a bad investment the team compounded the error by not building a team and writing off the bad debt.  That is on owners and FO not on the player.

[Thrylos]

How about some root cause analysis, 'cause if you don't know the cause of this "decline" it is hard to forecast.  And I should probably put this somewhere else, and I still may, but here it goes:

 

In April of 2016 he hit .321/.453/.440, his BABIP was .347 and made soft contact only with 6.6 % of the balls.  For the season he hit .261/.363/.389 his BABIP was .301 and made soft contact with 13.4% of the balls.  Against LHP that number was up to 19.2% for the season. In his prime his BABIP was at the .350 level, like last April and made soft contact only at about 5-7% of the balls he hit, up to 6-8% vs LHPs.  In down seasons like 2007 his soft contact numbers were up to 14.5% vs LHP and 11.4% total.  For comparison in 2015  when he hit .265/.338/.380, his BABIP was .309 and made soft contact in 16.5% of his contact, pretty much like his overall 2016 numbers.

 

So, Mauer's success depends to whether he can keep his BABIP at the .350 level or so and drop his soft contact to that 5-7% again.  Why the soft contact?  His selectivity dropped.  The last 2 seasons he has been swinging at 26-29% of balls outside the zone, compared to 22-23% in his prime and still making contact with about 77-80% of them and that is soft contact.    His zone contact % dropped from 95% ish in his prime to about 89% ish now.  This has nothing to do with soft contact (that's more with swinging strikes that have also increased recently) but indicates that his judgement of the pitches is not that it used to be and/or he has problem with certain pitches both inside and outside the zone.  Looking at the pitchF/X data looks like his ability to deal with two-seamers, cutters and changeups the last few season was not what it was used to be in his prime (he is terrible against knuckleballs, but it is such a small sample that is not work talking).  

 

Now if you look at the heat maps for his isoP, they go like this:

 

peak:

 

 

April 2016:

 

 

full 2016 season:

 

 

So the Good Mauer is making strong contact in the middle and high center of the zone, while the Mediocre Mauer is trying to deal with pitches inside and low the zone as well with some success.

 

The writing is on the wall:  Mauer has to lay off two-seamers, cutters, and changeups, esp if they are low and in.  Can he?  He did last April.

 

Based on the fact that the Twins are getting better with the analytics, and have a couple new coaches on the hitting department that can work things out with Mauer to get the BABIP towards that .350 mark and the soft contact down to 6-7%, a .290/.380/.420 slash is not out of question as a baseline for the next 2 season.

[hybridbear]

 

I expect him to be playing less. Two days off per week and more than that later in the season. Mostly only home games and even then as DH.

Why make the home fans suffer? I'd rather see Mauer play mostly on the road & let the youngsters play in front of the home fans. Then the home fans can get excited about the future instead of being frustrated by watching Mauer's poor ABs that end in Ks way too often now.

[Thrylos]

 

 

he rewrote the record books when it comes to offense from the catching position. 

 

Not quite...

 

2009 Mauer: .365/.444/.587, 171 OPS+, 28 HR, 96 RBI
1995 Piazza: 346/.400/.606, 172 OPS+, 32 HR, 93 RBI
1997 Piazza: .362/.431/.638, 185 OPS+, 40 HR, 124 RBI

 

No catcher ever had an offensive season better than Piazza's 1997, and arguably, his 1995 was also better or at least as good as Mauer's 2009.

 

For the record  

[gunnarthor]

Well, I think Joe still makes the HOF.  He'll end his career with more than 2000 hits, 3 batting titles and an MVP.  Tim Raines also had a very small peak and it looks like he'll get into the HOF.  Mauer won't be a first ballot guy but he'll get in.

 

As for the next few years, I think he'll have flashes of old Mauer and I really hope he has one more 4 WAR season in him but I suspect the next two seasons will look a lot like the last two seasons.

[Loosey]

 

So the Good Mauer is making strong contact in the middle and high center of the zone, while the Mediocre Mauer is trying to deal with pitches inside and low the zone as well with some success.

 

The writing is on the wall:  Mauer has to lay off two-seamers, cutters, and changeups, esp if they are low and in.  Can he?  He did last April.

 

Based on the fact that the Twins are getting better with the analytics, and have a couple new coaches on the hitting department that can work things out with Mauer to get the BABIP towards that .350 mark and the soft contact down to 6-7%, a .290/.380/.420 slash is not out of question as a baseline for the next 2 season.

Good work on finding this.  I wonder if his vision and slowed reactions due to concussions have an effect on judging pitches that are not down the middle.  If his swing hasn't slowed (I don't know if it has or hasn't) then something like sight, timing or judgement could be a cause for this.  If that is the case no number of analytics will help him unfortunately.

[SotaFan14]

He was good but that was a long time ago. He needs to be batting no higher than 6th, and only 3 days a week.  There are others that need to see time to see if we have something or nothing.  He has been the biggest problem with our lineup/roster the last 2-4 years.  Plus he is not a leader in the club house.  Sure he works hard, doesn't everyone?

 

The new brass need to go to him and offer a few different options.  1)Do a A-Rod like buyout and wave good bye, 2) tell him if he can't produce(.300/.380/.550), there is the pine or 3)tell him to waive is no trade cause and move him(LOL, no one will take him what am I thinking)

 

Well looks like we are stuck with him for two more years cuz none of that will happen.  Sigh......

[drivlikejehu]

I'd platoon him with Park. 

[Kwak]

The premise of the thread is forecasting Mauer's next two seasons. Therefore:  much waxing of yester-decade, much Mauer-bashing, continued suggestion that Joe should play another position, lift weights, eat better, and pull the ball. Many will question the logic of offering such a lengthy contract--yet will postulate that some present Twins should be signed to "long-term contracts" despite the experience with Mauer.

[Brock Beauchamp]

At this point, Mauer needs to be a platoon player. It's damned unfortunate how that concussion so completely derailed his ability to make solid contact (defensive shifts didn't do him any favors either) but the painful reality is that it's unlikely he'll ever be an .800 OPS player again.

 

I know some people believe the concussion isn't what derailed Mauer but the stats pretty clearly define how different he was pre- and post-concussion.

 

Here are his Soft/Med/Hard % stats from 2013, which are pretty close to averages of his pre-concussion seasons:

 

2013: 11.2% / 51.4% / 37.4%

 

And now 2016, which is probably his best season since the concussion:

 

2016: 13.4% / 55.3% / 31.3%

 

That simply is not the same player. His hard-hit percentage is down six points. His soft hit is up two points. That's a player who simply isn't making good contact with the ball anymore.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just found this on Fangraphs and it basically confirms my thoughts on Mauer's contact rate.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/community/the-importance-of-hard-hit-percentage/

 

By losing 6% on his hard-hit percentage, he loses somewhere around .010 batting average and a whopping .050 from slugging.

 

And remember, soft/med/hard percentages are separate from defensive shifts. They account for the ball off the bat, not whether it was caught or not.

 

If Mauer had those same hit splits, he'd be back over a .280 batting average and over an .800 OPS again.

[gunnarthor]

I'm not sure you can place it on his concussion - he was also aging and dealing with a bunch of injuries over time.  Most players see their hard hit % decline as they get older.  

[beckmt]

Playing Joe 4-5 days a week should work.  That will give Park and Grossman(if he is on the team) plenty of AB's vs LHP.  Just pick your spots.  Did not see an analysis of day vs night games.  That would also be useable information. 

I would tell Joe this was the plan before spring training.  He may change his mind on some things if he does not like it.  Hopefully he retires or agrees to waive his no trade clause.  I doubt this will happen, but we all should be aware that the best young manager in the system the Twins have is his brother Jake.  Twins might not want to ruin that relationship if they make a change.

 

[DocBauer]

Great post from Thrylos and I commend him for the detail and hard work that went in to it! And I get and appreciate his possible projections for Mauer were he able to focus more/better on pitches in certain zones and lay off the others. But I just don't believe this is feasible.

 

I am not bashing Mauer and completely appreciate his past greatness and what he has meant to the organization. But the simple truth is Mauer IS aging, his recognition, contact and power HAVE regressed. And there always seems to be an injury or two that slow him or keep him out for a period of time. Used appropriately as a part time player, I think a .260-ish BA and .360-.370 OB are still possible for the next two seasons. With quality defense, he is still a functional, useful player and quality PH when not starting a game. Personally, when he does start a game, I'd bat him around the 6th or 7th spot to provide some OB options ahead of Rosario and our catching platoon.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I'm not sure you can place it on his concussion - he was also aging and dealing with a bunch of injuries over time.  Most players see their hard hit % decline as they get older.  

Yeah, but his hard-hit didn't decline, it fell off a cliff.

 

2013: 37.4%

 

2014: 28.0%

 

It's hard to pin that on age, particularly when even Joe has admitted he's having a hard time seeing the ball (enter SunglassGate).

 

[Thrylos]

 

 Most players see their hard hit % decline as they get older.  

 

Not really.  There is no significant correlation with age and hard hit %.   Here are a few players around Mauer's age and their hard hit % over the years starting with 2009.  Injuries definitely are a factor, but the thing is random, especially on not consistently all star caliber players:

 

David Wright

2009 30.4%
2010 38.8
2011 32.3
2012 32.7
2013 36.3
2014 34
2015 34.5
2015 47.6

Miguel Cabrera

2009 37.4
2010 44.6
2011 36.9
2012 43
2013 45.1
2014 45
2015 40.1
2016 41.1

 

Ryan Howard

2009 45.6
2010 40.7
2011 36.2
2012 36
2013 43.7
2014 33.6
2015 37.3
2016 45.9

 

Joey Votto

2009 36.5
2010 40
2011 34.5
2012 39.5
2013 37.6
2014 32.4
2015 38.3
2016 38.3

Alexandro De Aza

2009 17.6
2010 29.6
2011 25.2
2012 28.6
2013 23.3
2014 25.5
2015 26.9
2016 43.8

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Not really.  There is no significant correlation with age and hard hit %.   Here are a few players around Mauer's age and their hard hit % over the years starting with 2009.  Injuries definitely are a factor, but the thing is random, especially on not consistently all star caliber players:

This is my understanding as well, though I can't recall where I read it.

 

But it makes sense, as power is one of the last traits to age out of a player (along with discipline).

[gunnarthor]

 

This is my understanding as well, though I can't recall where I read it.

 

But it makes sense, as power is one of the last traits to age out of a player (along with discipline).

I think hard hit is a bit different than power, correct?  I could be wrong but I thought hard hit had more to do with squaring the ball up (probably measured in mph off the bat) rather than .iso or some other metric.  The problem with Mauer has been that he's not hitting the line drives anymore, he's rolling over to second base every other at-bat. 

 

As for his percentages, his career hard hit % is around 33 and his 2013 was one of his higher years and his 2014 was one of his lower.  He had a 31% last year.  So I'm not so sure how much value this is worth, at the end of the day.  He's not the hitter he was, regardless of cause.