Sure he can. If Chipper did it last year, I'm sure Mauer can this year.

Could a sportswriter knock off few column inches with filler about what might happen in four months and Ted Williams' age in 1941 and Joe Mauer's career batting average at Safeco Field? Absolutely.

For one, he's got to stay healthy. At his career rate of 4.26 PA per game, he has to start in 89 of the Twins remaining 107 games.

If he just gets the 502 PA, that gives him 441 at-bats based on his current walk rate, so in that scenario he'd need 177 hits, or hitting .387 the rest of the way.

Mauer's likeihood of hitting .387 in 331 at-bats, given various levels of "true ability"

.400 - 66.8%
.390 - 52.5%
.380 - 37.8%
.370 - 24.5%
.360 - 14.3%
.350 - 7.3%
.340 - 3.3%
.330 - 1.3%
.320 - 0.4%
.310 - 0.1%

That's assuming the easiest scenario for Mauer. If he falls short of 502 PA, the added 0fers make finishing above .400 quite difficult. And the farther north of 502 he gets, the harder it is to maintain. For example, if he gets 380 more at-bats rather than the guessed 331, he needs to hit .389 over 380 at-bats instead of the .387 in 331 at-bats.

Using the above just squeaking in total of 441 at-bats in 502 plate appearances, here are his odds from various projection methods (all preseason projections except ZiPS RoS):

ZiPS RoS: 0.57%
James: 0.27%
Marcel: 0.16%
CHONE: 0.08%
ZiPS: 0.07%
Oliver: 0.03%

ZiPS RoS: 0.57%
James: 0.27%
Marcel: 0.16%
CHONE: 0.08%
ZiPS: 0.07%
Oliver: 0.03%
Rifkin: 0.00%

I agree with the guy below Oliver.

No.

Wait a minute, ZiPS RoS projection is .329 according to Fangraphs. Shouldn't that give about 1.2%?

On the lower link:
Dear Elton John,
Yes, Joe Mauer is a very good ballplayer, but the Braves have a pretty good catcher of their own. Brian McCann is not too shabby a ballplayer.
Sincerely,
Me

For one, he's got to stay healthy. At his career rate of 4.26 PA per game...

Thanks, Dan...I found that really interesting.

If he falls short of 502 PA, the added 0fers make finishing above .400 quite difficult.

The added 0fers affect only Mauer's chance of winning the batting title. There's no officially recognized procedure for hitting .400 in less than 502 PAs.

Of course, it would be very interesting if Mauer went something like 177 for 440, with 55 walks. He would be hitting .402, but the extra 0fers would drop him down to .396. I'd guess we'd hear an awful lot about that rule about adding 0fers to anyone challenging for the batting title, but in the end, he'd mostly be recognized as a .400 hitter.

Who knows if he can. But I prefer that he doesn't. The inevitable carping about his final mark's inauthenticity, its relative lack of historic luster, etc. - 130 games! A trifling mallwalk of a season! - will irritate me bunches.

George Brett and Tony Gwynn are the only ones to come close recently (Chipper was there for a while) and if they couldn't do it I can't believe that Mauer will do it, although he is a fine hitter. But as noted in #2 it makes for a column.

The added 0fers affect only Mauer's chance of winning the batting title. There's no officially recognized procedure for hitting .400 in less than 502 PAs.

There's no official procedure for the official cutoff for a .400 season anyway, of course. When in doubt, I go by the general rule (Sean, for instance, doesn't even add the missing PA, so Tony Gwynn's 1996 doesn't appear in the all-time leaders).

George Brett and Tony Gwynn are the only ones to come close recently (Chipper was there for a while) and if they couldn't do it I can't believe that Mauer will do it, although he is a fine hitter.

Actually, George Brett entered the 1980 season as a 27-year-old with a career .310 batting average. Mauer is a 26-year-old with a .317 career batting average (before this season). That's pretty similar. And Brett also benefitted from an abbreviated season - 117 G, 515 PA. I don't think Mauer's anything close to likely to hit .400 (I'd guess <1% chance), but Brett's 1980 season actually looks like a pretty close comp in terms of a guy with a pretty similar "true talent" batting average with the same benefit of only having to do it over a little more than 500 plate appearances.

John Olerud's run in 1993 was pretty good, too.
He was batting .400 on August 2nd, and was above .380 into September.

Interestingly, it was only one of two full seasons where his batting average was above .310.
He was always a good hitter, but rarely put up the big AVG.

I was really hoping the rock legend was Paul Westerberg.

In 10th grade gym class I told my friend that Joe Mauer would hit .400 in the majors. Yes, he was only 3 years older than me at the time. No, he had not yet reached AA. So in the interests of preserving my wild guesses, I will say that he does hit .387 in 441 more at-bats.

I'd love it if he gets .400. The odds against it are huge but it's possible and he's a great player. Somebody will hit .400 just like somebody will get 300 wins and Bonds won't be HR champ forever.

At this rate, Mauer will be.

At his career rate of 4.26 PA per game, he has to start in 89 of the Twins remaining 107 games.

Mauer's been hitting in the 2 spot quite a bit lately, which is unusual for him. If he stays there, his PA/game rate should be a bit higher than his career norms.

The added 0fers affect only Mauer's chance of winning the batting title. There's no officially recognized procedure for hitting .400 in less than 502 PAs.

I don't know about the second part, but the first is true. Furthermore, if the 0 fers keep the player in question ahead of the second place guy, the "official" league leading batting average is what it is. For example, say Mauer ends up 180/445 with 50 other non-AB PAs, a .404 BA. Add in 17 hitless at bats gets him to .390, which keeps him in first place. Thus, the official league leading BA is .404.

I agree though that is conversation will look silly by August.

On the lower link:
Dear Elton John,
Yes, Joe Mauer is a very good ballplayer, but the Braves have a pretty good catcher of their own. Brian McCann is not too shabby a ballplayer.
Sincerely,
Me

Sir Elton,
Yes, Joe Mauer is a very good ballplayer, but he is not the kind of catcher you're thinking of. Trust me.
Hugs and kisses,
Mike Piazza

John Olerud's run in 1993 was pretty good, too.
He was batting .400 on August 2nd, and was above .380 into September.

Interestingly, it was only one of two full seasons where his batting average was above .310.
He was always a good hitter, but rarely put up the big AVG

you're right, I forgot Olerud, a similar hitter, too. Mauer will probably do a little better career wise. Not as good of a pitcher though.

While .400 is fun to talk about, it is still just June. And after Dan's excellent post #3, there isn't that much more to say.

I am more interested in finding out if the homeruns are going to continue. It is being claimed that Mauer is taking bigger cuts this year when he has a favorable count. And he is a big guy who is now in his mid 20's, so why can't he become a homerun hitter?

His current pace is not likely sustainable. 1 HR every 11.25 PA is basically Barry Bonds pace between 2001-2004. Over Mauer's previous MLB seasons he was averaging 1 HR every 54.2 PA.

Still, what is the probability that Mauer's true power hitting potential has not changed, and his current pace in 135 PA's is just a statistical fluke? (I am thinking it is pretty low, but if someone would post some sort of calculation, that would be very interesting.) While we shouldn't extrapolate from his current pace, if Mauer has become a 1 HR every 20 PA guy, that would make him a 20-30 HR/year player, assuming reasonable health.

Of Mauer's homeruns this season, 4 or 5 of them have landed in the FIRST row in leftfield.

Here is Mauer's hardball times stats page.

Here is Mauer's GB% and HR/flyball ratio by year, taken from HBT.com:



Mauer is putting a few more balls in the air, and those balls are carrying further. His present HR/F rate will come down, but it is clear that his distribution of hits is quite different so far from what we would expect based on previous history.

Here is Mauer's hit chart. Just scanning his home game chart, it seems like most of Mauer's home runs are going to opposite field. There is little evidence from this chart that he has started pulling the ball.

.....


I think that the odds of these things being statistical flukes are really, really low. If we model home runs with a Poisson distribution, we find that if Mauer's true expectation value for home runs at this point followed his previous career rates (2.6 home runs at his current number of PA's), the probability that he would have 10 or more homeruns right now is less than 0.1%. Here is a table of the Poisson probabilities for Mauer's homeruns, assuming his home run rates before this season can be used to establish the expectation rate:

Another possibility is that Mauer leads the league in BA and slugging while Morneau leads in rbi and homers.

Wouldn't that make for an MVP vote?

Seeing as how already should have won 2 MVP awards, it wouldn't shock me in the least to see him miss out on a third.

Another possibility is that Mauer leads the league in BA and slugging while Morneau leads in rbi and homers.

I doubt Twins fans will be too upset with this scenario.

you're right, I forgot Olerud, a similar hitter, too. Mauer will probably do a little better career wise.

Mauer will do better career wise as a hitter? Maybe, but if so that's a sure-fire no-doubt inner-circle HOFer.

Olerud is on the cusp as a first baseman. Give those numbers to a top-class defensive catcher and you've got a perpetual MVP candidate. Which, so far, describes Mauer pretty well of course. But let's see where he's at with another 3000 plate appearances.

Olerud was an interesting player. At one point he had played 9 seasons and had a career average over .300, but had only hit .300 or better twice.

Batting averages:
.265
.256
.284
.363
.297
.291
.274
.294
.354

It's very Mickey Vernon.

I don't understand why he didn't have a better career. He was plenty good enough as is, but still. I think Cito got a little frustrated with him and wanted him to hit more home runs, but I won't blame him for ruining him a la Sam with Terry Pendleton-Andruw Jones. He lost it awfully quick, too...Lots of guys fall off the cliff at 33, but you'd think with his ability to make contact and his selectivity he'd have lasted a bit longer.

Olerud and Wally Joyner were pretty similar, although I don't know what the comps are..(Olerud, 295/255 HR, Joyner .289/204 HR),LH, not that much power, very successful college players, good fielders, quiet guys. Done relatively early. I know Gaston didn't like him for some reason.