THE CASE FOR .400

(I’m attempting to do math for the first time since I moved to Los Angeles, so if this doesn’t make any sense, check out Aaron Gleeman’s site or Baseball Musings, for people who actually know what they’re talking about.)

Back when Joe Mauer was drafted, much ado was made about a boastful proclamation by his grandfather. A proud man, Jake Mauer Sr. was quite sure of his grandson’s ability as a ballplayer. So much so that he claimed if anyone had a chance to hit .400 again, it was his sweet-swinging grandson.

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After signing for a bonus of over $5 million, Joe walked into rookie league Elizabethton and hit the magic number exactly, batting .400 in 32 games. He sped through the minor leagues and arrived in the big leagues as a 21-year-old prodigy in 2004. In 35 games, he hit. .308, hit 6 home runs, and had an OPS of .939. Two batting titles and four seasons later, Mauer has exploded on the scene in his first month back from injury, using an early season power surge to cement himself among the very elite players in the game.

In the 31 games Mauer has played this season, he’s hitting a ridiculous .436, with 48 hits in his 110 at-bats. 20 of those hits have gone for extra bases, with 12 being hit for home runs. The final piece of the equation for Mauer — driving the ball out of the park — seems to have been solved, and from the looks of it, he hasn’t sacrificed any control or consistency in his swing to achieve it.

The Twins have completed 55 games, a shade over 1/3 of the season. For Joe to officially hit .400 he needs to qualify for the batting title, which comes from making an average of 3.1 plate appearances (at-bats, walks, sacrifices, etc.) a game. With the 25 games that Joe missed, that means he’ll need to average roughly 3.5 plate appearances a game. If we take into account the pace at which Joe is walking/sacrificing, that’s roughly 300 at-bats for the rest of the season.

If my math skills serve me right (and there is a very good chance that they don’t), at his current pace, Joe Mauer needs to collect 118 hits before the season ends to achieve baseball immortality. That’s 118 hits in 300 at-bats, which means he’s got to hit .393 for the rest of the season to cement himself among the greatest players ever in the game.

David Pinto at BaseballMusings.com broke down the probability of this actually happening yesterdat after Joe went 3 for 4 against the Indians. He even made a graph that I think I can almost figure out. Pinto, a research guru, pegs Mauer’s chances of hitting .400 at about 1 in 40.

Here are three reasons I think his odds are better:

1) The Power: Much has been made about Mauer’s power explosion, but I think this is the most underrated factor in all of this. For the past few seasons, Joe would hit a number of incredibly deep fly balls to the Metrodome’s leftcenter field, where an outfielder would camp out just shy of the warning track and make a routine catch. Joe has finally grown into his 6-foot-6 body, gotten a little bit stronger, and now he’s hitting the ball 15 feet farther, which is evident by the alarming consistency of his home-field home runs. On top of that, Joe has consistently hit 2/3 of the balls that he’s put into play on the ground, which as the season progresses and advanced scouting charts his at-bats, will lead to more outs. This year, Joe is only hitting 56% of batted balls on the ground. More air, the better chance that a guy who hits the ball like Joe will keep getting hits.

2) The Layoff: Quite simply, it’s easier to hit .400 in 135 games than it is to do in 162 games. More importantly, while Joe was dealing with his back issues, he was saving a ton of wear and tear on his body, which would have been inflicted starting the day pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training and would’ve gone right through until October. While most people need spring training to get their timing, get into shape, and prepare for a season, for a catcher, each year is a war of attrition. What makes Mauer so incredible is that he’s able to handle the physical rigors of catching and still swing an elite bat. One of the best parts of the layoffs for Joe was that it’ll help him remain fresh later into the season, and hopefully he’ll avoid many of the bumps and bruises that take an incredible toll on the body. Joe caught in 139 games last year, roughly 85% of the season behind the plate, or around 1,250 innings. If manager Ron Gardenhire treats Joe the same way (which he’s been on record saying that he won’t, he’ll go lighter on his catching duties), he’ll catch approximately 1,045 innings, saving roughly 200 innings on his body. Also an important factor in all of this is Mauer’s home field advantage. Blistering summer heat will never exist inside the climate-controlled environment of the Metrodome, but he’ll still be able to take advantage of the better hitting conditions as the summer months roll along, hopefully never falling victim to the physical breakdown that hurts many catchers.

3) The Skill: What has continually bothered me is the lack of appreciation for the general athletic skill for Joe Mauer. Sure he’s talked about in the upper pantheon of hitters playing baseball, but what he’s doing and done is outrageous. Historic. Revelatory. With baseball finally at the beginning of a new era, where slugging statistics and power numbers will never match those of the 90s, Mauer is a great opportunity for people to appreciate greatness, and while people are certainly complimentary, they have yet to truly acknowledge what is happening. At the risk of sounding completely and absurdly biased, baseball has not seen many athletes like him before. Here is a gigantic man playing better defensive than anyone in the world at his position. Here is a 26-year-old who has continually gotten better at the craft of hitting, and now has a significant database of knowledge on pitchers and their tendencies to go with his preternatural talent. While hitting .393 is an outlandish number, Joe’s skill is the number one reason that this isn’t as ridiculous as many believe it to be. The simple purity and consistency of his swing keep pronounced slumps from lasting multiple games. The ability to know the strike zone and hit the ball to the opposite field are incredibly important parts of hitting with a high average, and Mauer’s continued mastery of these skills is a gigantic asset. More importantly, having the size and strength that Joe has allows him to be the type of hitter that he is. His baseball swing isn’t comparable with many in baseball, but more akin to the pure stroke of Fred Couples, who only a few months shy of his 50th birthday is still able to power the golf ball with today’s longest hitters. If Joe Mauer is going to hit .400 this year, it won’t be because he hit the ball in the air, or spent a month on the mend, it’ll be because he’s tremendously talented.

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In a baseball season that is only just getting started, Joe Mauer’s early mastery of the game gives us a chance to dream about what could be one of the most memorable seasons in recent history. While statistically, Mauer might not have much of a chance at reaching the magic number of .400, it bears mentioning that his grandfather Jake, the first to predict such a feat for his grandson, made a career handicapping thoroughbreds at a local race track.

Joe Mauer is one longshot that I’ll never bet against.