St. Louis Cardinals: The Joe Mauer and Yadier Molina debate

Joe Mauer announced his retirement recently, and thoughts on his Hall of Fame candidacy has stoked the fires of a major question in the St. Louis Cardinals community: how can you think Mauer is a Hall of Famer, but Yadier Molina isn’t?

The biggest gripe that St. Louis Cardinals fans have with all of the Joe Mauer talk is the fact that he is being held to the standards of a catcher, when he spent only 60.5% of his innings there. The difficulty in playing the position has made it difficulty for many to last there, so being inducted to the Hall of Fame as a catcher is a symbol that a player has been able to produce at an elite level while being subject to the rigors of the league’s most physically demanding position.

This brings us to Joe Mauer, who played a significant chunk of his career as a first baseman after his body could no longer adequately handle the physical strain of being a catcher. When Mauer was being considered for the Hall of Fame on the basis of a catcher, one name comes to the minds of St. Louis Cardinals fans that many people don’t consider (for who knows what reason) a Hall of Famer: Yadier Molina.

First off, Yadier Molina was a significantly better defensive catcher than Mauer. There is an argument that Molina, along with Hall of Famer Ivan Rodriguez, are the greatest defensive catchers not only of this generation, but of all time.

Meanwhile, Mauer hasn’t had the most impressive defensive track record, posting a career 14 DRS in his 11 seasons catching. Yadier Molina posted a higher mark than that in four different seasons. Mauer’s 33% caught stealing percentage is decent, but decent doesn’t get you into Cooperstown.

Offensively, Mauer’s resume looks much more appealing. His career slash line of .306/.388/.439 is solid, and his 2123 hits puts him right behind Mike Piazza on the all-time hits list. His 143 home runs leaves much to be desired however, but he is 46th among catchers with at least 3500 plate appearances.

But there’s one big problem: it just doesn’t feel right to view Mauer in the lens of a catcher because a sizable amount of that production came while he played first. Of all of the catchers that played in the live ball era in Cooperstown, only one has less than 12,000 innings caught (three players from the Negro League do not have innings stats available). The exception to the 12,000 inning trend is Roy Campanella, who was a three time MVP and still caught over 10,000 innings.

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Yadier Molina is right there in that echelon of players with 15,388.1 innings behind the plate for the St. Louis Cardinals under his belt, and his 146 home runs actually places him above Mauer in that regard, despite not being considered as nearly as good of a hitter as Mauer. On the other hand, Mauer didn’t even eclipse 8,000 innings as a catcher.

This longevity is demonstrated on a season by season basis as well, with Yadi posting 11 seasons with at least 1,000 innings caught, compared to Mauer’s two (he did have 999.2 innings in 2015).

Mauer has been the more effective overall hitter, but the gap isn’t significant, especially as his power began to fade later in his career. An OPS gap of 87 points seems pretty massive, but Yadi only has 273 less hits and 73 less doubles than Mauer with two seasons left in his career. That knowledge along with the fact that Molina has more home runs than Mauer should tell you that Yadi isn’t the offensively inept player that critics make him out to be.

Combine that with Molina’s undoubtedly superior defense, and it should be apparent that Yadier Molina’s Hall of Fame resume is arguably better than Joe Mauer’s. Simply put, there is absolutely no reason for Molina not to make it to Cooperstown if Mauer does.

I respect Joe Mauer as both a great player and a morally sound person, and I hope that he is at least given consideration as a Hall of Famer. But it shouldn’t be solely a catcher, and it can’t be without soon following with the induction of Yadier Molina, one of the greatest catchers of all time.