Joe Mauer vs. the Greats

Rather than talking about another ugly, meaningless loss, let's talk about something a little more uplifting, huh?

We are days away from the end of Joe Mauer's age-27 season. We know he has the MVP. We know he has the batting titles, the Gold Gloves, the Silver Sluggers, the All-Star games. But where does he sit among the all-time greats?

In order to put Joe's seven incredible seasons in context, I compared him to the best catchers of the post-WWII era (Johnny Bench, Joe Torre, Ted Simmons, Yogi Berra, Gary Carter, Carlton Fisk, Bill Freehan, Thurman Munson) as well as a few contemporaries (Brian McCann, Jason Kendall, Victor Martinez, Ivan Rodriguez, Jorge Posada). I looked solely at offense, if only because I'm skeptical of our current methods of judging the defensive value of catchers.

I'll post some charts after the jump.

First, let's look at playing time through the age of 27, as measured by plate appearances:

First off, it's pretty clear that even after the injury-shortened rookie year and missing the first month of 2009, Joe Mauer has been a very durable, very reliable catcher.

Oh, and he's been a pretty good hitter, too. The following chart uses Offensive Runs Above Replacement to sort these catchers by their overall offensive contributions through the age of 27:

Yeah, that's pretty good company. The only catcher to create more runs before turning 28 is Johnny Bench, who, you know, could be the best catcher to ever play the game.

But remember, Bench had compiled nearly 5,200 PAs through his age-27 season, 1,666 more than Mauer (Bench received 600 PAs at age 20; Mauer was just hitting AA at 20). The next chart adjusts for differences in playing time by ranking players on their total offensive contribution per 500 plate appearances. I've also included the more recognizable OPS+ to serve a similar function. Remember, both stats are through the players' age-27 seasons.

I have to admit, even I was surprised how well Mauer stood up to this group of all-time greats.

When we look at both charts together, we're able to put Mauer's young career in some pretty impressive company. Only one catcher (Johnny Bench) was worth more to his team (offensively) through his age-27 season than Mauer. Only one catcher in the study produced more runs per plate appearance than Mauer (Piazza). Did we mention he already has two Gold Gloves?

In seven seasons, Joe Mauer has more than fulfilled his great promise, and has put himself on track to finish as one of the greatest catchers in the history of the game. Now, we all know nothing is guaranteed, and many promising careers have unexpectedly taken turns for the worse. But there's no doubt we're watching something special, and it's good for us to occasionally take a step back, and just appreciate what we're witnessing.