For some reason, Joe Mauer is one of those hitters who scouts and fans keep expecting a HR spike from, despite the fact that he has never shown the power he supposedly one day might display. For his career, he has a total of 40 HRs in 1824 ABs, which equates to just 12 HRs in a 550 AB season. Will this mysterious power spike ever manifest itself, rewarding fantasy owners who have patiently waited?
Mauer’s problem is quite simple really. He just doesn’t hit enough fly balls. Although his FB% has ticked up ever so slightly for 3 straight years now, his career rate is just 27% and has been below 30% every full year of his career. He hits nearly 50% of his balls in play on the ground, and typically over 20% of his balls are line drives, both of which explain his above league average BABIP, which stands at .339 for his career.
A ground ball hitter might be able to hit a respectable number of home runs if he could make the most of his fly balls. Looking at Mauer’s HR/F ratios, he notched a career high in 2006 when he posted a 10.8% ratio. He hasn’t been above 8.7% in any other of his full seasons and is at just 6.3% this year, easily a career low.
What if we checked out his doubles rate to see if maybe in the future those doubles might become home runs? Looking there doesn’t provide too much hope either as he is only a decent doubles hitter, having hit about a pro-rated 36 given a 550 AB season. However, a glimmer of hope has shown this year as he’s somewhat increased his doubles rate to 42 per 550 ABs.
So given all this data, I think Mauer will basically peak around 15 HRs, usually hitting around 10-15. Unless he dramatically changes his approach at the plate and adds more lift to his swing, he just cannot be expected to hit the 20-30 HRs many had predicted while hitting fly balls at a rate below 30%. Mauer is a great hitter and one of the most valuable players in the game every year, no matter what people might say, but expecting a power spike of 20-30 HRs is just wishful thinking at this point.
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1 response so far ↓
1 John // Jul 16, 2008 at 8:19 am
You’re absolutely right. Most people don’t look at these stats when they project home runs.
Mauer would have to hit around 25% of his fly balls as home runs to approach 30HR power.
20HR seasons don’t seem unreasonable though, as that would only require approximately 15-18% of fly balls to be home runs. As Torii Hunter said a couple of years ago, just wait ’till “he gets man muscles.”
We’ll see, I’m not convinced the power will come, but a few 20HR seasons will probably come in time.
This isn’t fantasy related, but as Aaron Gleeman said today:
“Misguided critics continue to focus on his lack of power, but Mauer has dominated his position like few other players in baseball while quietly hitting five homers with a .568 slugging percentage in 34 games since June 1. Toss in his usual quality defense behind the plate and Mauer’s a legitimate league MVP candidate, although certainly the RBI-obsessed voters would never see it that way. He’s fourth among AL hitters in Win Probability Added and rises to the top spot once WPA is adjusted for position.”
Mauer is a great catcher–contributing much to the Twins, but not as much to fantasy owners would like to receive.
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