Mauer’s Historical Run in Jeopardy
Posted by Raphy on September 30, 2009
With his 1-4 tonight, Joe Mauer's batting average dropped to .366, an excellent average, but no longer the all-time best for a catcher (who qualified for the batting title). With 4 games left to the season, Mauer has fallen behind Babe Phelps, who hit .367 for the Dodgers in 1936. Of course, the batting title qualifications were different then and Phelps only had 349 PA in his signature season. If we raise the bar a bit, Mauer only needs to stay above the .362 that was recorded by Bill Dickey in 1936 and matched by Mike Piazza in 1997. Here are the all time BA leaders among players who qualified for the batting title and played at least 50% of their games at catcher (does not include tonight's game, but I'm leaving Mauer 2009 in for comparative purposes):
Cnt Player **BA** Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS OBP SLG OPS Positions +----+-----------------+---------+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+---------+ 1 Joe Mauer .367 2009 26 MIN AL 132 576 501 88 184 29 1 28 93 68 12 60 2 0 5 13 4 1 .441 .597 1.038 *2D 2 Babe Phelps .367 1936 28 BRO NL 115 349 319 36 117 23 2 5 57 27 0 18 3 0 0 6 1 0 .421 .498 .919 *2/9 3 Mike Piazza .362 1997 28 LAD NL 152 633 556 104 201 32 1 40 124 69 11 77 3 0 5 19 5 1 .431 .638 1.069 *2/D 4 Bill Dickey .362 1936 29 NYY AL 112 472 423 99 153 26 8 22 107 46 0 16 3 0 0 0 0 2 .428 .617 1.045 *2 5 Chief Meyers .358 1912 31 NYG NL 126 435 371 60 133 16 5 6 54 47 0 20 8 9 0 0 8 0 .441 .477 .918 *2 6 Mickey Cochrane .357 1930 27 PHA AL 130 561 487 110 174 42 5 10 85 55 0 18 1 18 0 0 5 0 .424 .526 .950 *2 7 Gabby Hartnett .354 1937 36 CHC NL 110 405 356 47 126 21 6 12 82 43 0 19 0 6 0 8 0 0 .424 .548 .972 *2 8 Bubbles Hargrave .353 1926 33 CIN NL 105 365 326 42 115 22 8 6 62 25 0 17 4 10 0 0 2 0 .406 .525 .931 *2 9 Spud Davis .349 1933 28 PHI NL 141 540 495 51 173 28 3 9 65 32 0 24 5 8 0 21 2 0 .395 .473 .868 *2 10 Mickey Cochrane .349 1931 28 PHA AL 122 521 459 87 160 31 6 17 89 56 0 21 3 3 0 0 2 3 .423 .553 .976 *2 11 Joe Mauer .347 2006 23 MIN AL 140 608 521 86 181 36 4 13 84 79 21 54 1 0 7 24 8 3 .429 .507 .936 *2D
September 30th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
there has been a lot of chatter on the airwaves lately that mauer's '09 effort is the best ever for any catcher. i think piazza in '97 ranks as one of the best, bench in '70 (and a great defensive season as well), Pudge in '99, Javy Lopez in '03, dickey in '36 and '37, Roy Campanella in '53, Gabby Hartnett in '30. is mauer's season much better than any of those?
October 1st, 2009 at 12:41 am
Three more greatest of the greatest: Berra 1950 (or pretty much any year), Torre 1966, Bench 1972.
October 1st, 2009 at 12:49 am
While I'm at it, what those three have in common is that they all moved to other positions and didn't give up on their hitting. Neither did B.J. Surhoff, Jason Kendall or Craig Biggio. But several guys really became stars after leaving the catcher's role: Carlos Delgado, Dale Murphy and Brian Downing, to name three, and the first two almost entirely forgotten as having played that position. I know a few other guys did it in the 1800s, and first decade of the 1900s, when positions were a little more fluid, but is there anyone notable who did that between 1920 and 1970? And has anyone ever been notable for starting to hit AFTER becoming a catcher? The closest I can think of is Jorge Posada, who played as a second baseman his first year in the minors, and that doesn't really count.
Oh, and one more former catcher who became a pretty darned good hitter: Babe Ruth was a catcher when he first started playing ball.
October 1st, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Jack Clements batted .394 in 1895. Only 355 PA, but apparently it qualified for the batting title, according to B-R.
There are some other high average seasons for catchers in the 1870s, but I usually search since 1893.
October 1st, 2009 at 4:21 pm
It should be noted Mauer has only caught 105 games this season. I'm not looking up all thee other seasons listed in the comments but I assume most of them were 130-140 games.
October 1st, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Ruth was a lefthanded catcher?
Todd Zeile was another guy who came up as a catcher.
Bob Boone started out in the minors as a third baseman and was moved to catcher.
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:25 am
Ruth wasn't a catcher for long, obviously. Just at his school, until he started making fun of the pitcher, saying he could do a better job.
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Piazza in 1997 had a much better year than Mauer. He should have won the MVP award.