Revisiting The Dominant Prime of Joe Mauer

Joe Mau is a player that seems today to have built a legacy dominated by the phrase of what if what if he'd gone to college and played both baseball and football what if he hadn't gotten so many concussions behind the dish what if he had never caught in the big leagues instead taking the path of Bryce Harper and Josh Donaldson guys who switch positions near the start of their careers could he have been the next Tony Gwyn with 3,000 plus hits to his name or would he even have been half the Superstar he was in his prime what if what if what if the fact is Joe Maher was a catcher and for years he gave fans one of the rarest spectacles in the sport a back stop who's also the best pure hitter in the game winning three batting titles in a four-year stretch taking home MVP in a season where he batted nearly 370 and putting up Gold Glove defense behind the dish year in and year out while routinely posting Ops Plus's over 140 we may never see the likes of him again and because of that it's important to revisit the peak of Joe mau's career when he was a baseball unicorn doing things that no catcher in the history of baseball had ever done before Hall of Fame worthy thing things counting stats be damned Joe Mau grew up in St Paul Minnesota 7 miles from the old metrome where the Twins won two World Series with Outfield walls that looked to consist of big billowing trash bags Ma's grandfather father and two older brothers played professional baseball it was in the bloodline that Mau would play too and become a star but born in 1983 Mau came of age before the Boom in private coaches and Elite travel teams by the time he was picked first in 2010 Bray Harper was playing in over 100 baseball games per year in States all over the country in a St Paul basement instead Joe Mau was hitting off of something his father had invented the quick swing a Contraption consisting of pipes that dropped a whiffle ball straight down forcing the ma boys to be very short and quick to the ball but Joe would only do that in his spare time because he played football and basketball too above all Joe Mau was raised to be a normal human being he played three Sports because his friends played the same Sports he did well in school because he was raised to try his hardest at everything he attended ceton Durham school which boast posted alumni like Paul Moler Steve Walsh and Chris wanky Mau played varsity baseball all four years at the school and each year he h over 500 he struck out only once during those four years in the state tournament his Junior season when he came back to the Dugout his teammates wanted to know if anything was wrong the pitcher who struck him out Paul fener still gets interviewed about it though to his credit he refuses to gloat the twins even brought finer to mau's induction into the twins Hall of Fame during his senior year Mau homered in seven straight games and hit over 600 he was named the Gatorade Player of the Year what's more between 1998 and 2000 he was the starting catcher on team USA's 18 and under team when he got back from playing with Team USA it was just in time to start two a days for high school football he didn't pick up the pig skin much before this time of year seeing the sport as more like a hobby than one where he was the number one recruit in the country during his Junior season he led the Raiders to a perfect campaign and the School's First State football championship in total he threw for over 5,000 ,000 yards and 73 touchdowns all while standing tall at 6'4 and 205 lb a pure pocket passer with a cannon for an arm and a calm demeanor that made him nearly a coach on the field in February 2001 on national Signing Day Mau committed to Florida State University so he could play for a legend Bobby Bowden oh in February was also when Ma was the starting point guard on the basketball team where as a senior he averaged 20 points per game had he wanted to he could have played at a D1 school and it's not like Mar was playing against weak competition either when Ma even practiced before hoop season began is unclear but maybe he didn't need to his high school friends couldn't believe how naturally gifted he was at everything he picked up but according to more than a few sources Mau was also that kid who when he saw someone eating alone would invite them to sit at his table for lunch he never acted like he was a superstar he studied for his final exams even after being the first pick in the 2001 MLB draft but his friends insisted he was serious about turning down baseball to attend FSU where he could play both sports like Deion Sanders once did and later James Winston maybe the twins took notice because the moru successfully threw patterns to his old high school Pals the highest signing bonus became eventually reaching 5.15 million No One turns down that kind of money especially in the early 2000s and Mau couldn't pass up the chance to play for his hometown team as well there were some in the baseball world that were shocked by the twins decision because the obvious pick for the top slot was pitcher Mark Prior of USC who some Scouts were calling the greatest pitcher in the history of college baseball at the time and what's up with drafting a catcher with the first pick it hadn't happened since the 1970s when Danny Goodwin was picked first in 1971 by the white socks and then again in 1975 by the Angels his career wore negative 1.7 from a probability perspective the Twins were taking a big risk High School catchers taken in the first round fa an uphill climb the Twins were a bad team and needed pitching not a project that might take years to develop but Mau didn't need years after signing in 2001 he was off for 32 games to the Appalachian League where he hit 400 and 110 ABS then he spent 2002 in the midwest League where he hit 302 with just 42 K and 411 ABS by 2003 the Twins were promoting him to double a where he kept hitting with a 341 average and 30 doubles he was also throwing out 52% of attempted base Steelers an insane total for a kid who would still be in college in most circumstances Scouts had him right behind the power Mark to Shera as a hitting Prospect though some baseball execs probably thought Mau would end up getting some seasoning at Triple A before the twins called him up however Mau never did end up playing even a single inning of Triple A Joe's first game in the bigs was also the first game of the 2004 season because at age 20 he was named the twin starting back stop so sure were the Twins and Joe's abilities that in the off season they traded away All-Star AJ pinski to make room for Mau being a starting catcher at 20 is very rare and carries with it some heavy expectations PUD Rodriguez was 19 when the Rangers put him behind the plate and Johnny Bench was 20 when he joined the Big Red Machine but Mau seemed wise Beyond his years and composed outfielder Tory Hunter thought he was more like 40 than 20 one game in baseball from a statistical standpoint means very little but in mau's case his debut seemed like an omen facing Cleveland Mau went two for three and then the next night he got a hit in his first a meaning he was three for four as a start to his career but fortunately Mau hurt his knee in that second game and would only go on to play in just 35 contests all year long though he did hit 306 along the way should the twins have moved him from behind the plate at this juncture the aforementioned Bryce Harper and Josh Donaldson as well as Craig bigio and Carlos Delgado are just a few of the amazing players who've had immense success after their respective transitions after all Mau bat was one of the best in the game and having him out of the lineup was bad news for Minnesota but no such change was coming for Joe he was a catcher and a great one defensively which is not something a team is likely to throw away if they can help it and during the next few years of what would follow it really did seem like they had made the right decision while 2005 was a down year for the twins barely of legal drinking age Mau hit 294 with 26 doubles nine bombs and a 107 Ops plus ever since he'd signed Scouts have been waiting for Mau to become The Reincarnation of Johnny Bench an elite Game caller who could also pop 40 dingers a year a crazy projection that would be almost impossible to live up to but even more so for the young Mau who was a different kind of hitter than that entirely despite being 6'4 yes he hit the ball very hard Advanced stats for batting didn't arrive until Mau was 32 but even then his hard hit percentage was well above League average at 45.9% most of those were Rockets just over infielders heads or pass their outstretched gloves on the ground the quick swing Contraption his father had made turned Mau into a line drive machine and it was using this approach that he managed to at the still insanely young age of 22 post the high highest batting average in major league baseball at 347 the next year it was the first time an American League catcher had won the crown but it wouldn't be M's last the twins set an MLB record that season by not sneaking into first place until the 159th game of the year when the Tigers got swept by a bad Royals team the twins captured the AL Central and then got swept by the A's and the ALDS with Mau hitting 182 with no homers or RBIs the twins had a sa young winner and Johan Santana an MVP and Justin morau and a batting title winner in Mau and yet they were bounced without winning a game the ' 07 season would end up being a major disappointment for both the Twins and Mau the team finished under 500 and Mau hit below 300 while appearing in just 109 games as he dealt with a Litany of leg issues his Ops plus dropped from 144 to 118 and he didn't make the All-Star team or tally any Rogue MVP votes he did manage to throw out 53% of attempted base Stealers a Mark that led the American League Mau National stardom was still a ascending however he even appeared in a Pepsi ad with Johnny Damon showing how his calm demeanor and Savage Swing was winning him fans the league over the Pepsi ad was another kind of omen again of good things to come because between 2008 and 2010 Joe Mau did things that very few ml catchers have ever done these are the seasons that cement mau's case for the Hall of Fame despite catching fewer than 900 games for his career in8 he won his second batting title with a 328 average to go along with 31 doubles a 134 Ops plus and earning his first career go glove that season he threw out 36% of Base Steelers made only three errors and allowed just four pass balls in 139 games behind the plate he was one of the best pitch framers in the game as well saving the twins 68 runs between 2004 and 2011 on borderline strikes called then came 2009 when Mau led the league in hitting for the third time but that doesn't tell the whole story for the first half of the Season Joe was chasing history a 400 average something only Ted Williams has done since 194 1 but it's more than that after his first 200 plate appearances Mau was batting 412 only 10 other players had reached 410 at that threshold since 1941 it goes without saying that none of them played catcher where Mau was taking a beating day in and day out catching injuries not concussion related would end up costing M 500 games while he was a primary back stop few catchers his size Everlast an MLB principally because of the stress placed on the lower half for that one magical season though it didn't matter one bit kept hitting reaching career highs with 28 homers 191 hits and 96 RBI he also finished with a 365 average the best ever by a catcher in MLB history he led the majors in offensive war with 7.7 OBP at 444 slugging at 587 Ops at 1,031 and Ops Plus at 171 he won his sole MVP trophy for those incredible numbers the greatest season ever by a catcher some would say Mike Piaza in 1997 or Johnny bench in the 1970s Buster posy won a batting title in MVP in 2012 and a World Series ranged boot Pudge in 1999 clubbed 35 homers and hit 335 while setting the gold standard for defense but Joe was flirting with the sacred a 400 average his home run percentage was also about twice as good as the MLB average while he was doing it and he struck out half as much as the average MLB player too instead of grounders in ' 09 Mau got the ball in the air at a career best 28.8% oh yeah did we also mention that he won his second consecutive Gold Glove award 2 sadly the twins got swept in the ALDS getting five hits and 12 trips but it wouldn't end up mattering on that depressing subject MERS twins would never win even a single playoff game during his tenure despite making four separate appearances Mau followed up 2009 with another superb season in 2010 with an Ops plus of 140 and a 327 average he roped a career-high 43 doubles but saw his home run rate dropped by over three times from 4.6% % to just 1.5% some twins fans complain about mau's lack of power relative to that magical 09 campaign but largely the Minnesota faithful applauded yet another All-Star Gold Glove Silver Slugger season for the hometown hero between 2011 and 2013 Mau caught 201 games for the twins who instead of making the playoffs like years past were finishing well below 500 2011 in particular was a tough one for Mau because he was placed in the 60-day DL with bilateral leg weakness a name that called in question Ma's toughness at least in the eyes of a select few of the Minnesota faithful didn't he want to play did twins fans his people his neighbors really think that one of the greatest athletes ever to live didn't want to play the sport he loved the reality is he had signed a $184 million contract and he wasn't on the field earning his keep what was leg weakness anyway weaknesses for sissies message boards in the Twin City screamed turns out mau's injury was caused by a rare viral condition that was much more serious than a sore leg ma proved how much it had a affected him when he came back with strong seasons in 2012 and 2013 making the All-Star team and hitting over 300 both year but he was still toiling away on really bad teams he had over 30 doubles each season and was still an exceptional catcher with an incredible body of work both behind and seemingly at the time in front of him tellingly in 2011 the twins played Mau at first 18 times and once in right field the handwriting seemed to be on the wall catching was taking its toll on mau's body and everyone knew it sadly the twins didn't move Mo him soon enough as in August 2013 Mau took a foul ball off his face mask and suffered a severe concussion which hadn't been his first behind the plate he missed the rest of that year and in the off season the twins traded another concussion victim away Justin morau to the Pirates opening up first base in a full-time capacity for Mau in 2014 concussion issues blurred mau's vision for basically the rest of his career he struggled with lighting trying various techniques along the way to Aid his waning eyes like hitting with sunglasses or even being rested during Day games the headaches came and went without a lot he could affect seemingly there were even things like workouts he couldn't finish because of acute dizziness this went on year after year the production fell as could be expected though not as far as one might think given the circumstances from 2014 through his retirement after 2018 he posted at least a League average Ops plus four out of 5 years a stunning accomplishment giving the weight of his baseball disability but though he was still serviceable during this time that's not the Joe Mau that should be remembered when Joe was at his Peak as a catcher his Ops of 827 was better than bench Fisk Rodriguez and Yogi Bara during Ma's 8-year Prime his war of 41.4 was fifth best in the majors and his batting average of 327 was second best he won three gold gloves five silver slug Awards and one MVP Beyond just those raw numbers Joe Mau did things like break up no hitters in the ninth inning at an astonishing rate somehow tallying three separate hits of this type in his career by 2018 after after 15 Big League Seasons he was done and in his final AB he did what he had done 427 times before he laced a double of course to the opposite field with that classic inside out hack that had made him famous the baseball world over it was a storybook ending for a guy who got to live his dream playing for his hometown City winning batting title after batting title and for a Time posting numbers that were among the best the game has ever seen at his respective position Hall of Fame numbers I guess we'll have to see but either way we really felt at MTC that this period in his career deserved a tribute which we hopefully have done Justice in providing now thank you for watching like And subscribe if you enjoyed this video and click this playlist for other essay content just like this have a great rest of your day

Channel: Made The Cut

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Keywords: MLB, baseball, 2022, mlb baseball, baseball videos, braves, sf giants, mlbscores, stlouis cardinals, houstonastros, espn mlb, shohei ohtani, mlb schedule, babe ruth, ohtani, cubs schedule, red sox schedule, phillies schedule, yankees schedule, mlb rumors, dodgers, dodgers schedule

Id: gLd0JqXgAGs

Length: 15min 44sec (944 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 26 2023