Mauer and a Gold Glove

For some reason the subject of Joe Mauer and a possible Gold Glove award for him at first base kept popping up on my Twitter timeline Monday.

One ignornamus insisted that Craig Biggio won one of the big ugly trophies during his catching days and might have won one in the outfield. Not true. All four of Biggio's came at second base.

Reality: Only two players have won Gold Gloves at two different positions. Darrin Erstad at first base and outfield (for most of the award's history, the voters made no differentation between left, right and center. This is no longer the case.) and Placido Polanco, who won twice at second base with Detroit and once at third for the Phillies.

Biggio did begin his career as a catcher. He was the Astros regular behind the plate for three seasons and made an All-Star team. Then he shifted to second -- precisely BECAUSE he wasn't a Gold Glove-caliber catcher, and he was an All-Star caliber hitter.

The Astros wanted to keep his bat in the lineup and figured they could improve on Biggio's defense behind the dish. Had he been a high-quality defensive catcher, he probably would have remained a catcher.

Mauer was a legitmate Gold Glove catcher, and those types seldom change positions. Mauer moved because more is known about concussions than in decades past. Move his career forward a decade, and he probably doesn't move to first base -- and he might well have had more brain damage and had his career curtailed, as was the case with Mickey Cochrane, Mauer's closest historical comp.

Should Mauer win the Gold Glove? That is the conventional wisdom in Twins Territory, in large part because Dick Bremer and Co. started beating that drum by midseason. For what it's worth, John Dewan of Baseball Info Systems says Mitch Moreland of the Boston Red Sox had the most runs saved among American League first basemen.

I'd like to see Mauer win it, not because the award changes anything about him but because it would be a little bit more on his side when his Hall of Fame credentials are up for debate. I've said this before, repeatedly: He's done the heavy lifting for Cooperstown.

Still more Hall of Fame comment

Lest we forget: Craig Biggio
began his career as a catcher and made
the NL All-Star team at the position
the year before he moved to second base.

Let's see if I can't wrap this up and move on to other topics next week:

■ The BBWAA -- or at least past president LaVelle Neal -- seems pretty satisfied with the last two rounds of voting, and indeed the writers did select seven players the past two winters.

But six of them were first-timers on the ballot, and they only got four this year because more than half the electorate used all 10 ballot spots.

The key question moving forward is: Will the voters continue to cast deep ballots, or will they revert to voting for three or four rather than nine or 10? The 2016 ballot will include Ken Griffey Jr,, and he's a cinch, but the next first first-timer is Trevor Hoffman, and he's a more dubious candidate. There's an expectation that Mike Piazza will get in.

I'm a skeptic on the BBWAA voters, and will be until the body is pared back and/or the 10-candidate ballot limit is gone.

■ One reason John Smoltz may have vaulted past Mike Mussina and Curt Schilling is his three-and-a-half year sojourn in the bullpen. Smoltz racked up 154 saves in 2001-04 after having Tommy John surgery, then returned to starting in 2005 (and led the National League in wins in 2006).

Versatility!

This strikes me as faulty thinking. Position players don't get any additional love from the voters for making mid-career position switches. Craig Biggio, to cite another 2015 inductee, made the 1990 National League All-Star team as a catcher in 1991, In 1992 he was a second baseman. There were plenty of arguments put forward on Biggio's Cooperstown credentials, but nobody argued that he belonged because he could catch AND play second base AND outfield.

Smoltz, in a sense, followed the Dennis Eckersley track to the Hall. Smoltz was a better starter than Eckersley, and the Eck was probably a better reliever, but if you split Eckersley's career in two -- here's a starter, and here's a reliever -- neither's getting in. Do the same with Smoltz, and I'm not sure he does either. Those 154 saves tend to differentiate his stat line from Mussina and Schilling.

But nobody can seriously believe Mussina and Schilling couldn't have been just as dominant in relief. They weren't relief pitchers because they could start, and starters are more valuable. Smoltz spent those years in the bullpen because of his injury and surgery. It's more a weakness than a strength. He was good enough at it that he certainly didn't hurt his case with his bullpen years, but it shouldn't have helped.

The same is true for Biggio. He moved to second base in part because he wasn't all that good a receiver. His catching days aren't a part of his Hall of Fame argument. He was good enough to play there, not good enough to stick there.

Running to stand still

Frank Thomas dons a Hall of Fame cap
after his election.

The writers did better than I expected: They elected three players to the Hall of Fame, all first-timers: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas.

They came two votes shy on Craig Biggio, and that somehow was the big initial story, that Biggio just missed. In the context of the argument over the 10-vote limit, Biggio matters; there were plenty of writers who said, Well, if I could go over 10, yeah, I'd have voted for Biggio. The problem I have with that is: How the devil, even on this loaded ballot, do you get 10 guys better than Biggio? Answer: You don't. Not if you're being serious in your thinking.

I suspect those who would have voted for him didn't leave him off because they thought there were 10 better choices on the ballot. They were strategic voting -- giving votes to players they feared might fail to get the 5 percent they need to stay on the ballot. But Biggio, who in most of the late predictions was seen to be just on the edge of election, was the wrong guy to do that with.

Biggio will (probably) get in next year, although the backlog of highly qualified candidates isn't getting smaller. Yes, Maddux, Glavine and Thomas are off for 2015, and so is Jack Morris, who has been bypassed for the 15th and final time by the writers. But next winter the BBWAA ballot will include Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Gary Sheffield.

The upshot is: I saw 18 legitimate candidates on this ballot; four of them have been cleared off, and there will still be 18 legitimate candidates next winter. Even when electing the most players they have since 1955, the writers were simply running to stand still.

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Here in Minnesota, of course, the big angle was Jack Morris not getting in. As you know, I don't have a problem with that. He wouldn't have been in my 10 if I had a vote.

Why Pudge won't budge

Ivan Rodriguez is clearly in the nomad stage of his career. He was traded in midseason last year (Detroit to Yankees), after which he went deep into spring training before finding a team to sign with (Houston). And he was traded again this week, this time to his original team, the Texas Rangers.

If you take Pudge's career at face value, he has a real strong case for the title of greatest catcher ever. A lifetime .300 hitter with more than 300 home runs; 13 Gold Gloves; an MVP Award (1999); 14 All-Star teams ...

But this isn't so much about where he ranks among the all time greats, but about what he is now — which is a backup.

Consider this paragraph from the Fort Worth paper's game story from Wednesday's game with the Twins:

Despite (Rodriguez's) exploits Wednesday, Taylor Teagarden is still the No. 1 catcher. Rodriguez will be back on the bench for today’s series finale. (Manager Ron) Washington started him with Kevin Millwood because Millwood calls his own pitches and is a veteran.

What an indictment. Pudge has caught more than 2,200 major league games — more than anybody in history. Teagarden is a rookie with 51 games caught. But the Rangers trust Teagarden's calls more.

Rodriguez is not the first great catcher to decide it's worth it to hang on as a No. 2. Gary Carter stuck around for four years as a reserve, Ted Simmons for three years. I suspect the writers held their hang-around years against them when the Hall of Fame balloting rolled around for each (Carter eventually got in, Simmons not).

I wonder if Rodriguez has his eye on what would be a unique accomplishment: 3,000 hits. Nobody who spent the bulk of his career as a catcher ever reached that milestone. (Craig Biggio was a catcher for four seasons at the start of his career, 428 games total.) Pudge needs 310 hits to get there. It won't be easy, but he's "only" 37.

A hard-used 37.