Joe Mauer – Dollars and Sense
February 3, 2010 4:11 PM
This just in, hot off the presses from ESPN The Magazine. Joe Mauer, All-Star, Gold Glove and MVP catcher and Minnesota native son, was named America’s Fan-Friendliest Athlete.
If you’re not an Insider at ESPN, then you’re out of luck reading about it. And even if you are, the article has a “no, duh?” feel to it. Really, you had to tell me that the Bengals are the least fan friendly? Like I couldn’t figure that one out myself.
Getting back to Joe. (Like all famous athletes I now can refer to him as Joe – like Al Michaels constantly saying Ben for that guy in Pittsburgh or Brett wherever he plays).
Well, of course he is. He’s from the Midwest. He’s a fan himself, he comes from a solid middle-class background and his Mother is in charge of the fan letter response. His fan base starts with his family and friends in the Twin Cities area.
So, let’s get down to dollars and sense.
The cheap-as-a-department-store-suit Minnesota Twins are now trying to tie Joe up for years to come with a contract extension. Well, good for them. We’ll see how that goes and I hope it goes well. It would make sense for the Twinkies to break the bank to sign him just as it would have made sense for them to sign Torii Hunter and/or Johan Santana.
Reminder: Neither of those signings occurred.
Joe’s age and his maturity and his accomplishments tell me that it would make sense to take the dollars and run to one of those cities (we know who they are so I won’t mention them) with deep enough pockets to give him a 10-year deal worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $200M.
However, I truly hope that Joe gives the Twins a hometown discount. Given that his agent is Ron Shapiro, who represented both Cal Ripken, Jr. and Tony Gwynn, Sr., this seems more likely to happen than if his agent was the terminally greedy Scott Boras.
The thing that many players don’t seem to think about is their own immortality. They’re young, they’re gifted and they’re blessed. And they’re not looking 20, 30, 40 or 100 years down the road. Ripken and Gwynn were blessed to be playing for their hometown teams. They saw how the fans responded to their ups and downs with support and adulation.
They stayed.
They stayed in Baltimore and San Diego. They didn’t go for the big bucks. They didn’t go for the store-bought championships. They didn’t go for glamour and glitz. They’ll be building statues to them for now and forever. They stayed.
Think the teams that can afford you will be doing that? Think potential teammates A-Fraud and Tex will have statues built for them? Yeah, me neither.
My advice to Joe: Give Cal and Tony a call. See what they have to say. And then give immortality a shot. You’ll be glad you did.
As a Twins fan, I’ve got just a few points.
One, I fully agree with you on what Joe should do.
Two, I have full confidence that it will happen.
Three, Kirby Puckett is the name you should’ve mentioned in regards to Shapiro.
Four, you are way off-base on Johan and Torii, and the only commonality to Joe is that they’re all good players. Johan was never going to stay. He made comments during the season that made that clear, and he was going to ask the organization to break the bank to keep him (the trade stunk, but oh well). Torii was going to be very expensive, and the Twins had a promising (and now delivering) Denard Span waiting in the wings. And mostly, both of those guys were let go with the foresight that Joe was going to command a huge contract, and it was simply not feasible to sign them all.
Lastly, regarding the figures you threw out, I fully expect the Twins to be in the neighborhood of a 10-year-deal, $200M. I think we’ll find out pretty soon.
Comment by Brett — Wednesday, February 3, 2010 @ 5:29 PM
1. I’m glad you agree.
2. I hope so, too.
3. Good catch about Kirby. I was more familiar with Cal and Tony.
4. The twins blew it with Johan. If they knew he wasn’t going stay they should have signed him or traded him earlier – as in before he decided to leave.
5. They’d have to be close to those dollars, and it’s gonna take that to keep him.
Comment by TommyT — Wednesday, February 3, 2010 @ 6:05 PM
I wish Seantrel Henderson could understand about the statue thing and how signing in Minnesota as a home town boy would assure his place in Minnesota history and provide for so many more opportunities after his college and pro carreers were over. Brewster would go down as the best gopher coach ever.
Comment by Fred Simmons — Wednesday, February 3, 2010 @ 8:54 PM
Gotta agree with Brett about Santana and Hunter. If there’s anything riskier than giving a long, expensive contract to a catcher, it’s giving a long, expensive contract to a pitcher. 2009 was a good example of why–I hope this doesn’t happen, because I still like the guy, but there’s a very decent chance that Santana goes the next five years without ever again being worth anywhere near the amount of money the Mets are stuck paying him. I have to think the Twins could’ve gotten a better deal for him than they did, but paying what it would’ve taken to keep him would have been foolish.
And Torii? He’s *never* been an $18-mil-a-year sort of player. If the Angels were going to be dumb enough to hand him that kind of money for his decline phase, the proper thing to do was to wish them good luck and move on.
Mauer truly is a completely different situation. Not just because he’s a hometown kid and it’s going to be their second year in the new stadium (though those are certainly factors), but because Mauer is a truly unique talent. There’s never been a player like him, and he’d be impossible to replace. Torii’s a pretty good player; Santana had a good run as the best pitcher in the league; Mauer is the best player the team has ever had. If you get a guy like that, you have to keep him. (And they will.)
Comment by Bill@TDS — Wednesday, February 3, 2010 @ 8:57 PM
“Mauer is the best player the team has ever had.”
Got some chills, as I mulled over what that statement means, and found that I agree…
Comment by Brett — Friday, February 5, 2010 @ 4:07 PM