A vote for Joe Mauer

Boston second baseman Dustin Pedroia won this year's American League MVP award Tuesday, on the strength of a .326 average, winning a Gold Glove, playing for the Red Sox and being the type of scrappy player that sportswriters love. It was a decent choice, and arguments can certainly be made for Pedroia, but I think the better choice is Minnesota Twins' catcher Joe Mauer.


To make my case, I will break down batting and fielding statistics for both players, and how they compare to each other and the rest of the league.

Both players were on most American League offensive leaderboards, and they actually had somewhat similar seasons.

Mauer won the batting title with a .328 average while Pedroia was right behind at .326.

Pedroia tied for the league lead in hits with Ichiro Suzuki, with 213, but Pedroia also had more than 100 at bats more than Mauer, who had 176 hits. This can also account for Pedroia having the edge in total bases.

Pedroia scored more runs, but he also batted higher in the order and had much better hitters around him to drive him in. Mauer batted third, ahead of Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel - together, those three were the only above average hitters in the Twins lineup - Denard Span could qualify as "above average" as well, but he was only in Minnesota for half the year.

A common knock on Mauer is his lack of RBI production for a middle-of-the-order hitter, with 85 in 2008. But Mauer also had Carlos Gomez (he of the .296 OBP) batting leadoff for the first half of the year and Alexi Casilla batting second (.333 OBP). It is kind of hard to drive in runs when nobody is on base in front of you - I don't have the data in front of me, but I would bet good money that Mauer led the league in meaningless 2-out hits.

I should add that I think RBIs are a poor statistic for measuring hitters, but they still mean a lot to most sportswriters and voters.

Pedroia has an obvious edge in power, especially for a middle infielder, with 17 home runs. Mauer hit nine, and his career high is only 13, in 2006.

What Mauer lacks in power, he makes up for in on-base percentage. He had a .413 OBP, second only to Milton Bradley's ridiculous .436 on the league leaderboard. Mauer ranked seventh in the league in walks, with 84, while Pedroia had only 50. Mauer's walks to strikeouts ratio (1.68) also beats Pedroia (.96).

Something else to keep in mind as far as power numbers go, is that even with the Mauer's lack of home runs, his OPS (.864) was almost identical to Pedroia's (.869). OPS being that close is basically Mauer's walks cancelling out Pedroia's home runs. On the surface a home run is obviously more valuable than a walk, but think about this: would you rather have a player who walks 6.4 percent more of the time, thereby being a potential run for his team that many more times (Mauer), or a guy who hits eight more home runs (Pedroia).

Looking into OPS+, Mauer again has the advantage at 137, against Pedroia's mark of 122.

If you dig deeper into more advanced statistics, Mauer still has the advantage. Mauer had a BABIP (batting average on balls in play) of .350, while Pedroia's was .336. It could be argued that Mauer was just luckier, but while BABIP can show if a player was extremely lucky or unlucky, it is not completely based on luck - if a player makes better, and harder, contact, more hits will fall in because it gives the fielders less time to react. Therefore, BABIP needs to be looked at with line drive percentage; Mauer's was 22.6 percent while Pedroia's was 21.2 percent. This is not a huge difference, but Mauer is still ahead, plus, Pedroia was plenty lucky himself in BABIP.

Looking into Win Probability Added (WPA), which measures, according to www.aarongleeman.com, "how much impact specific plays had on the outcome of each game and assigns that value to the individual players responsible," Mauer (4.88) again has an advantage over Pedroia (3.29).

Moving on to fielding, Pedroia was clearly one of the best defensive second baseman in the AL - he ranked second with a .992 fielding percentage (topped only by Mark Ellis, with .993), second in zone rating with .854 (beaten by Ellis again, with .868) and second in errors with six (second to, who else, Ellis, who had four).

Mauer was similarly stellar at catcher. He led all AL catchers with a .997 fielding percentage and committed only three errors. His caught-stealing percentage of .261 was topped only by Jose Molina, Dioner Navarro and Ivan Rodriguez.

Both players are top defensive players in the league at their respective positions and won Gold Gloves (not that that award matters, however...), but defense is not the only consideration. If that was the only criteria, we would be analyzing AL MVP Mark Ellis right now.

Both are also top offensive players at their positions; they are very similar hitters for the most part, with Mauer having the edge in OBP and Pedroia having the edge in power.

But for me, the decision comes down to how valuable they are at that position. Quick, name off above average AL second basemen: Pedroia, Ian Kinsler, Brian Roberts, Placido Polanco and Alexei Ramirez, to name a few. Now name off above average AL catchers: Mauer, Navarro, AJ Pierzynski, a declining Rodriguez and not much else.

Therefore, while Pedroia is a solid selection, Mauer would get my vote for being such an excellent hitter (as good, if not better, than Pedroia) while playing a much less common and more difficult position, and playing it well.