DataBaseball
2026
Joe Mauer headshot

1B · 2018

Joe Mauer

Age
35
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 5"
Weight
225 lb
Number
#7
Born
April 19, 1983 in St. Paul, MN, USA
MLB debut
April 5, 2004
dbWAR
4.3
4 season(s)
PA
543
AVG
.282
OBP
.351
SLG
.379
wRC+
102
100 = avg

Joe Mauer is a first baseman for the Minnesota Twins. In 2018 he hit 6 home runs and knocked in 48 RBIs, notching 137 hits across 543 plate appearances in 127 games. His batting average was .282, 13.7% higher than the league average of .248. He reached base at a .351 clip and slugged .379, for an OPS of .729, level with the league mark of .728 — 7th of 14 on his team, and 205th of 448 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 91.4 mph off the bat, hit 46.7% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 5.2% of them and made contact on 84.9% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 102 wRC+ puts his offence 2% above average. That comes to 0.7 dbWAR — +1.6 runs with the bat, -0.8 on the bases, -12.4 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2018.

wRC+102
wOBA.322
ISO.097
BB%9.4%
WAR.7

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2018. These four terms sum to +6.6 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+1.6Baserunning-0.8Position-12.4Replacement+18.1
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.01.00.015161718

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
201812754313764805186.282.351.379.097.3309.4%15.8%.322+1.61020.7
201714059716077126683.305.384.417.112.34911.1%13.9%.353+14.21162.0
2016133576129114927993.261.363.389.128.30113.7%16.1%.330+3.81041.0
20151576661571066267112.265.338.380.115.30910.1%16.8%.314-1.4980.6

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2018. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP1421303921027.300.359.385.33219.0%
vs RHP4013569844159.275.347.376.31814.7%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2018.

Loading 395 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 368 tracked batted balls in 2018. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
5.2%
19 barrels
Exit velocity
91.4
mph average
Max exit velo
107.6
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
46.7%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
41.6%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
5.1°
average
Barrel rate5.2%
Exit velocity91.4 mph
Hard hit rate46.7%
Contact rate84.9%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2018.

.231.161.135.233.27818 AB.24025 AB.26319 AB.40447 AB.40050 AB.29434 AB.26841 AB.24665 AB.38552 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .247.

Situational hitting

How Joe Mauer hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations543.282.351.379.322
Bases empty34832884222053.256.299.335.282
Runner on first947820021317.256.376.308.320
Runners on195158534463133.335.443.468.395
RISP10180334441816.412.505.625.467

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2018.

Head to head

Put Joe Mauer beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Joe Mauer

Similar players

Nearest 2018 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.