Joe Mauer's First Hall of Fame Ballot Looks Like a Winner (Probably)

We welcome Dave Brown to the Access Twins family!

Hey friends — it’s been a while since we’ve had much written word in this space, but that’s about to change. Access Twins is proud to introduce Dave Brown as its new partner, effective immediately. Dave has been a highly-regarded national writer for many years, and has intimate knowledge of the AL Central from living in Kansas City and spending quite a bit of time in Chicago, as well.

So let’s give Dave a nice warm welcome as he breaks down how Joe Mauer appears to be faring in his first foray into Hall of Fame balloting.

Much love,

BW

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It's going to happen. It's really going to happen. Twins great Joe Mauer is going to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and it’s going to happen next week in his first time on the ballot.

Probably. 

But that’s how rosy Mauer’s chances look with just over a week to go before the big announcement. He continues to perform well in public BBWAA balloting as it is tracked by Ryan Thibodaux. With about 41 percent of the total ballots counted, Mauer stands at 83.5 percent. Candidates require at least 75 percent to gain induction. So he has a formidable cushion. Lots of padding, like a department store Santa who’s also the real deal. Only one other player on the ballot, third baseman Adrian Beltré, has been more popular than Mauer. 

It's looking good!

No matter, a certain portion of Twins fans might be wondering: "What could possibly go wrong? Because something definitely could!"

Well, it is mathematically possible that enough of the uncounted ballots will feature waves of negative naysayers who don't see Mauer as a Hall of Famer — or at least they don't see it yet. Still, Mauer missing immediate induction at this point is just plain unlikely. If you want to put a number on it to feel more confident, try 96 percent. That's what Jason Sardell, a scientist and baseball fan who tracks Thibodaux's data every year, figures Mauer's chances are right now leading up to the Jan. 23 announcement. Sardell’s computer simulations tell us Mauer has a 96 percent chance of getting at least 75 percent. (It sounds like a joke from Anchorman. Just go with it.) Even on the short side, Sardell's simulations are 95 percent confident that Mauer will get no less than 74 percent of the vote. Most of the room for error is on the high side.

Mauer has it made! Probably.

It's funny, because the collective confidence among Twins fans regarding Mauer making it to Cooperstown seemed kind of low when the process started. We don't have polls to prove it, or even much hard data, but if you look at any comment section since Mauer debuted 20 years ago, it's always been an uphill struggle to find optimism. “Mauer didn’t play hurt enough. He didn’t hit enough home runs. He didn’t win any playoff games.” Listening to the loudest locals would give you the idea that the Twin Cities’ favorite son behaved more like the family screw up. But Joe Mauer was no Fredo Corleone. After all: Here we are, just over a week away from Mauer becoming a baseball immortal. Maybe.

And even if we account for the doubt, conventional wisdom was that Mauer would have to wait at least one voting cycle for Cooperstown. As writer Jay Jaffe notes at Fangraphs, the BBWAA voting body, established in 1936, has a... conservative record of electing catchers to the Hall. Conservative in terms of amount of catchers, but also in terms of pace of election. The first ever instance of voters putting a catcher in Cooperstown with the first ballot was Johnny Bench in 1989. The only other catcher to make it on the first ballot was Ivan Rodríguez in 2017. Every other catcher elected by the BBWAA through the years (Gary Carter, Carlton Fisk, Mike Piazza, Yogi Berra — you name them) needed multiple attempts. Carter needed six! Even Yogi Berra needed a second attempt. In his first attempt in 1970, Berra got the most votes of any player on the ballot, but the BBWAA still elected no one. It's just how they’ve done it. Slow as a waddling duck. 

How the BBWAA handles catchers is a radical slice of how they’ve handled all voting through the years. It's almost always been a conservative voting body. Did you know: The Hall of Fame has elected 343 members in its history, and only 136 of them were admitted by the BBWAA. The rest came from various special committees. If you’re one of those people who think there are too many players in the Hall of Fame, be sure to never blame the baseball writers.

So what have BBWAA members seen in Mauer's case that makes him an exception? As some voters have mentioned in ballot-related columns, Mauer’s hitting numbers simply stack up well against other catchers — no matter that Mauer lacked total career appearances or innings behind the plate. His percentages rank really high, even adjusting for ballpark and league differences. His career OPS+ (adjusted on-base plus slugging) is just two points lower than Bench's, one point lower than Berra's, and is better than that of Ted Simmons, Fisk, Carter, or Rodríguez. Only two catchers hit more career doubles than Mauer. Only two drew more walks. Only 10 scored more runs. Only 16 have more RBIs. And this is with Mauer appearing in 1,858 career games, just 22nd all time.

Additionally: Mauer is one of just 12 catchers to win an MVP. Only five catchers appeared more times than Mauer in the top 10 of MVP voting. These rankings are among the reasons why Mauer's poor health later in his career, mostly because of concussions, might actually work in his favor. He accomplished all sorts of things in his career despite being limited by injuries. When he was out there playing, Joe Mauer made it count.

Mauer lacking a PED connection is another likely reason he's widely popular among voters. And it works two ways: One, Mauer can't be punished for taking PEDs because there's no evidence he took any. Two, some voters might reward Mauer because he, it appears, did it clean. One thing that happens every voting season: Players with a PED connection start strong in public ballots before leveling off when more private ballots are counted. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodríguez, and Manny Ramírez can all attest. Gary Sheffield seems to be overcoming it this voting cycle, but this is his last chance with the BBWAA, and he’s unlikely to make it.

Come to think of it, there's actually a third way other players’ PED associations have helped Mauer: To vote for the maximum of 10 candidates, voters almost have to ignore PEDs. Of the ballots yet to come, a higher percentage won’t be clogged with A-Rod and Manny. If any 10-player ballots come across, they almost surely have to include Mauer. And only five times so far on the 56 ballots with 10 names has Mauer’s name not appeared. All signs are pointing for Mauer. Probably.

It’s not over yet. Mauer still needs votes. About 156. And he'll get them. Probably. At least the math says he will. But almost nobody thought he’d be so close so soon.