Now, to rack up a +3.8 win value through mid-June is impressive enough on its own. Our fair value salary estimate suggests that Mauer has already played well enough to justify a $17 million contract for 2009, and we’re still a few weeks away from the all-star game. Even more amazing, of course, is that Mauer missed the first few month of the season with a back injury that landed him on the DL. Mauer has racked up his 3.8 WAR in just 43 games, totaling 190 plate appearances.
If we prorated Mauer’s performance out over a full catcher season, plus giving him some time at DH, we’d be looking at a +12 WAR season. The only guy to put up 12+ WAR in a single season since ‘02 (as far as our numbers go back) is Barry Bonds, and we’ll just say that there’s a wee bit of controversy surrounding that guy.
So, there’s no doubt, Mauer’s having an incredible season. Playing a +12 win level, even for just a few months, is pretty remarkable. But, here’s the thing - our version of WAR probably underrates Mauer, because we don’t try to quantify the defensive value of each catcher. Because of the problems in evaluating catcher defense, for right now, we just assume they’re all average for the purposes of calculating win values. Of course, they aren’t all average - some are demonstrably better than others.
Mauer has been far and away the best player in the major leagues this year despite missing time with an injury, despite having to come back healthy from that injury, and despite a metric that doesn't fully appreciate Mauer's position (not that there is any metric that fairly judges catchers). Wow.
Mauer has long been one of the best players in the league, but this year he has been the best, and there really isn't any argument. It's obviously not wise to prorate his peformance so far over an entire season and expect those to be the end numbers, but it helps illustrate how amazing he has been. You can make the case (and probably be right) that Barry Bonds has had one of the best seasons of all time, and right now Mauer is matching it.
Mauer obviously won't continue to put up this performance, but let's hope he doesn't need to in order to win his long awaited first MVP. If you look at ZiPS projections for him for the rest of the season, he'll end at .365/.446/.595 with a .447 wOBA. Considering that only Albert Pujols had a better wOBA than that last year and that Mauer plays the catcher position, it's safe to say you are looking at the prohibitive favorite for the MVP award. I didn't think I had a preference in the AL Central, but if it takes the Twins winning it in order to give Mauer the MVP I think that's what I'll be rooting for.
One thing to note is that Mauer's teammate Justin Morneau is having an excellent season, 3rd in the AL in the almighty RBI category. He already stole won MVP from Mauer in 2006, and inexcusably finished 2nd last year, can he do it again? It wouldn't surprise me. It also wouldn't surprise me if Evan Longoria or Mark Teixeira rode their gaudy RBI totals and likely better team records to an MVP this year. Not that they aren't worthy of MVP consideration, and not that they won't actually be more valuable than Mauer at seasons end, but at this rate if Mauer doesn't own some hardware this offseason it will be a real shame.
If this season holds true and a few things went Mauer's way in the past, he could have been the owner 3 MVP awards at only 26 years old before theoretically entering his prime, totally on his way to a shoein Hall of Fame career. However, it's not unlikely that he'll have 0 MVPs at 26, move off to a different position in his 30s (undermining his catching performance previously), and have it held against him at the end of his career when considering his Hall of Fame candidacy that he didn't win an MVP.
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