Certain players will have a conceived advantage in these exercises if their careers happened to begin around 1998-2001.  Consider Player A and Player B.  Player A has been around for the entire “Zeroes” or “Aughts” decade.  Throughout the past 10 years, he has been consistently good, but never really great.  Player B is disadvantaged in that his career began around the middle of the decade, but ever since his first full season he is undoubtedly the best catcher is the game, with more years to come.

The biggest example of Player A at the catcher position is Yankees backstop Jorge Posada.  Jorge, hero of the rodent folk, scurried onto the scene at the tail-end of the last decade and became a remarkably consistent “good” catcher.  So, he should win this easily, right?

But, wait a second.  Before we place the crown atop those two giant portabella mushrooms attached to Posada’s skull, let’s think about this.  What about the truly great player whose career happened to begin towards the middle of the decade?  We should definitely levy a discount of some sort on guys who have not been around as long as others, but what do we do when the difference in production is as astounding as it is in this case:

Note: WARP3 is “Wins Above Replacement Player” adjusted for era and league, courtesy of Baseball Prospectus.  It’s a nifty catch-all stat for comparing players.  Read about it here.

In his relatively brief service time, Mauer has already had three seasons where he has been better than Jorge’s best year in 200o.  Mauer’s 2009 season ranks among the best performances from a catcher in baseball history.  In an average full season, Mauer has given us 7.32 WARP3 and Posada has yielded 5.97. Mauer has thrown out 38% of attempted base stealers, whil Posada has thrown out 29%.  We’re looking at two different players; one of them has been very good, and the other has been elite.

It’s a judgment call.  Peak versus longevity.  Me?  I like the sound of “elite”.  I’m going with Player B.

C: Joe Mauer

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