Joe Mauer to be inducted into Twins Hall of Fame in August

Joe Mauer has been elected to the Twins Hall of Fame, the team announced Friday. The Twins are hopeful this is merely the first Hall of Fame into which Mauer gains entry.

From the moment he retired in 2018, it’s been widely expected that the former Twins great, a three-time batting champion and 2009 American League Most Valuable Player, would one day be enshrined in the team’s Hall of Fame. Mauer, whose number 7 was retired by the club in 2019, will become the 38th person inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Target Field on Aug. 5.

But what isn’t considered as much of a shoo-in, at least by a vocal portion of the club’s fanbase, is whether or not Mauer will one day have a plaque in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The question arose again earlier this week after the 2023 HOF election results were released, which unofficially puts Mauer on the clock as he’ll be added to the HOF ballot this December.

Ironically, while some Twins fans don’t believe Mauer will one day be enshrined in Cooperstown, many outsiders see the local legend as having a strong case for induction.

“It’s a stellar resume,” said Hall of Fame voter Jay Jaffe, who created the JAWS system for evaluating a player’s candidacy in 2004. “It’s short-ish as a catcher. … There’s a tendency for people to look at Yadier Molina or Pudge Rodriguez or before him, Carlton Fisk, and see guys who caught past their 40th birthday and think that anything short of that is a shortcoming. You’ve got to be as tough as a $2 steak to do that.

“I see a guy who checks so many boxes.”

When he batted .347 in 2006, Mauer became the first catcher in AL history to win a batting title and only the third individual catcher to accomplish the feat. Prior to Mauer, who repeated the feat in 2008 and 2009, no other catcher had won a batting title since Hall of Famer Ernie Lombardi hit .330 in 1942.

Among catchers, only Buster Posey has since won a batting title when he hit .336 to clinch a National League crown in 2012. While Lombardi won two batting titles in his career, no other catcher has accomplished the feat three times like Mauer. Mauer batted .306/.388/.439 for his career and was consistently one of the game’s most difficult outs.

Already a special hitter, Mauer took his game to new heights in 2009 when he batted .365/.444/.587 with 28 home runs and 96 RBIs en route to being named the AL MVP. The season was the pinnacle of the St. Paul native’s career, who had been selected by the Twins with the No. 1 pick of the 2001 amateur draft.

As he announced the honor on Friday, Twins president Dave St. Peter alluded to it only being the first Hall of Fame he expects Mauer to join.

“(He’s) one very deserving individual,” St. Peter said. “In my mind, this is just a pit stop Hall of Fame induction for Joe on his way to Cooperstown.”

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When @Twins legend Joe Mauer suited up in catcher's gear one last time at Target Field. pic.twitter.com/LrgPX3BV41

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But after he won MVP, Mauer only had four more seasons behind the plate.

On Aug. 19, 2013, the catcher sustained a career-altering concussion when a foul ball struck his catcher’s helmet and sidelined him for the rest of the season. Aside from a ceremonial pitch he caught in the final game of his career, Mauer never crouched behind home plate again. He also suffered lingering effects from the concussion, including vision problems, over the next few seasons, and missed time with another concussion during the 2018 campaign.

The injury prompted a move to first base and led to a severe drop in offensive production from Mauer. Over his final five seasons, Mauer batted .278/.359/.388 while averaging eight home runs and 58 RBIs a season, middling production for a first baseman.

Mauer’s detractors often cite the drop in production, the perception he didn’t live up to the then-biggest contract in Twins history and that he was “soft” for not playing through injuries as reasons he won’t make it to Cooperstown.

But in those years he was a catcher, Jaffe argues Mauer, who amassed 2,123 hits and produced 54.1 career WAR, did enough to earn the honor. A Hall of Fame voter since 2021, Jaffe developed the JAWS system (Jaffe WAR Score system) as a way to determine a player’s HOF worthiness by comparing that player to others at the position who already been enshrined.

One of the keys to the system is measuring his career WAR and seven-year peak WAR compared to those already in. When it comes to catchers, Mauer ranks higher than several of his peers who already have a plaque.

“Yes, he caught only caught fewer than 1,000 games,” Jaffe said. “But he’s seventh in JAWS among catchers, measuring his career and his peak, and all seven of those years are his years as a catcher, which is damn remarkable. … He’s well above the peak.”

Even so, Mauer, who is expected to be joined on the 2024 ballot by first-timers Adrian Beltre and Chase Utley, isn’t guaranteed entry in his first year. Rodriguez only became the second catcher to ever become a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2017. Mauer also faces a crowded ballot as holdovers Todd Helton, Billy Wagner, Andruw Jones, Gary Sheffield and Carlos Beltrán each received at least 46.5 percent of the vote in 2023.

While it could take time, Jaffe expects Mauer to one day be elected.

“To me he’s an easy choice for my ballot,” Jaffe said. “I imagine there are a lot of people that feel that way, but not everybody does and because it’s a crowded ballot we’ll see where it lands.”

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(Photo: David Berding / USA Today)