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Was Mauer Clutch? There are many ways to look at the value a player brings to a team. One that has gained popularity in more recent years is Win Probability Added (WPA), a stat that has been kept since 1974. Among catchers during that time, Joe Mauer ranks second and he only trails current HOF member Mike Piazza. It took Piazza four trips through the BBWAA voting process to be elected, but this has been the case with multiple power hitters from the steroid era. Another FanGraphs statistic that uses WPA is Clutch, which measures how well a player performed in high leverage situations. Piazza does great when it comes to WPA because he had an extended career, but his Clutch score is actually negative. Joe Mauer ranks seventh all-time in Clutch due in large part to having a .943 OPS in nearly 850 plate appearances with two outs and runners in scoring position. Clutch as a statistic does have flaws because it compares a player to himself. Mauer hit .306/.388/.439 for his career so to have a positive Clutch, he has to hit better than those numbers in high leverage situations. Good hitters hit no matter the situation, so Clutch is something that is almost impossible to quantify. Going to WAR Wins Above Replacement (WAR) has become the common measuring stick for the value players accrue for their team. Currently, there are 16 catchers who have been elected to the Hall of Fame. Mauer ranks ninth all-time in WAR and his total is also higher than current catchers like Buster Posey and Yadier Molina that might be on the path to Cooperstown. Also, his WAR total is higher than the average of those already elected to the Hall. The players ahead of him on the WAR catching leaderboard are a who’s who of all-time catching greats. Johnny Bench, Gary Carter, Ivan Rodriguez, Carlton Fisk, Mike Piazza, and Yogi Berra are among the greatest players of all-time and Mauer is right there with them. Mauer is also within 4.3 WAR of passing Berra and Piazza to place him fifth all-time. He’d have been able to reach that total with one more good season behind the plate. Show Me the Money Mauer signed the largest contract in Twins history following his MVP performance in 2009. For many fans, Mauer’s contract became a point of contention later in his career. His overall value and performance on the field were worth every penny out of the Pohlad’s pocketbooks. Prior to signing the contract, Mauer had provided the Twins with $160.8 million in value while his salaries had totaled $21.53 million. For his career, he provided the Twins with $329.5 million in value and he was paid just over $218 million. Obviously, his years after concussions forced him to move to first base weren’t worth $23 million per year. The Twins signed him to be a Hall of Fame catcher and he could wind up being the second Hall of Fame player to play his entire career in a Twins uniform. Was Mauer’s value enough to help his Cooperstown case? MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email

Chasing 3000 The 3,000 hit mark has been a magical threshold for players to get into Cooperstown. Out of Hall of Fame eligible players, only two players with over 3,000 hits have failed to be enshrined. Pete Rose has been banned from baseball and Rafael Palmeiro tested positive for a banned substance during his playing career. Mauer just cracked hit number 2,000 so he’d have to play for most of the next decade to get close to the 3,000 hit mark. As I wrote about last week, Mauer is approaching rarified air among the best hitting catchers of all-time. This season alone, he has a chance to pass Johnny Bench, Gary Carter, and Mike Piazza. If Mauer had been able to stay behind the plate, he could have gone down as one of the best hitting catchers of all-time. Keep Bad Seasons To A Minimum For a player to make the Hall of Fame, he doesn’t need to be great for every season of his career. However, one of the most important things to do is to avoid have prolonged seasons where the player is viewed as slumping. Concussions and blurred vision put Mauer into a three-year stretch where he didn’t hit like he had before the injuries When Mauer suffered his concussion in 2013, he entered a three year stretch where there were some offensive struggles. From 2014-2016, he hit .267/.353/.380 while averaging 28 doubles, eight home runs, and 100 strikeouts. To put that in perspective, the AL average numbers for 2017 were .257/.321/.423. Even in Mauer’s bad seasons, he was hitting higher than the league average and getting on base much higher than the league average. He came back in 2017 and hit over .300 for the first time since his injury. He might have weathered the worst seasons of his career if he can post a similar batting line (.305/.384/.417) to last season in the years to come. Continue Playing Joe Mauer’s future is a little up in the air. His contract expires at season’s end and no one know if he will continue to suit up for the Twins or for any other team for that matter. His positional switch has helped him to average more games played per season (127 games/season as a catcher, 138 games/season as a first baseman). If he is feeling healthy and continues to perform well, there’s no reason Mauer can’t continue to play throughout his upper-30s. Some of the all-time greats had to finish their careers in other uniforms and one has to wonder if that will be the eventual path for Mauer. Willie Mays played into his 40s but he ended his career in a Mets jersey. Babe Ruth finished his age-40 season in a Boston Braves uniform. Yogi Berra is best remembered for being a Yankee but his last game came with the Mets. Even Twins great Harmon Killebrew finished in a Royals jersey. It’s hard for some of the best players in the world to hang it up. When baseball has been your entire life, walking away from the game can be the tough decision. Mauer is one of the best players in Twins history but he will need to continue playing if he wants to get the call from the Hall. Around Twins Daily Cooperstown Case: Should Joe Mauer Make the Hall of Fame? A Look Back to 2001: What if the Twins Drafted Mark Prior? Myth Busting: How Has Joe Mauer Fared in the Clutch?

JAWS For those unfamiliar with JAWS or Jaffe WAR Score system, it was developed by Jay Jaffe as “a means to measure a player’s Hall of Fame worthiness by comparing him to players at his position who are already enshrined, using advanced metrics to account for the wide variations in offensive levels that have occurred throughout the game’s history.” Players' JAWS score takes their career WAR and averages it with their 7-year peak WAR. When the 2018 Hall of Fame voting started, there were 15 elected catchers and 20 elected first baseman. Mauer scores very well when compared to Hall of Fame catchers. Catchers' weighted career WAR is 53.4, WARpeak is 34.4, and JAWS is 43.9. Mauer currently has a 54.5 career WAR, a 39.0 WARpeak, and a 46.7 JAWS. This would rank him as the seventh best catcher all time. First base is a different story but Mauer has only played 36% of his games at first base. Hall of Fame first basemen have a 66.1 career WAR, a 42.6 WARpeak, and a 54.3 JAWS. Obviously, Mauer doesn’t fit the prototypical mold of a first baseman at the plate. However, he has developed into one of the best defensive first basemen in the game. Last season, Mauer ranked as the third best first baseman according to SABR’s Defensive Index. JAWS isn’t the be all and end all when it comes to the Hall of Fame so let’s look at some other parts of Mauer’s Cooperstown Case. Mauer’s Statistical Legacy Counting statistics like hits, home runs, and stolen bases go a long way toward improving a player’s Cooperstown Case. Mauer is never going to be remembered for his power but other statistical areas paint him in a favorable light. With his 2,000th hit last week, Mauer is approaching other top catchers on the all-time hit list. Johnny Bench finished his career with 2,048 hits, while Gary Carter (2,092) and Mike Piazza (2,127) could also be in Mauer’s reach this season. As the voting bloc for the Hall of Fame gets younger, other statistics are going to improve Mauer’s chances at making the Hall. He is currently in some very elite company when it comes to his hit total, batting titles and career slash line. https://twitter.com/jaysonst/status/984756969117495297 The hitters on that list are basically a who’s who of all-time best hitters. At this season’s early stage, Mauer is currently near the top of the AL in hitting. A fourth batting title would place him in even more elite company. He is already the only catcher to win the batting crown in the American League and he has the most batting titles for a catcher all-time. Mauer gets a lot of negative publicity for his lack of power. However, Mauer ranks 14th among all catchers in OPS. This puts him in front of all-time catching greats like Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, and Ivan Rodriguez. All three of those players were elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. On the bases, Mauer also separated himself from other catchers. In fact, he might have been one of the best base-running catchers of all-time. Up to the 2013 season, Mauer’s last as a catcher, he ranked fifth all-time according to FanGraph’s BsR calculation. BsR combines Weighted Stolen Base Runs, Weighted Grounded Into Double Play Runs (wGDP), and Ultimate Base Running (UBR). Historical Perspective Ernie Banks and Don Mattingly provide some historical perspective for Mauer’s Hall of Fame case. Banks hit .290/.353/.552 with 296 home runs in his first eight seasons. As part of that stretch, he won back-to-back MVP awards. Knee problems forced Banks to move off shortstop in 1962. He finished his career as a first baseman, where he hit .260/.308/.450 and posted a 104 wRC+. Banks ended up playing 200 more games at first base than shortstop. Like Banks, Mauer was forced to move from an up-the-middle position to first base. Mauer is 400 games away from having more starts at first base than at catcher. As a first baseman, Mauer has hit .282/.362/.397 so his numbers are a little higher than Banks'. However, the baseball environment has been very home run happy in recent years so one could expect Mauer’s number to be even higher. Mattingly, like Mauer, was one of the best hitters in the game for a stretch of time. From 1982-89, Mattingly won an MVP and a batting title, while hitting .323/.368/.521. At the end of that run, Mattingly suffered a back injury and was never quite the same player. Baseball in the early 1990s was becoming a slugger’s paradise and Mattingly hit .286/.345/405 over his last five seasons. For 15 years, Mattingly went through the Hall of Fame voting process. His highest season was his initial year on the ballot, 2001, when he had a 28.2% of the vote. His voting totals dropped from there and ranged from 20.3% to 8.2% before his time on the ballot expired in 2015. Mattingly never played a premier defensive position like Mauer so this could help Mauer’s overall case. So, is Mauer a Hall of Fame player? There is plenty left to be decided. How much longer will he play? Can he earn another batting title? Could he win a Gold Glove at first base? Mauer’s case is up in the air and a lot will depend on what he does with the rest of his career.