Minnesota Twins: Is Joe Mauer the last of a dying breed?

The Minnesota Twins celebrated Joe Mauer getting his 2,000th hit on Thursday night. Is he the last of a dying breed of player?

Minnesota Twins fans have had a love/hate affair with hometown boy Joe Mauer over his career with the Twins, but there were no such reservations on Thursday night as Target Field was united in celebration as Mauer picked up his 2,000th career hit, all done in a Minnesota Twins uniform.

While Joe Mauer’s accomplishments with the Minnesota Twins alone are impressive, it’s taken in the context of his era that makes them even more special. In many things that Mauer does, he is an aberration in the current usual standards, whether it be for how a career should play out or his production at his initial position, along with becoming not just good, but elite at a second position defensively.

Joe Mauer-only (or exclusive company) accomplishments in the last 40 years

With the changes in the game over the last 40 years, it seems adequate to go back that far, though you can go even farther for some of these.

As a catcher, Joe Mauer had 6 seasons hitting .300+ with a .400+ on base. No player who has played since 1950 has recorded more than 3 such seasons as a backstop. Only one catcher in history, Mickey Cochrane, had more such seasons in the entire history of baseball (he had 8).

Over the last 40 seasons, 111 players have accumulated at least 2,000 hits. Mauer is now one of only 17 that collected all 2,000 for one organization. However, Mauer is still active with the Minnesota Twins. The other 16 with one team have all been retired for at least 4 seasons now, with Derek Jeter being the last to do it.

Among the active hit leaders, Mauer is ranked 10th. No one above him has collected all of his hits for one team. Below him are a few players with a chance that have been with one team, including one catcher, Yadier Molina. At his average of 137 hits the last few seasons, Molina would climb over 2,000 toward the end of the 2019 season. That, of course, assumes health and remaining on the Cardinals, the former being seemingly more risky than the latter.

When one looks at his Hall of Fame credentials and what he did before concussions forced his move to another position, Mauer had one of the most incredible stretches behind the plate of any player in the game’s history. Per Jay Jaffe’s JAWS score, Mauer is the 7th ranked catcher. Many want to say that Mauer is a different case because of his change to another position, but even Johnny Bench, the top-ranked catcher in JAWS, and a National League player his whole career without the benefit of DH, played less than 80% of his career games at catcher.

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Still yet to achieve with the Minnesota Twins

Joe Mauer is nearing some major milestones in the history of the Minnesota Twins franchise. Here are his current ranks, and where he could possibly end up by the end of 2018:

• Games played: 1,740 (4th), only 8 games from moving into 3rd and 44 games from moving to 2nd on the Twins all-time list
• Plate appearances: 7,461 (3rd), 370 PA from 2nd
• Hits: 2,000 (3rd), 86 hits from 2nd
• Runs: 960 (3rd), 87 runs from 2nd
• Doubles: 405 (2nd), 10 from 1st
• RBI: 881 (5th), 67 from 4th
• Average: .309 (5th among players with 1,500 career PA), .010 from 2nd
• On Base: .392 (2nd), .002 from 1st
• OPS: .835 (8th), .007 from 4th
• OPS+: 127 (6th), 5 points from 3rd
• Runs Created: 1,146 (3rd), 56 from 2nd
• Total Bases: 2,874 (5th), 129 from 3rd
• Extra Base Hits: 571 (5th), 27 from 4th
• Win Probability Added: 27.311 (5th), 0.176 from 4th

Of course, to add to his hardware collection, he has won an MVP in 2009 along with 3 Gold Gloves at catcher (2008-2010 consecutively), many felt he should have won a Gold Glove in 2017 at first base when he was the best-rated defender at the position in the major leagues, per Fangraphs, with a 6.9 UZR, nearly a full point better than the next closest player.

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Mauer’s contract is up after the 2018 season, and it’s very likely that the team and Mauer will work a deal to bring him back at a rate and contract that works for the team, allowing Joe Mauer to finish out his career playing for the Minnesota Twins.