Joe Mauer
Joseph Patrick Mauer is an American former professional baseball catcher and first baseman who spent his entire 15-year Major League Baseball career with the Minnesota Twins. Regarded as one of the greatest contact hitters at the catcher position in his prime, Mauer is the only catcher in MLB history to win three batting titles, and the only catcher to ever win a batting title in the American League. Internationally, Mauer represented the United States.
Selected by the Twins with the first overall pick of the 2001 MLB draft, Mauer received six All-Star selections, won three consecutive Gold Glove Awards, five Silver Slugger Awards and the 2009 AL Most Valuable Player Award., he is the most recent catcher to win the MVP award in the American League, and one of only two catchers to win an MVP in the 21st century, along with Buster Posey. In 2024, Mauer was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
High school career
Mauer played football, basketball, and baseball for St. Paul's Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders. In his senior year, he became the only athlete ever to be selected as the USA Today High School Player of the Year in football and baseball.In December 2009, Sports Illustrated magazine included Mauer in its article on ten "signature" moments in U.S. high school sports in the 2000–2009 decade, referring to his selection by the Minnesota Twins as the first pick in the 2001 Major League Baseball draft.
Baseball
Mauer attended the same high school as Baseball Hall of Famer and former Milwaukee Brewer Paul Molitor, who later became his major league manager with the Twins. Molitor has said that Mauer "has the best swing he had ever seen". Jim O'Neill, Mauer's baseball coach at Cretin-Derham Hall, said his former student "has been groomed for this job since he was a little boy. Mauer's dad, Jake, created a contraption for Joe he later named the 'Quickswing.' The device dropped balls down a tube from eye level and released them at waist level." Mauer had been asked to leave his T-ball league at the age of four, because he was hitting the ball too hard for the other players. "Another guy that came from Cretin-Derham Hall, Paul Molitor, was very similar, had a good short swing," O'Neill said. "And they're both able to wait on the ball so long because they don't have the big swing. Like anything, you keep simple and keep it small or short, there's not a lot of holes in it and not a lot of room for errors."A stand-out in baseball, Mauer struck out only once during his four-year high school career. He hit.605 during his senior season. Years later, Mauer laughingly told an interviewer: "I can remember the time I did strike out. It was junior year, and it was in the state tournament. I came back to the bench and everybody thought something was wrong with me." Mauer's high school batting average exceeded.500 every year. He also set a Minnesota high school record and tied the national preps mark by hitting a home run in seven consecutive games. Mauer caught for the Team USA Junior National team from 1998 to 2000 and hit.595 during his final year on the team. He was voted best hitter at the World Junior Baseball Championship in Canada in. In, Mauer was voted the United States District V Player of the Year.
Basketball
Mauer averaged more than 20 points a game as a point guard for Cretin-Derham Hall. He was also named to the All-State team during his final two years on Cretin-Derham's basketball team.Football
Mauer had an accomplished high school football career. In 2000, he appeared in the Faces in the Crowd section in Sports Illustrated. During his senior season as the Raiders' quarterback, Mauer completed 178 of 269 passes, for 3,022 yards, 41 touchdowns and five interceptions. He finished his two-year career as a starter with 5,528 yards and 73 touchdowns, leading the Raiders to two consecutive Class 5A State Championship Game appearances and winning the title in 1999, the Raiders' first.Mauer was honored as the 2001 Gatorade National Player of the Year, was named to the USA Today All-USA high school football team, was honored as USA Today's Player of the Year, was a Reebok/ESPN High School All-American, and was awarded Player of the Year for the game that would go on to be known as the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. Mauer was also named National High School Quarterback of the Year in 2000 by The National Quarterback Club.
Professional career
Draft and minor leagues
After committing to play football at Florida State University, Mauer ultimately decided instead to enter the Major League Baseball draft. Mauer was selected by the Twins as the first overall pick of the 2001 draft, ahead of college pitcher Mark Prior, who was taken second overall by the Chicago Cubs. Mauer was part of the United States' roster at the All-Star Futures Game at U.S. Cellular Field before being promoted to the Twins' roster in after his predecessor, A. J. Pierzynski, was traded to the San Francisco Giants, in the 2003 offseason.2004–2005
Mauer made his major league debut on April 5, 2004, and finished the game 2-for-3, hitting a single off Rafael Betancourt of the Cleveland Indians for his first major-league hit. A knee injury to his left medial meniscus on April 7, 2004, required surgery and sidelined Mauer for more than a month. After a rehabilitation stint with the Twins' Triple-A affiliate, the Rochester Red Wings, Mauer returned to the Twins' lineup in June. In July, pain and swelling in his knee forced an early end to Mauer's 2004 season. Following his injury-shortened 2004, Mauer signed a contract for under a million with the Twins on January 24, 2005. In 2005, Mauer returned to the Twins' lineup for his first full major league season, and batted.294 with 144 hits, nine home runs and 55 RBI in 131 games.2006–2008
In his 2006 season, Mauer became the first catcher in American League history to lead the American League in batting average, finishing with an average of.347. Mauer's performance during the months of May and June garnered attention from the national media. He recorded a.528 batting average over the first ten days of June and hit.452 over the course of the month. He was also the first player since Mike Piazza in 1997 to reach base four or more times for five consecutive games. On June 12, Mauer was named the American League Player of the Week by Major League Baseball for his performance the week of June 4–11, during which he hit.625 with five doubles, 4 RBI and two stolen bases.Mauer recorded his first five RBI game June 26, against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mauer followed that up with his first career five-hit game on June 27, also against the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was also named MLB Player of the Month for June after batting.452 with a.624 slugging percentage and.528 on-base percentage, 11 doubles, 14 RBI and 18 runs. Along with Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano, Mauer was part of the first-ever single-team sweep of MLB's three monthly awards. On July 2, Mauer was selected by the players to his first All-Star Game. Mauer appeared on the cover of the August 7, 2006 issue of Sports Illustrated.
Mauer finished the 2006 regular season with a.347 batting average, edging the New York Yankees' Derek Jeter and Robinson Canó to win the American League batting title and become the first-ever American League catcher to win the crown and the first catcher to claim the title since Ernie Lombardi in 1942 with the Boston Braves. His.347 average was the highest in the Major Leagues, a feat not achieved by the previous three catchers to win NL batting titles. He was the youngest player to win a batting title since Alex Rodriguez in 1996. After going 2-for-4 in the last game of the 2006 regular season, Mauer confessed to reporters, "When I told you I wasn't thinking about the batting title? I was lying. I've never been that nervous in my life. I haven't felt anything like that since Opening Day as a rookie." Mauer won his first Silver Slugger Award in 2006, along with teammate Justin Morneau.
On February 11, 2007, Mauer agreed to a four-year, $34 million contract with the Twins to avoid arbitration. The deal ensured that Mauer would remain in Minnesota long enough to play in the Twins' Target Field in 2010. On July 21, Mauer hit his first career inside-the-park home run against Angels pitcher Scot Shields. It was his fifth home run of the season, and there were two players on base when he hit the homer. It was the first inside-the-park home run by a catcher since Kelly Stinnett did it for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2005. Mauer finished the 2007 season batting.293 with seven home runs and 60 RBI in 109 games.
In 2008, Mauer became the first American League catcher to win the batting title twice when he led the AL with an average of.328. He also recorded nine home runs and 85 RBI in 146 games. On July 6, Mauer was announced as the starting catcher for the American League in the 2008 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Mauer underwent surgery for kidney obstruction on December 22. Mauer won his first Gold Glove award in 2008, announced on November 6. He finished fourth in the balloting for American League Most Valuable Player, behind Dustin Pedroia, Justin Morneau, and Kevin Youkilis.
2009: MVP season
In 2009, Mauer became the first catcher to lead the majors in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage in a single year, and the first player to lead the American League in all three since George Brett did so in 1980. Mauer's.365 average, which is the highest mark among catchers since 1901, and the highest by a Twin since Rod Carew's.388 in 1977, led Major League Baseball. Mauer also won his second consecutive Gold Glove in 2009. Mauer was named the American League's 2009 MVP by a near-unanimous decision.On March 11, Mauer was diagnosed with inflammation in the sacroiliac joint by team doctors following a magnetic resonance arthrogram. He was unable to take part in team workouts during spring training due to the pain in his lower back, which he first began experiencing late in the 2008 season. Mauer missed the start of the 2009 regular season and returned on May 1. He went 2-for-3 with an RBI and three runs scored in his first game back, hitting a home run on his first swing of the season.
After his return on May 1, Mauer had the best month of his career, batting.414 with 11 home runs and drove in 32 RBI in 28 May games, becoming the first-ever Twins player to reach that mark in a single month. During the week of May 18–24, Mauer led the major leagues in batting average at.458, RBI with 13, and runs scored with 12, also hitting four home runs and accumulating 25 total bases. On May 26, he was named MLB Player of the Week for his performance. Through the month of May, Mauer led the major leagues in average at.414, on-base percentage at.500, and slugging percentage at.838, in addition to his home run and RBI totals, earning him his second Player of the Month Award honors. Mauer appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a second time on June 24. An additional 25,000 copies of the magazine were sent to Minnesota for the occasion. He was selected to the 2009 MLB All-Star Game as the starting catcher and participated in the Home Run Derby, losing a tiebreaker to Albert Pujols in the first round.
The Twins trailed the Detroit Tigers by seven games in the American League Central division at the start of September, but rallied, winning 17 of their last 21 games to finish the season tied atop the division. On October 6, the Twins beat the Tigers 6–5 in Game 163, a 12-inning one-game playoff, to secure the division title. In 2009, Mauer led the American League in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS, all of which were career-highs. Mauer became the first catcher to lead the league in all four offensive categories in a single season, and the first catcher to win three batting titles. At the time, he had won as many batting championships in a span of four years as all other Major League catchers in the history of baseball combined. Two National League catchers had won a total of three batting titles: Eugene "Bubbles" Hargrave in 1926, and Hall of Famer Ernie Lombardi in 1938 and 1942. Mauer also established career-highs in hits, home runs, RBIs, extra-base hits, total bases, bWAR, and fWAR, as well as near-personal bests in every other offensive category across 138 games.
Facing the Yankees in the ALDS, Mauer continued to swing the bat well, recording five hits in 12 at-bats plus two walks, but the Twins were swept by the eventual World Series champions in three games. On October 29, Baseball America named Mauer its 2009 Major League Player of the Year. On November 23, Mauer was named the 2009 American League Most Valuable Player by the Baseball Writers' Association of America over Yankees teammates Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter, earning 27 of the 28 first-place votes. This made Mauer the second catcher in 33 years to win the AL MVP. He also received both a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger award for the second year in a row.