The Boston Globe's Nick Cafardo is smitten:
How about this for a pregame presentation fantasy: Red Sox catcher Joe Mauer stands on the mound and J.D. Drew trots in from right field. Drew takes off his No. 7 jersey and gives it to Mauer. Underneath, Drew is now wearing No. 77.
OK, it's a little corny and a little far-fetched, but if Jason Varitek can hold on for another year, the timing would be perfect. Mauer, who will be 27 when he becomes a free agent after next season, could solve the Red Sox' catching problems for almost a decade.
I have no idea what the Twins intend to do as Joe Mauer approaches free agency. Maybe they want him to stay forever and will make him a big offer. Maybe Mauer has even bigger dollars and greater fame in mind than can ever be achieved in Minneapolis. But one thing I do know is that I am sick and tired of the fans and media that follow the Red Sox and Yankees putting virtual dibs on every single decent player who even sniffs free agency. We get it: your team has money. We know: you probably will get just about any star player you want when they become available. And to be honest, I don't even have a gigantic problem with your teams actually signing these guys. The system we have is the system we have and all the Yankees and the Red Sox are doing is exploiting it. You'd do the same thing if you were Theo Epstein or Brian Cashman.
But I simply can't stand this premature claiming of players as though their move to Boston or New York is a foregone conclusion. It's like 19th century colonial powers sitting in a palace and carving up a map of Africa or something. It's offensive on some basic level, both to the guys currently on those teams' rosters and especially to the fans of the Twins and other clubs who are apparently thought of as mere farm teams. Obviously there's nothing that can be done about this kind of chatter due to pesky things like free speech and whatnot, but I gotta tell ya, if I was dictator for a day, I'd put a ban on this sort of player coveting until six months before they actually achieve free agency.
Joe Mauer is having an amazing season as a Twin. Let's do our best to think of him in that context as opposed to some bauble to be purchased in November 2010.
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I like the thought that the Yankees and Red Sox are comparable to 19th century imperialists. And, I've heard it said that the sun never sets on C.C. Sabathia.
Comment of the day. Well played, sir!
I wholeheartedly agree with you and I'm a Sox fan (and would love to see Mauer play for Boston, of couse). This type of article is exactly what I hate about Yankees fans. This is not an analysis of the up-coming free agent markets or an exploration of Mauer's possible options in 2010, but an absurd fantasy of the most base empiralistic kind. Who knows Mauer would even WANT to play for the Sox? Not every player is simply interested in getting the last dollar out of the market. Not only is this article disrepectful to the Twins, Twins fans, Mauer and the other 29 teams that might like to sign him, but it is insulting to any minor league catcher in the Sox organization, to Jason Varitek and perhaps mostly to current backup George "Rhythem" Kottaras, who is quietly playing great D and hitting above expectations for the Sox. I doubt that I would feel too good if the press around me was already writing off my future while I was playing my best baeball to date. I reject idea that only Joe Mauer can solve our future catching void. Sure he's great, but he's not the only living catcher, for god's sake.
So basically you hate the Yankees for doing what you do, check your own roster for home grown talent, i'm sure the numbers are similar, if not who cares, i'm not a hypocrite. I hope Mauer goes to either they Mets or Yankees because I hate Boston!!!!
I have just read the article three times, and I don't see anything about the Yankees coveting Joe Mauer, although they and any other smart baseball person should. So what exactly is is that this mronic Boston fan hates about the Yankee fans, related to this article? I understand that he hates Yankees and there fans, but whay is Boston any different? By the way, I am a rbid Yankee fan, and am tired of the Yankee bashing and anti Yankee bias. I guess wunning and 26 world championships will tend to do that!!!
As a Twins fan, reading stuff like this is a little like how it must feel to be married to a supermodel and have to read the way they talk about her in Maxim or FHM or something. It's just dirty. Stay away from our woman, I mean catcher, dammit.
This might just be wishful thinking (and I wrote about this yesterday at ), but I think that Mauer is the one guy the Twins will have to break the bank to keep. They'll be one year into their brand new park, he's a hometown guy, and he (unlike guys they've overpaid for in the past like Radke and Cuddyer and even Morneau) is a truly irreplacable player. It might even hurt the rest of the team to spend the kind of money they'd have to to keep him, but I think not doing it would be a PR disaster the likes of which they've never seen (except maybe that one time when their own owner tried to get the team contracted).
But again, maybe it's wishful thinking (yeah, I want to keep Mauer just that much). Maybe the Yankees or Red Sox will just come in and outspend the Twins' whole broken bank...
hmm...website disappeared. But the point of this wasn't to shill for the blog anyway. You can click on my name and find it if you're that interested. :)
Thanks for Johan Santana , so glad the Yankees and Redsox didn't want him.
This guy should have been given the bank but you guys were too CHEAP and now you have no Veteran to lead those young statrters
HOT ROD- You are "exibit A" of the attitude of the elitist markets.
Concerning Johann Santana, he did not want to stay in Minnesota. He liked the demographics of NY as much as he liked lots of money. His was a no-win scenario, the Kobyashi Maru. The Twins did make a mistake in giving up Torii Hunter. He wanted to stay, and we got the raw end of that deal. Even if he gets hurt, we'd be better off with him than with Gomez. It remains to be seen, but I'm thinking that Joe Mauer is more along the likes of Kirby Puckett. Kirby could have gotten bigger bucks elsewhere, but he stayed home. I see Joe doing the same thing. I can't envision him being a money-grubbing elitist like so many in sports are. He won't say, like a certain Timberwolf said a few years ago, "I've got to feed my family." I hope he will see the common sense, that it is stupid to hold out for 400 X my salary when 200 X plus unwavering fan loyalty resembling godhood will suffice.
I completely agree with the sentiment in this article. Here I am as a Twins fan getting excited because Mauer is playing unbelievably well, and it gets ruined by hearing about how its only a matter of time before the yankees or red sox sign him. It sucks that I have to almost hope our players don't play too well that these teams snatch them away. Give us a salary cap, please!
A salary cap won't necessarily fix a thing. Way more NFL teams cut good, well-loved players all of the time, citing the cap as the reason. Why would baseball be any different? The only way it could hope to work is if it was paired with a salary floor (i.e. an amount which the teams HAVE to spend on payroll each year). But many, many owners would oppose such a thing because they enjoy paying very little for players and pocketing revenue sharing money.
SALARY CAP...... YOU talking about a SALARY CAP...... oh please your owner STUFFED George Steinbrenners and Fred Wilpons Luxury Tax and Salary cap Tax MONEY IN HIS POCKET AND DIDN'T PUT IT INTO HIS TEAM, now you come here crying, CONTRACT THE TWINS .......
HOT ROD
Calm down man. You're kind of a dink talking like that. What is your point anyway? Contract the Twins? Because the owner pocketed revenue? Isn't that what you are supposed to do with revenue? I seem to recall that he did eventually put some of that money into payroll and also put money in to fund a new stadium. I don't think that you know what you are talking about. It must be nice to follow a large market team like the Mets. Too bad they can't ever seem to find success with that bloated payroll.
Seriously, I think the Twins should have drafted Mark Prior. Drafting Mauer first overall, when Prior was right there on the board was stupid. I mean, who takes a high school catcher when the best pitching prospect of a generation is right there for the taking?
The Twins are just too cheap. Someone should tell them how to run a baseball club.
(BTW: Mauer will sign a long term deal with his home town team. And no, he's not from Boston.)
Seriously, the drafting Mark Prior comment is upsurd! They guy did not want to sign with the Twins in the first place, and Mauer was projected to be a big time player even before he left high school. He was an All-American athlete, and it's obvious the Twins made the right choice.
The Twins in a way are cheap, but pro sports are a buisness. The market the Twins are in is not as big as New York and Boston, so they can't afford to throw money at players.
With a new stadium opening up next year, revenue will increase along with the payroll. The fact that the team already signed Morneau is a sign that the Twins will be very willing to sign Mauer. He is living the dream, and all indications point to him loving the Twins. He might not take the hometown discount but if enough money is on the table he's deffinitly going to take it.
All the big market teams can keep dreaming. How about you cultivate your own talent???
woooooosh
Right over your head.
Where is Prior? Hello?
Joe isn't going anywhere. The Twins will lock him up to a long term deal, and he'll probably even give them a "hometown" deal as well. I can see 10 years, $200 million as reasonable.
hahahahahahh KEEP Draming the TWINS are CHEAP!!
It is this 74 yo fan's opinion is that a young man with the outstanding character of Joe Mauer will play for his hometown team, the Minnesota Twins, for his entire big league career. Evidence of his level-headedness was shown when his 1st act upon signing his current deal with the ballclub was to announce to his hard-working Mother & Father that, as of that day, they were both retired from their respective jobs! Furthermore, I sincerely doubt he would ever want to play before the foul-mouth New York fan (I was born and raised in Brooklyn as a Dodger fan in the 40's so I know the old NY baseball fan and today's fans embarrass me). I was fortunate to live in Minneapolis/St. Paul during the Series winning years of 1987 and 1991 and attended every play-off and Series game during those wonderful Kirby Puckett days. This young man, Mauer, will do the right thing, like Kirby, and stay with the Twins!
Great article. Listening to some of the Sox fans during the last two games (example "If we want him, we'll take him and there's nothing you can do about it!") reminds me of listening to Veruca Salt in the Chocolate Factory. Take a long look in the mirror, brats.
I hope he stays at home in MN, but if he does end up in Boston can you imagine what his batting average might be with the Green Monster in left to hit doubles off of? He might be the next .400 hitter.
So two of the best athletes in MN history - Mauer and McHale will help to win championships for Boston. How great for Boston, but sad for MN.
So let me get this straight, if you were a baseball fan or covering baseball starting in 1995, couldn't you claim dibs on any Montreal Expo? Aside from 'you don't like it' and odd 19th century empire references, why shouldn't an educated fan keep track of walk years? That's how we figure out trade deadlines. Are you going to ban trade deadline chatter next, O Mighty One?