Joe Mauer participant of 2009 Major League Baseball season
Joseph Patrick Mauer (born April 19, 1983) is an American former professional baseball catcher and first baseman, who spent his entire 15-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the Minnesota Twins. A six-time All-Star, Mauer is the only catcher in MLB history to win three batting titles, and the only catcher to ever win a batting title in the American League (AL).
Mauer also won three consecutive Gold Glove Awards (2008–2010), five Silver Slugger Awards (including three in a row) and the 2009 AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award. As of 2021, he is the most recent catcher to win (or even place in the top three in the voting) the MVP award in the American League. Mauer was selected by the Twins as the first overall pick of the 2001 MLB draft and was a fan favorite during his career as he was a Minnesota native.2009: MVP Season
In 2009, Mauer became the first catcher to lead the league in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage in a single year, and the first player to lead the American League in all three since George Brett did so in 1980. Mauer's .365 average, which is the highest mark among catchers (with at least 3.1 plate appearances per game) since 1901, and the highest by a Twin since Rod Carew's .388 in 1977, led Major League Baseball. Mauer also won his second consecutive Gold Glove in 2009. Mauer was named the American League's 2009 MVP by a near-unanimous decision (27 out of 28 first place votes).On March 11, Mauer was diagnosed with inflammation in the sacroiliac joint by team doctors following a magnetic resonance arthrogram. He was unable to take part in team workouts during spring training due to the pain in his lower back, which he first began experiencing late in the 2008 season. Mauer missed the start of the 2009 regular season and returned on May 1. He went 2-for-3 with an RBI and three runs scored in his first game back, hitting a home run on his first swing of the season.After his return on May 1, Mauer had the best month of his career, batting .414 with 11 home runs and drove in 32 RBI in 28 May games, becoming the first-ever Twins player to reach that mark in a single month. During the week of May 18–24, Mauer led the major leagues in batting average at .458 (11-for-24), RBI with 13, and runs scored with 12, also hitting four home runs and accumulating 25 total bases. On May 26, he was named MLB Player of the Week for his performance. Through the month of May, Mauer led the major leagues in average at .414, on-base percentage at .500, and slugging percentage at .838, in addition to his home run and RBI totals, earning him his second Player of the Month Award honors. Mauer appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a second time on June 24. An additional 25,000 copies of the magazine were sent to Minnesota for the occasion. He was selected to the 2009 MLB All-Star Game as the starting catcher and participated in the Home Run Derby, losing a tiebreaker to Albert Pujols in the first round.The Twins trailed the Detroit Tigers by seven games in the American League Central division at the start of September, but rallied, winning 17 of their last 21 games to finish the season tied atop the division.  On October 6, the Twins beat the Tigers 6–5 in Game 163, a 12-inning one-game playoff, to secure the division title. In 2009, Mauer led the American League in batting average (.365), on-base percentage (.444), slugging percentage (.587), and OPS (1.031), all of which were career-highs. Mauer became the first catcher to lead the league in all four offensive categories in a single season, and the first catcher to win three batting titles. At the time, he had won as many batting championships in a span of four years as all other Major League catchers in the history of baseball combined. Two National League catchers had won a total of three batting titles: Eugene "Bubbles" Hargrave in 1926, and Hall of Famer Ernie Lombardi in 1938 and 1942 (Buster Posey won his NL batting title in 2012). Mauer also established career-highs in hits (191), home runs (28), RBIs (96), extra-base hits (59), total bases (307), bWAR (7.8, including 7.7 oWAR), and fWAR (8.4), as well as near-personal bests in every other offensive category across 138 games.Facing the Yankees in the ALDS, Mauer continued to swing the bat well, recording five hits in 12 at-bats plus two walks, but the Twins were swept by the eventual World Series champions in three games. On October 29, Baseball America named Mauer its 2009 Major League Player of the Year. On November 23, Mauer was named the 2009 American League Most Valuable Player by the Baseball Writers' Association of America over Yankees teammates Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter, earning 27 of the 28 first-place votes. This made Mauer the second catcher in 33 years to win the AL MVP. He also received both a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger award for the second year in a row.