Remember when Joe Mauer was one of the best young hitters in baseball?

Phil Gurnee ♦ August 4, 2016 ♦ 2 Comments

If the Cleveland Indians had forgotten they were reminded this week. Mauer completely dismantled the vaunted Cleveland rotation spraying hits reminiscent of the days when Mauer was considered one of the top hitters in baseball.

In the just concluded three-game set against the first place Tribe.

• 10 hits
• 5 doubles
• 1 triple
• 1 home runs
• Moved his OPS from .736 to .788 in three games which is astonishing when you already have 435 plate appearances.
• Those five doubles are 33% of the doubles he’s hit for the year. Joe went from 10 doubles to 15 doubles in the blink of an eye.

For those who don’t remember Joe Mauer through 2013 had a career BA of .323. For context 2013 was his age 30 season so using baseball reference from 1947 – 2013 any AL hitter with at least 3,000 plate appearances, Joe Mauer clocked in with the fourth best BA. Nomar was pretty damn good at that point in his career. Certainly looked to be on a HOF arc.

The complete list:

The reason we stop at age 30 for Mauer is that he suffered a concussion at age 31 and has simply been a league average hitter at that point. Moving from catcher to 1st base didn’t help.

Until this week.

I hope Joe Mauer is back and that isn’t just a blink of eye run because, for almost ten years, Joe Mauer had one of the sweetest swings in baseball.

Max Kepler was no slouch himself, hitting four home runs in the three-game set. Kepler needs his own page for how bizarre his season has been.

Max Kepler hit one home run in the minor leagues this year in 128 PA. In the past three games, he has hit four home runs, including three in one game. He now has fifteen major league home runs in 240 Plate appearances.  He hit nine home runs all last year in the minor leagues in 509 PA.