Longtime national baseball writer Michael Baumann was perplexed.
“Last summer, I became aware of a curious phenomenon,” he wrote in February 2014, the year Joe Mauer moved to first base. “Apparently there are Minnesota Twins fans who either genuinely don’t like Joe Mauer or who view him as some kind of a disappointment.”
How could people in Minnesota hate Mauer? He turned down playing football at Florida State to sign with the Twins. He could have signed with the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox after he hit . 365/.444/.587 with 28 home runs as a catcher in 2009. Instead, he stayed home. Mauer was an MVP, won three batting titles, and made six All-Star Games. ESPN called him the fan-friendliest athlete in 2010, and he never had any character issues.
“Twins’ fans misdirected frustration stems from two places,” Baumann concluded, “a flawed understanding of the economics of baseball and a flawed understanding of positional value.”
The entire article is worth reading, even though it’s nearly ten years old. Baumann explains the value Mauer provided the Twins. Remember, Baumann isn’t a local scribe pulling for the hometown guy. He’s a national baseball writer, and he’s not alone. Tom Verducci wrote a Sports Illustrated cover story on him. Joe Posnanski celebrated him. Ben Lindbergh made a Hall of Fame case for him immediately after he retired. Even Jay Mariotti (yes, that Jay Mariotti) was a Mauer fan.
Most of Mauer’s critics were local. Part of it was some media members knew they could stir up attention poking at Minnesotan’s emotional attachment to “One of Us.” Some of it came from Minnesota sports fans’ baggage, given each team’s historic lack of success. It could also be that baseball is a game of failure and Mauer, a career .306/.388/.439 hitter, still didn’t get a hit 64% of the time. His teams also never won a playoff game.
As a result, much of the dialogue surrounding Mauer became about what he couldn’t do. He didn’t play enough. He didn’t hit enough home runs. After suffering a career-altering concussion in 2013, Mauer never returned behind the plate. People scapegoated him for Minnesota’s failures, paying less attention to how the team deteriorated around him. The Twins didn’t get fair value for Johan Santana. They traded Wilson Ramos for Matt Capps, and Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett for Delmon Young. They gave J.J. Hardy away.
Joe Nathan and Michael Cuddyer left in 2011. They traded Justin Morneau to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2013.
Listen to people describe Mauer, and it’s almost like they’re talking about two different people. There’s the catcher who hit .323/.405/.469 from 2004 to 2013, and the first baseman who hit .278/.359/.388 from 2014 to 2018. There’s the St. Paul star who stayed home and the $23 million albatross. And there’s the player who national writers almost universally praised and the one a vocal minority of fans wanted to run out of town.
Truthfully, Mauer was the same guy for most of his career. He almost always took the first pitch and never lost his textbook swing. Mauer was always pleasant, and his teammates considered him a leader in the clubhouse. But he became a Rorschach test. You saw what you wanted to see in him.
Mauer was always going to enter the Twins Hall of Fame. He was one of the first modern stars to stay in Minnesota, and they’ve retired his number. The bigger question is whether Mauer will enter Cooperstown. He should because, at his peak, he did things no other catcher in the game has done. We shouldn’t hold a brain injury against him. Nor should it hurt Mauer’s case that he finished his contract in Minnesota. He hit .294/.368/.399 in his final two seasons.
“I’m just humbled and honored to be in this position, to celebrate the Twins Hall of Fame, which means a great deal to me,” Mauer said a day before his induction. “Cooperstown, that’s out of my hands. Obviously, it would be an unbelievable call to receive someday, and I hope I do. It’s really out of my hands. I did everything I could to set a resume, and it’s up to other people to think if it’s worthy or not.”
Mauer put on the catching gear for his final game in 2018. He caught one pitch, took off his mask, and saluted the fans on the way out. He looked out of place in the gear. It was ill-fitting after sitting in his closet for five years. Seeing him with a mask and catching gear, it was hard not to think of an alternate universe. One where he never took that foul tip against the New York Mets in 2013. Where he hit .300 and got on base 40% of the time while remaining behind the dish. But that’s not what happened; his resume is what it is.
Will he become a Hall of Famer? It depends on what people see when they look at him.
