I was going to skip Victor Martinez and just put up a poll for Joe Mauer, but….there wasn’t that much of a difference between the two. I thought Martinez was more of a DH who caught, but he played almost as many games as a catcher as Mauer did.
They both moved to first base and DH later in their careers. Martinez played 16 seasons for three times, Cleveland, Detroit and Boston. He played in 1973 games, had 2153 hits, 246 home runs, and a .295/.360/.455 batting line. Baseball Reference has him at a 32.0 WAR.
He received Hall of Fame votes seven times, finishing as high as second. He made six All-Star teams and won two Silver Slugger.
If he had stayed at catcher for his whole career, he might have more of a case for the Hall. He played 858 games as a catcher, 214 at first and 869 as DH. As a DH, his numbers are, in my opinion, short of Hall of Fame status.
Joe Mauer, has more of an argument for making the Hall, but the difference isn’t as huge as I thought before looking at the numbers.
Mauer played 15 seasons in the MLB, all with the Minnesota Twins, who drafted him with the number one overall pick in 2001.
He played 1858 games, had 2123 hits, 143 home runs, with a .306/.388/.439 batting line. Baseball Reference has him at a 55.2 WAR.
Joe received MVP votes five times, winning the award once. He made six All-Star teams, had five Silver Slugger awards, and won three Gold Gloves.
The Twins made the playoffs with him in their lineup four times but never won a series (or a game, for that matter). He led the AL in batting average three times, OBP two times, and slugging once.
He played 921 games as a catcher, 603 at first base and 310 as DH. I thought he spent longer as a catcher.
Part of the difference between the two is that Mauer won some Gold Gloves and was considered a good defensive catcher. Martinez wasn’t a good defensive catcher; he was a bat-first catcher.
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