Injury Update: Joe Mauer is back

The Minnesota Twins will get star catcher Joe Mauer back for today’s game against the Chicago Cubs. He missed the past four games with a thumb injury, and it is good to have the projected 4-4.5 WAR catcher back. As expected, Mauer has bounced back from a disappointing, injury-plagued 1.6 WAR campaign in 2011. In fact, he has already eclipsed last year’s WAR total with 1.7 WAR this year.

Another bit of good news for Twins fans also involves a player who will be back in action today. Table-setter and defensive whiz Denard Span will be back after missing a bit of time with what seemed to be the flu. Having Span and Mauer back is a great boost to this team, even though they were always going to be back soon. The injury Mauer suffered was barely anything at all.

The third piece of good news ties into Mauer’s return, and it’s good news for every baseball fan. We won’t have to endure Ryan Doumit‘s defense with Mauer back, because he will be comfortably slotted in as the designated hitter today; where he should be.

This season, Joe Mauer has reached base at a .407 clip with a 133 wRC+. He had a 134 wRC+ in 2010, and he looks like he is in his near-prime form. While Mauer won’t be hitting 7.9 WAR like he did in 2009, or 6 WAR the previous year, one can expect at least a 4 WAR season and maybe even a 5-5.5 WAR season if things continue to go well for Mauer and he stays healthy through 130 games.

Mauer’s power is back up to a pace of near double-digits, and he is walking more than ever to combat a .325 BABIP that is actually below his career average and is contributing to a disappointing- for him- .298 average. Mauer will continue to rake as the season goes forward, and a reasonable projection is between 4.5 and 5 WAR.

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