The Future

Ladies and gentleman, we have seen the future of hitting and his name is Joe. Joe Mauer to be precise. He is the other piece of the two headed monster that will be destroying AL pitching for the next decade or so. The other half of course, is Justin Morneau. Mark my words, Justin Morneau will very soon be a top 20 hitter in the league. But Mauer, Mauer will be a superstar.

Superstar!? Superstar!? Yes, I said superstar. Even if he were to move to DH and never catch again, taking away part of his amazing defensive game, he will still be incredible. He basically missed all of last year, but those in the know consider him an established major leaguer. People don't worry about him playing poorly. The kid is too talented. Frankly, he is the best young talent to swing a bat in a very long time.

If you are not convinced, here is an interesting Stat from BP2005:

Joe Mauer is only the 18th player in the history of major league baseball to:

• Come to the plate 100 times in a season
• Bat .300 or better
• Have and isolated power of .200
• Be 21 or younger at the end of the season

This basically shows players who showed both talents in hitting for both average AND power at an extremely young age. Of the 17 players before Mauer to do this, 14 are in the Hall of Fame or headed there. I'm not talking about some pretty good players, but the best players to ever play the game. This is the list: Hank Aaron, Orlando Cepeda, Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Al Kaline, Mickey Mantle, Eddie Matthews, Willie McCovey, Mel Ott, Babe Ruth are all in Cooperstown. Ken Griffey Jr, Alex Rodriguez, and Albert Pujols are good bets to get in some day. Considering that Joe is a Catcher elevates his value even higher. When he is done, we could consider him the best catcher to play the game.

The 3 worst players of the 17 are Cesar Cedeno, Gregg Jefferies, and Hal Trosky. As BP puts it, "When Gregg Jeffries is the absolute worst player on your comp list, you're doing well."

I know its kind of early to start thinking about this so early in his young career but it isn't like this isn't expected from the #1 pick in the draft and the #1 prospect in baseball for the last couple of years.

Boy am I glad we took Joe and not Mark Prior.