Merry Christmas
brianj
I will be looking for a few things under my tree:
1. Long term contract for Joe Mauer.
2. Maybe a 3B.
3. Maybe another starting pitcher.
4. Did I mention the contract for Mauer?
brianj
powrwrap
> Hey, Merry Christmas, everybody.
>
> I will be looking for a few things under my tree:
>
> 1. Long term contract for Joe Mauer.
When you say 'long term' what to you have in mind?
I'm wondering if Mauer will be looking for an A-Rod type deal, say 10
years for $200M? If I were him, I'd at least explore it.
Otherwise I suppose he would go for a 5 or 6 year deal for $115M or
$130M...
In other words sign for 10 years and take a slight hit in average
annual salary vs. asking for more but for less years.
brianj
Well, I guess I was first thinking about anything beyond 2010. But I
really have wondered (hoped?) if the Twins might not depart from their
long-held philosophy and try to sign Mauer to a 10 year deal. I was
thinking along the lines of $18-20 million a year. I have long
thought the Twins were right in not getting themselves into long-term
expensive contracts. There are many examples of that sort of deal
turning out to have been a mistake for other teams. But if they were
ever going to make an exception to the rule, Mauer would be the guy to
do it for. I am pretty sure he can't catch for 10 more years, but,
barring a catastrophe, he could easily be worth that much.
I really don't worry much about signing Mauer. I honestly believe
that the front office knows it has no choice but to come up with some
way to extend Mauer's contract past 2010, and I think the organization
knows it has to take care of that during this off season. The worry
for me is that Joe knows this too, which means he can hold them up for
anything. And if they sign him for so much money that they can't
afford to keep guys like Span, Morneau, and Cuddyer (and make other
important acquisitions), then there really is no point in having
Mauer. But Joe Mauer always surprises me with his intelligence, and I
am sure he has figured this all out. I really think he wants to win,
and he knows the Twins can't do that if he breaks the bank.
Of course he also knows that there is no real way to break the
Yankees' bank. And they win.
brianj