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Originally Posted by ihatenames
I guess I wasn’t clear or you missed the point or both. We compare players based on their peers at the time they played and also to hall of fame inductees. When compared to strictly catchers Mauers numbers are fantastic. When we compar his numbers to his peer first basement they are not nearly as impressive. First baseman typically have higher offensive expectations than a catcher. So yes, where someone plays does matter in the discussion of whether or not they deserve the hall of fame.
And no, we don’t have to just consider them one thing, but we do have to evaluate their performance and weigh their position in the evaluations. If mauer stayed a catcher he would be a shoe in. Since he spent the majority of his career as a first baseman that changes the evaluation criteria a bit.
His numbers don’t look nearly as impressive when compared to other first baseman and that will hurt him. Was his peak as a catcher good enough to overcome that? We will have to see what true writers/voters think. My vote is no if I had one.
Hopefully, that make more sense to you.
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As of right now, he has not spent the majority of his career as a first baseman. 7,883.0 innings played as a catcher. 4,662.1 innings played as a first baseman. I don't hold the DH thing against him because a lot of star players DH for a breather during the season. It really has become a position that you cycle players through to get them off their feet for a day. There are very few true DHs anymore. IMHO, he should be judged as a catcher even if he winds up spending more time as a first baseman because that's where he had his best seasons. We didn't judge Ernie Banks and Rod Carew as first basemen, despite the fact they had more playing time there. We judged them as shortstop and second baseman respectively, so why the double standard for Mauer? Others may disagree. That's fine. It's a free country, or in this case, a free planet.
