1) .365, 28, 96

2) Name another superstar on the Twins.  OK, I'll give you Morneau.  Name another.

3) In the biggest game of the regular season in a playoff against Detroit, in arguably the biggest game of his career, Mauer went 2 for 4 with a double and two walks.  Let's face it, 2 for 4 on October 6 is more important than 2 for 4 on May 6.

4) Simply put, there is no freaking way the Twins make the playoffs without Mauer's bat in the lineup.  If you removed any one of the following players from their team, would they still have made the playoffs?
    -Jeter
    -Texeira
    -ARod
    -Youkilis
    -Abreu
    
5) Sabrematrics is confusing for anyone not named Einstein, but can be useful to illustrate how good someone really is. The concept of Baseruns essentially tells you the number of runs a team "should" have scored base on the hitter's performance. Mauer is 2nd in the AL, slightly behind Texeira. Keep in mind that Mauer played 19 (make that 20 because of the playoff game) games less than Texeira because...

6) Maur is a catcher.  Think about what this means:
    -While other players spend most of their time standing around in the outfield, Mauer is doing squats for 3 hours. This is exhausting work.
    -Catchers absorb more bumps and bruises than any other position.  This is mostly because cowhide is flying at them at 100MPH all night, not to mention collisions at the plate.  Over the course of a season this adds up.
    -Mauer puts more miles on his shoes walking to the pitcher's mound to talk strategy in one game than a first baseman will tread in one week.
    -While other players are working on their swing before the game, and thinking about what pitches they may see, Mauer is studying film about what pitches the opposing team needs to see.  The preparation on gameday for a catcher these days is tedious work.

7) Per the above, whenever a catcher puts up silly numbers, he should automatically win MVP provided he didn't have 200 pass balls.  Johnny Bench won the MVP in 1970 (.293/45/148) and 1972 (.270/20/140).  Baseball debates should never use apple to apple arguments because every era and team is different (I could have hit 50 RBIs on the 70s Reds just by bunting), but it's safe to say Mauer can hang with Bench.  On that note, Mike Piazza was robbed of the MVP by Larry Walker in 1997 after Piazza hit .362/40/124.

8) Mauer led the league in the most critical Big Picture stats:
Batting Average - .365
On Base Percentage - .444
Slugging Percentage - .587
OPS - .1.031
OPS+ 177

9) Because catchers take off days, Mauer had about 100 less at bats (approximately 20% than your average every day player), but still was:
6th in Hits
17th in HR
16th in RBI
18th in Runs
14th in BB
39th in 2B


10) Only two other regular players on the Twins batted .300.  The rest weren't even close. The roster is littered with 30 something RBI players.  The Twins made the playoffs.  Mauer carried the team and the state of Minnesota and right into the playoffs.  Baseball is back in Minnesota because of him.

Did you know? As a young boy, Joe Mauer honed his hitting skills using the QuickSwing invented by his father.  Click here to learn more.