Let's not forget... Mauer is a projected HOF'er

[Collin Kottke]

At work today I was clicking around [URL="http://baseball-reference.com/"]Baseball Reference[/URL]’s website and stumbled across an interesting section of that website that I had not previously explored. If you scroll to the bottom of a player’s profile page you will see a section titled [I]Hall Of Fame Statistics[/I], which is a bunch of sabermetrics designed to project if a player is a Hall of Fame candidate.


Among the many equations there is one entitled [I]JAWS[/I] which stands for[URL="http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/jaws.shtml"] Jaffe WAR Scoresystem[/URL]. The system was designed by sabermetrician Jay Jaffe as a means to measure a player's Hall of Fame worthiness and easily provides player comparisons.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] The main components of the equation are a player’s WAR (wins above replacement) and his 7-year peak WAR.


No Twin is high on any of the position lists- with one exception, to be named later. For example, Justin Morneau: he is currently ranked 105 on the list for first basemen. This puts Morneau just six spots above Aubrey Huff, five behind Mike Sweeney and ten behind John Kruk. That’s pretty tough for a guy who won an American League MVP award just a handful of years ago.


What really caught my eye was where hometown boy Joe Mauer was ranked. Mauer, a 10-year MLB veteran, is currently ranked 14th all-time among catchers. Mauer is in great company, trailing seven current Hall of Famers and six non-HOF'ers and is already ahead of six other members of the Hall.


The catchers that Mauer is behind are, from first to 13th: Johnny Bench, Gary Carter, Ivan Rodriguez, Carlton Fisk, Mike Piazza, Yogi Berra, Joe Torre, Bill Dickey, Mickey Cochrane, Ted Simmons, Gabby Harnett, Thurman Munson and Gene Tenance.


All of those players are retired and have no chance, on their own, of moving up or down the list. The closet active player is the Detroit Tiger’s Victor Martinez who is ranked 33rd. Granted, Joe Mauer could move himself down the list since the JAWS system is based much on a player’s WAR, but there is no reason to believe Mauer will turn sour anytime soon.


An impressive thing is that Mauer likely has a good number of years left in his major league career; at least the Twins hope so since he is signed thru the 2018 season. It’s more than likely that Joe Mauer will move into the top 10, if not the top five, before he hangs it up someday.


What really hit me is that while the Twins wallow in dismay and disarray and are on pace for their third straight ninety-plus loss season, they have a catcher who looks to be a certain Hall of Famer. When his career is over there shouldn’t be any question about it.


So while you are laughing at what the MLB All-Star game festivities have become and pondering what really is Ron Gardenhire’s job status, sit back and remember that we are watching a future Hall of Famer every night behind the plate… unless it’s a day game after a night game.

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