Joe Mauer’s Deal Finally Finalized
Worry no more Minnesota fans; a soothing balm to news on Joe Nathan‘s season-ending surgery has quickly arrived. According to sources, Joe Mauer has done what we mostly all expected and come to an extension agreement. There had been progress toward this all winter and while I am sure the news today bums out fans in New York and Boston, they should not be surprised.
At least, the idea that Joe Mauer is staying in Minnesota should not surprise them. What they, along with everyone else, might be surprised about is for how long. Though an ultimately bogus lead earlier in the off season had Mauer signing a ten-year contract, today’s announcement of an eight-year, $184 million deal is still an incredibly big one. Beginning in 2011 and covering only what would have been free agent years, Mauer averages $23 million per season through 2018, covering his age 28 through 35 seasons.
Mauer was worth an incredible eight wins last year even without any credit for his defense, which most regard as above average. Both CHONE and the Fans expect Mauer to be worth 7.3 wins this coming season, though I am skeptical that he maintains such a high value as a hitter while also catching as often as the projection systems have him doing. Mauer spent 109 games at catcher last season and 28 at designated hitter and I think that’s a roughly fair expectation for him in the future as well. You should always strive to be conservative when it comes to catchers.
Overall, I think a 6.5-win projection is a little more realistic for Mauer, a total that even with the recently depressed market, surpasses his AAV salary. In the short term, this deal is fair to both sides. Where it might get dicey is down the line when Mauer reaches his mid-30s. I don’t think him staying at catcher is needed for this to work out though. Mauer’s bat is good enough to stand a move to first base and he would benefit from a likely increase in playing time. My concern is simply that for being on the hook for eight years and giving him a full no trade clause, I feel the Twins should have gotten a bit more of a discount.
The general rule is that long term contracts get about a 10% discount for compounding injury risk. If you apply that here, Mauer’s $23 million per year acts more like $25.5 million in valuation, a figure that would require him to maintain a 6-win pace for the duration of his contract. Can he do that? Sure. He might even exceed it, but the downside outstrips the upside here. That’s only a nitpick though and it might turn out that some of that money is deferred. In the end, if Minnesota had to cover a few extra million in order to keep Mauer in the Twin Cities, it’s going to be worth it to them from a PR perspective and it’s great for baseball that such a star is staying in his home organization.
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I donno, as a Boston fan I’m still glad Mauer extended. The Twins run a good franchise and I like to see teams stay competitive, especially when they’re not in my division. And isn’t it good for baseball to have some players that are loyal to their teams and give you some stability of knowing who you’re facing when they come to town? Kudos to the Twins for getting it done.
Even if he might not earn the whole salary based on performance, he’ll help them fill up that new ballpark and give a face to the team. There’s a lot of value in that. Plus if they feel they’re not getting their money worth, they can convince him to change the number on his jersey to boost merchandising sales. ;)
Still, humbug, man, humbug.
Not only do we not get to bid on Mauer now, but V-Mart is going to be the most attractive FA catcher on the market. It’ll probably take close to what Jason Bay got with the Mets to keep him in Boston now.
Unless of course we want to settle on A.J. Pierzynski or something.
Man, that sounds terrible. Hope you guys can keep it together through such a tough offseason.
Because hoping a big name FA stays in the market so that your own target drives down his asking price a bit is a totally unreasonable thing to wish.
“I feel the Twins should have gotten a bit more of a discount.”
So it’s not a hometown discount, but it will be labeled that by the media anyways. Mauer had all the power though; if Twins are in the playoff pitcher come July 31 then they couldnt trade him, and if he hit FA they wouldnt be able to match the offers from Boston or NY.
So it was either give him the deal he wanted, or take 2 draft picks and have your entire fan base hate your organization.
I agree, I think this deal HAD to be done.
The fans in Minnesota are a passionate bunch from what I’ve seen. Even if it would’ve made more sense in terms of short term gain to seek out discounts with that $23MM a year in the FA Market, the risk of alienating a fan base just isn’t worth it. I can’t see the Twins disappearing from their team if they have a 1 or 2 season skid, since their hero is still there.
Yay! I think everyone should be happy about this.
Except for, you know, the Tigers and the White Sox.
And the Red Sox and Yankees fans who had already inked him into their lineups.
Is he really going to be a 6 win player at 1B/DH?
Let’s find out now.
I’ll say due to less wear & tear, he’d get 660 PA as a 1B.
He’s projected to be +35.7 on offense in 595 PA by CHONE in 2010. That’s +39.6 in 660 PA.
I’ll say he’s an average 1B. So +22 replacement, -13.75 positional = 47.85 RAR.
To be fair, that CHONE projection includes his wash out 2007. ZiPS projects +40.8 in just 572 PA, or +47.07 in 660 PA. Now we’re talking about 55.3 RAR, which is pretty close to a fair market value for Mauer.
OK, so he’d be worth a bit less than his contract AAV as 1B . . . at age 27. What do we project for ages 32-35?
I think we can already see that once you discount catcher wear and tear, injury risk, and general regression to the mean, he’s unlikely to perform up to the contract 6 years to 9 years from now.
But does the GM have much incentive to hold this deal up based on this problem? Nope.
Well his #1 comparable according to baseball-reference.com is Bill Dickey.
Dickey OPS’d .881 from his age 27 season on, and OPS’d .883 from his 28-35 y/o seasons. Since Mauer has the DH option, I see no reason why he can’t get around .900 OPS for that time frame.
And as other posters said, why assume he moves to 1B when he washes out at C? If say, he becomes a -5.0 UZR/150 3B, then we can say:
+35 bat, -5 glove, +2.5 position, +22 replacement (660 PA) = 4.95 WAR, or effective 5 WAR. Then when the market improves, it becomes pretty fair value.
But I do think it’s a given that the last year or so of this may not be pretty.
Dickey’s a weak comp, though. 900 is the absolute minimum to really say anything about career similarity, and that’s really pushing it. He’s also got nearly as high a similarity score from Jason Kendall through his age-26 season. Mauer had been chugging along the previous three years with his top comp (at a much higher score) being the remarkably unremarkable Shanty Hogan, before he blew up last year and broke the comparison machine. I don’t think we can look to other careers much to make predictions about Joe Mauer – he’s too much of a right-tail player.
Well I mean, obviously we can’t map Mauer to anyone and say “here’s how he’ll do”.
One thing that did strike me as similar, though, is catcher workload.
After Dickey’s age 26 season, he caught in 594 games, vs. 607 for Mauer.
I think looking at Dickey’s #’s allows you to kind-of guess at how Mauer will do (obviously adjusting for things like better medicine, being able to DH, and taking a big grain of salt with it).
BP’s top comps:
Victor Martinez
Mark Grace
Hal Morris
Mike Piazza
Somewhere Victor Martinez’s agent is masturbating profusely.
I’m pretty sure he’ll move to first once Morneau’s deal is up.
I’m pretty sure you’re an authority.
Why first? He seems to be athletic enough to play a corner outfield position or possibly third.
Wouldn’t the inflation rate play a role in Mauer’s value in the long run? So the real value of his contract would be less than the nominal 23 mil a year?
Probably. We would expect the marginal value of a win to go up as Mauer declines, so that would offset the loss in value at least somewhat if the contract is reasonably flat. If it’s heavily backloaded, the Twins are getting Mauer at a fantastic premium now, but they’ll pay dearly for it down the road.
The Pohlads are on the record as being anti-backloading, though I haven’t heard specifics about the deal.
According to Cot’s, it’s $23 million annually.
The deal is for more money than I thought it would be. Still a great move for the twins. Target Field would have burned to the ground if they didn’t sign him. I know I would have been there holding a pitchfork.
Joe Mauer is going to stay in Minnesota! How much is it worth to the Twins to sell out Target Field this year? Next year? The year after that? Can you add that to your total? Joe Mauer Jerseys? Hey, two of my nephews own Mauer jerseys, at $125 a pop. They aren’t even Minnesota fans, but they are huge Mauer fans. I think it’s good for baseball if a small market team keeps a star player once in awhile-and Mauer’s a good one to keep at home.
While Mauer will likely have an impact at the gate (before hedonic adaptation takes over, anyway), the Twins would have made just as much money on jersey sales if he was in Boston, New York, or wherever else, since MLB splits those revenues evenly. People often overstate the non-baseball financial impact of a player signing to justify an overpay. It’s not necessary to do that here.
only if you buy it online mate
Anything bought within 200 miles of the stadium goes solely to the team.
Joe Mauer is going to be so underpaid; he’s playing an impossibly important role in society–baseball catcher. 184 million dollars is nothing. Conversely, those stupid, greedy doctors that want to make about 250,000 dollars a year after 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and 3-7 years of residency in which they will work 80 hours a week while accruing 200,000+ debt accruing at 6.8-8.5% are so overpaid.
At least athletes and CEO’s are doing something worthwhile. I’ll go back and finish my hamburger, fries, and continue watching television–if my health doesn’t improve I”ll just blame the PT, MD/DO, and other health care personnel. Health care is a right and somebody will pay for my care.
80-hour work weeks are pretty much for fellows only these days, FYI. Regardless, where did this rant come from?
I’m sorry. It’s just frustrating to me how people’s priorities can be so focused on entertainment or harmful activities (beer, smokes) rather than their mental, physical, and emotional health. The health care reform thing-of-a-jig just passed, that’s why I vented.
cpebbles: are you a medical student/resident? Really, only for residents? Tell that to the people doing 30 hour shifts and exceeding the 80 hour work week limit–they can’t report their residency program since if it gets closed down…they are screwed.
I didn’t mean to say that athletes are overpaid; they are only making their money because people care about them. (advertisements, ticket sales, etc) I’m just exasperated that people will spend hundreds of dollars of expensive internet plans, cable television, smokes, and consider the doctors bill a massive affront to their very being.Well, docs will just drop medicare…get used to seeing NP’s and PA’s instead of MD’s/DO’s…
Fully agreed with Rich Doctor. I shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s health care. Or their police protection for that, matter. You get raped? Tough, deal with it. Stop wasting my money.
Sounds like someone is regretting their career choice. Outside of the few that genuinely want to save the world, most people become doctors to make lots of money.
There are nights when I’m unable to sleep, so moved am I by the plight of doctors making $250,000.
I’m going to let the random political rant slide here since what we have here is a guy who is incredibly pissed about something that will effect him greatly.
Time and a place for everything, and this certainly isn’t the place for that conversation. Propriety fail.
You’re on a baseball forum.
Grow up.
This isn’t the place for political talk, but I need a quick response to you:
My whole life iv leaned conservatively, and therefore been against universal health care. I worked 2 jobs in college (one running a constructuon crew, and on a fishing boat on the weekend). I graduated in 3 years and had a good paying job. My gf got pregnant and then got laid off 3 months later, on her birthday, 2 weeks before christmas and a week before we moved into a new place. So, at 22 (now 23), I was tasked with supporting a pregnant woman, myself and soon a child on my income alone. Now they pass this healthcare bill and I think to myself “Iv never once looked for a handout from anyone, but this may help ME afterall.”
The point? Sometimes life kicks you square in the nuts. As long asyou continue to work hard, and catch a few breaks here and there, you can always be successful.
end soapbox scene
Give me a break.
Nip this crap in the bud before it begins…Fangraphs is the LAST place to be having the tired “Athletes are overpaid!! zomg!!” argument.
Unless they are overpaid according to WAR…
“In the end, if Minnesota had to cover a few extra million in order to keep Mauer in the Twin Cities, it’s going to be worth it to them from a PR perspective and it’s great for baseball that such a star is staying in his home organization.”
Replace ‘Minnesota’ with ‘Toronto,’ Mauer with ‘Wells,’ and ‘the Twin Cities’ with ‘Canada,’ and you have pretty much exactly what the media said about the Vernon Wells contract at first as well. Obviously Mauer was worth AAV initially and Wells wasn’t, but just keep in mind how quickly a PR advantage can turn into a PR liability.
PR or not, there is a huge difference between Mauer and Wells….and that comparison is, well, just plain idiotic.
Well’s best WAR was 5.8, top 3 years avg was 4.5, top 5 was 3.6.
vs
Mauer’s best WAR was 8.1, top 3 years avg was 6.6, top 5 was 5.3
And Mauer is (I would expect) hitting his prime years’ stride as we speak. Bottom line, they are different players and the PR involvement is therein completely different.
“there is a huge difference between Mauer and Wells….and that comparison is, well, just plain idiotic.”
It doesn’t seem to me the point is Mauer = Wells, it’s more a point that a lot can happen over such a long term contract and what initially looks like a good (or even mediocre) deal can quickly turn into a horrible, franchise killing albatross – even if the Mauer deal seems to make sense right now, there’s definitely a huge downside risk to it.
I’m going to list some differences between Wells’ deal and Mauer’s at the time of the signing.
Age in first year of deal:
Wells: 28, Mauer: 27 (not a huge difference)
Career WAR to that point:
Wells: 18.0, Mauer: 27.6 (in 334 less PA than Wells had from 2002-2006)
To be fair, Wells fell apart, but even if he stayed as a +4 WAR player, there were 47 batters in 2009 who obtained at least +4 WAR. That’s good, but 7 yr / $126MM of good? That’s probably what a reasonable person could have hoped from Wells.
The expectation of Mauer is what, +6 WAR / season? That’s a top 10 batter. You better pay top dollar to get one of those on your team.
“My concern is simply that for being on the hook for eight years and giving him a full no trade clause.”
Well they really only gave him a no trade for years 1-3 of the deal, when his 10/5 rights kick in. If the Twins are looking to trade Mauer in the first three years of his contract, things have gone very, very wrong. It’s the end of the deal when you’d be more likely to move him, and you were going to need his permission to do that anyway.
Good point.
I think you are also forgetting an incredibly important factor in the Mauer contract in his marquee value to the Twins franchise. Mauer has maybe more marquee importance to the Twins than almost any other player in baseball for a large number of factors (hometown, ballpark, etc). The true cost of Mauer’s on field performance will be quite a fair bit less than than the full $23 mill per year.
He’s not forgetting it. He’s just leaving it outside the context of this discussion. Generally on Fangraphs the analysis involves a player’s value on the field expressed as WAR and then converted to dollars based on what wins seem to be going for (or were going for when the contract was signed). No one is forgetting or denying that there may be other very significant considerations on the part of both the team and the player. We saw this with Ichiro’s contract extension a couple of years ago too: Ichiro is probably more valuable to the M’s than to any other team due to off-the-field factors, but the article here at Fangraphs evaluated the deal strictly in terms of his on-field value. Everything else is hard to quantify anyway.
I think it is safe to expect a minimum of .320/.400/.900 for the duration of the contract. That is enough to keep Mauer in the elite class of hitters (only Mauer, Albert Pujols, Chipper Jones, and Matt Holliday have those numbers over the last 3 years).
He should be able to catch at least 130 games until the age of 32 and at least 100 for another 3-4. His defensive skill should not regress too much in that time.
If all of this comes true he should remain a ~6 WAR player. Only a handful of current players have produced ~6 WAR over a extended period of time (Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, Hanley Ramirez, Matt Holliday, Alex Rodrigez and David Wright have done it over the last few years). I think he is worth 23mil a year.
you think its safe to predict he’ll hit .320 in 2014? Let alone 2018?
I do think he will average at least .320 for the duration of a contract for the prime of his career (28-36 yrs old). I also think a .400 OBP is reasonable. .900 OPS is possible only if the power numbers of 2009 career over, but he did manage an OPS of .936 in 2006 before his “power break out.”
He also had a 20%+ HR/FB rate last year, compared to a career average closer to 10.
I think it’s fair to say his power numbers in 2009 were slightly aberrant.
He has only started over 120 games at catcher once in his career unto this point and has only bested your slash line 2 times out in his 5 full seasons.
There’s no need to unreasonable, here.
What is unreasonable about the facts? Judging by his career he is not going to catch at least 130 games for the next 5 years straight or put up that line as a minimum for the next 8. That does not mean he is bad or anything. He has not been regularly putting up such numbers thus far and is still a great player.
“I think it is safe to expect a minimum of .320/.400/.900 for the duration of the contract.”
I think you mean .320/.400/.500. …but even thats quite a stretch. Try replacing “the duration of his contract” with “next year.” It would be tough for any player to maintain that level of production. Let alone a catcher who had next to no power until this year. There exists a chance that Joe Mauer pulls an Adrian Beltre and proves this year to be an outlier rather than an improvement. I think they overpaid. But, because of PR etc., it was not enough of an overpay for them to pass up. However, I think this thing could get ugly in 6 or 7 years.
The difference between Mauer and Beltre is that Beltre was a below average hitter for his position before his contract year of ’04 when he turned into Pujols. Mauer was an above average hitter for his position before last year.
And since Beltre mostly earned what he was paid in Seattle (with his glove more than with his bat, but he wasn’t being paid like someone who was expected to repeat his ’04 season) having Mauer do a Beltre wouldn’t be such a bad thing for the Twins.
He was paid what he was worth because defense was still underrated at the time. The Mariners paid him expecting him to continue to be a great hitter. Everybody knows about defense now so the Twins don’t have that to fall back on if Mauer regresses.
I’m really happy for Twins fans right now. How often to we see this in sports nowadays–local boy gets to spend almost his entire career playing for the team he rooted for as a child. It’s something that 95% of athletes can only dream of.
The Twins got a bit unlucky insofar as Mauer had a monster year right before contract extension talks were likely to take place. Still I think this contract (from what we know of it) is clearly a better option than trading him or letting him walk. It’s somewhat front-loaded, since a dollar is worth more in 2011 than in 2018 (unless the early money includes deferred amounts). The Twins reportedly purchased some degree of insurance against injury.
From watching him play over the years, I am not worried his ability will fall off much. Mauer is a truly special talent, in a way that comparisons to someone like Kendall don’t do justice. As a Twins fan, I’m relieved he will be around for many years to come, even though the price is undeniably steep. My biggest concern is not whether Mauer will live up to it, but whether the front office will spend the remaining ~$75 million of payroll space wisely.
I don’t think any of we Yankees fans are shedding a tear over Mauer signing because of two very sweet-sounding words:
Jesus Montero.
Even if the Yanks offered Mauer a contract based on the assumption that one of he or Montero would need to shift over to 1B/DH, there’s just no open spot there. Teixeira is firmly entrenched with a long-term deal and I’m not convinced Posada won’t like to stick around for a couple more seasons as the Yanks’ mostly full-time DH once Montero is all growed up from Triple-A. Not to mention the fact that the Yankees are as deep at C in their farm system as any organization right now.
Mauer is a fantastic player, yes, but if the Yankees can produce a top flight contender without adding the massive contract it would take to sign him, why wouldn’t they? Even the empire has its fiscal limits.
Good for the Twins, anyway. Mauer is one of those guys for whom it’d just be weird to see in a different uniform. He’s the face of that franchise the likes of which the Twinks haven’t had since Puckett.
Don’t forget Santana. (And Hunter.)
I’ll agree they haven’t had a face of the team like Mauer since Puckett, because Mauer was not only a star but a home-town boy and MVP. But Santana won a couple of Cy Youngs. Hunter I was pretty sick of, personally, but a lot of people loved him.
Montero isn’t thought likely to stick at catcher, though, is he?
No, not from any reports I’ve heard–although they(the Yankees) do have another good catching prospect in Austin Romine, who admittedly isn’t quite the hitter that Montero is. ;)
I guess it depends who you ask. Some people say no chance, some people say every year his defense improves, some people say his bat will make up for his defense, some say he’ll split time at DH/C then take over at 1B (7 years down the road), so whatever. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what really happens.
Today, I’m a happy Orioles fan.
Looking forward to a couple of years’ time when Weiters gets 12 years and eleventy bazillion dollars?
Yeah, but in present terms it’s only fifty-four bazillion dollars, so it doesn’t look that bad quite yet.
Sure am. That will mean that Wieters became everything he was supposed to be.
Add in his defense and inflation over time, I think it’s a decent deal on both sides. Ten years from now, if the average price per win is $7M, is it crazy to think he could produce a 3 WAR from just the DH spot??
2020 is crazy to think about, period. In baseball, anyway.
Obviously not for Twins’ ownership. ;-)
I don’t think they’re thinking about it either. That’s just when a ten year contract happens to end, and that’s what they had to offer to get Mauer to sign. It’s not like they’re thinking about who the rest of the team is going to be then, or who they’re going to groom to replace Mauer in 2021.
Just to be clear, Joe Mauer is better than Kirby Puckett. He’s the second-best player I’ve ever seen (after Albert Pujols). Good for the Twins and for MLB.
Name a 20 million dollar a year player not in the hall of fame?
…and yet Minny fans are booing him