Would You Want Joe Mauer?

I see it following that path.

Kinda depends on how the Franken-Bachman government sorts everything out.

I lost my sarcastic font

Now THERE’S a revolution that I could get behind. Plus, it would simultaneously end the seemingly endless Battle for Grass Creek! That would be a true masterstroke.

for a guy who you would immediately put at DH, thereby forcing you to trade a younger, cheaper, and (lately, at least) better option? Most of Mauer’s monster value from his 2006-2010 seasons (the seasons responsible for his average WAR that you cite) came directly from the fact that he played catcher. The positional adjustment from catcher to DH is huge. He’d have to suddenly become healthy and reliable (a huge gamble given the past couple seasons), and then maintain his 2010 numbers just to surpass (barely) Billy’s value. And Mauer would be locked into the position which is by far the easiest and cheapest to fill (outside of middle relievers, at least).

This also doesn’t take into account the impact of Mauer’s contract on the Royals’ payroll. If they’re going to extend ANY of their current crop of prospects, plus Gordon, etc., then MLB payroll would effectively be absolutely maxed out until 2018. Would you really want to completely restrict the team’s ability to sign ANY impact free agents for the next seven years?

Just to give you an idea, Ortiz led all DH’s this season with 4.2 fWAR (over 146 games). His offensive numbers were .309/.398/.554. You’d essentially have to bet that Mauer would maintain that kind of offensive production for his contract to be worth it. And you’d have to determine that that kind of production, even if he provided it, would be worth the massive restriction it would put on the Royals’ payroll. That’s a really tough gamble to justify.

You are vastly underestimating the positional adjustments between C(which has the highest) and DH, which has the lowest.

The positional adjustment for a catcher is about +10 runs over a season. The adjustment for a DH is -15.
Moving Mauer from catcher to DH instantly drops his value by about 50%.

Take as an excellent example 2010 Mauer and 2010 Butler:
Mauer: .373WOBA, 134 WRC+ 5.6 fWAR
Butler: .372WOBA 132 WRC+ 2.9 fWAR

And that’s an average, injury free year for Mauer offensively.

As a hitter Mauer isn’t a lot better than Butler, he just happens to play catcher which gives him a lot of his value. If you strip him of that (which you’ll have to) then he becomes a very, VERY expensive DH. In fact, as a DH, playing at his average career numbers Mauer would be costing the team about $8 million more than he’s worth. And thats in his peak years. Mauer’s going to be 29, with a lot of innings caught. Even if he’s moved off catcher now, there will likely be long term injury concerns. I don’t normally like the .5 WAR regression for aging, but here it’s probably not too far off.

Let me highlight what that means: Its likely that by 2018, Mauer will be being paid $23 million in order to post below replacement numbers.

Let me double highlight this: In 2009 Jose Guillen got paid $12 million to put up -1.9 WAR for a net value of -$22 million. In 2018, Joe Mauer’s net value will likely be ~ -$29 million

The Mauer contract is a perfect example of why giving catchers large long term deals is very risky. While their performance offensively might not drastically change, even the best hitting catchers are rarely better than above average compared to the rest of the league, and most are a DH or 1B at best after they stop being able to catch, absolutely destroying their value.

for 2B.

But really when describing his condition, it sounded awful and non-baseball related which was far worse long-term.

The more I look at this Twins team, the more I see that they’re crippled by Mauer and Morneau. they are not a good team anymore with the roster that they fielded at any point this season. This makes the 4 game sweep we suffered to them at home earlier in the year my low point of the season for our club.