During the ALCS we heard all about the toll a season took on a catcher as we watched Alex Avila limp around and be totally ineffective. We also witnessed the absolute destruction of one of the games most talented, Joe Mauer, in the 2011 season. Outside of a linemen in football, it is hard to find a more strenuous and demanding position that catcher. Many teams start their best one 3 games and their backup 2 games in a row. It isn't hard to see why Mauer fell apart, look at his stats from 2005 (his first full year) on:
2005: 131 G 554 PA 3.4 WAR
06: 140 605 7
07: 109 471 4.6
08: 146 633 8.7
09: 138 606 7.9
10: 137 584 5.9
11: 82 333 1.7
Compare to Alex Avila:
10: 104 353 .2
11: 141 551 5.4
Joe Mauer now suffers from a rare kind of leg weakness and the best days of his career are already sadly behind him. The numbers above clearly show that they just rode him too much. The Tigers of all teams, division rivals of the Twins, should know not to kill their catcher like that. If Mauer is any indication, they can ride him like this for about 2 years, but then its over. Surely the front office will step in and not let this happen.
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