In the age of analytics, would Twins have asked Joe Mauer for more power?

The particulars of Joe Mauer’s career arc are so embedded in the collective consciousness of Twins fans that it is hard to imagine a different narrative.

But let’s try anyway.

Let’s suppose Mauer wasn’t drafted in 2001 but instead in, say, 2021, as a high school catcher out of Cretin-Derham Hall. Imagine that he had the same sweet swing that produced just one (!) strikeout in his entire prep career.

And now let’s imagine how the modern Twins organization, with its increased emphasis on modern analytics and the pursuit of home runs over singles, might have approached Mauer’s development.

Would they have tried to turn Mauer into a power hitter, and what might the results have been if they did?

Patrick Reusse and I talked about that as part of a broader discussion of Mauer on Monday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

Here are some expanded thoughts on the idea:

*Far more tinkering goes on with players (hitters or pitchers) these days than a generation ago.. That fact alone makes it at least more likely that the Twins in 2021 would have been more tempted to alter Mauer’s approach than they were in 2001.

*Mauer’s frame (6-5, 225 as listed by Baseball Reference) is suggestive of a player who could hit for more power. And he did crack 28 homers in 2009, even if that season proved to be an outlier in many ways. Mauer didn’t hit more than 13 in any other MLB season, and in 2009 a whopping 20.4% of his fly balls were homers (he never topped 12.8% in another full season).

*But Mauer certainly hit the ball hard enough and had impeccable bat control through the first 10 years of his career. I think it would have been possible for a present-day Mauer — at the urging of a Twins organization and a sport in general more bent on homers than the Twins of the 2000s — to change his swing to pull more balls in the air for homers. It would have contradicted his actual approach, which was to hit down on the ball to all fields, but Mauer was talented enough that he could have pulled it off.

*Given all that, it seems at least plausible that if Mauer had come along 20 years later he might have been asked to become a different kind of hitter.

*Would that version of Mauer have been more valuable than the one who actually existed? It is instructive to note that his career high in homers coincided with his one MVP season in 2009. But he also hit an otherworldly and career-high .365 that year. With a different approach, Mauer might have had a steady stream of years with around a .300 average and, say, 25 to 30 homers. He probably would have struck out more (he had more career walks than strikeouts until late in his career), but his OPS likely would have been higher.

*Part of what made Mauer great, though, was his ability to get on base combined with his ability to get a hit to any part of the field against any type of pitcher. It’s debatable whether a modern, tinkered-with version of Mauer would have been more valuable to the Twins. But without the three batting titles, he almost certainly wouldn’t have been inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday.

In the end, the Twins (and fans) couldn’t have asked much more from a No. 1 overall pick out of St. Paul who turned into a first-ballot inductee into Cooperstown. But it would be fascinating to see how it might all play out differently these days.

Here are four more things to know today:

*Jets QB Aaron Rodgers tried to downplay missing this summer’s minicamp with the Jets by likening it to other weeks of offseason practice. He kind of has a point, but he also seems to be trying (again) to change something from a perception into a fact.

*Rob Dillingham had a great Summer League finale for the Wolves, and you all are lucky that I don’t quite have the nerve to write a post wondering how many actual NBA games the elite Summer Wolves roster could win next season.

*Sunday was a heavy news day, but it was made briefly funny.

*Jon Marthaler is expected to join me on Tuesday’s podcast for a breakdown of Minnesota United, and I will also have thoughts on Monday’s news conferences from Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.