Twins Spring Blog-Mauer Deal

Today if you are a Twins fan, there was a late Christmas present unwrapped today. Behind that gold wrapping was a 8 year contract extension for catcher Joe Mauer. His deal will pay $184 million from 2011-2018 and comes with a full no-trade clause, ensuring he will stay in a Twins uniform. At the end of that contract he will have played 15 seasons in a Twins uniform, the most by any player since the team moved to Minnesota in 1961.For me, its exciting knowing that Joe Mauer will fall in line behind Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Kent Hrbek, and Kirby Puckett as the faces of this franchise. I dont feel this deal will handicap this team. I think as long as the fans continue to come out and watch, the front office will put a competitive team on the field. And that's one of the reasons Joe stayed here was his confidence in the front office to keep putting competitive teams on the field. And in my opinion as long as he is here there will be good players around him so they can win. And dont forget the Twins have a minor league system that continues to produce major league quality talent seemingly every season, which has been huge for them in the 50 seasons they have been in Minnesota. Also, with the amount of money the Pohlad family has put out this offseason in free agents and contract extensions, it shows they are willing to spend the money and shows how much the Metrodome handicapped this team. This deal is not only good for the Twins, its good for baseball. Its good that the middle to small market teams do have a chance of keeping their best player and not let them walk away to the big markets of New York, Boston, or Los Angeles. Baseball needs teams like the Twins stepping up against those big market teams so they can't win it every year. The Twins have become the model franchise in MLB, and again today they continued to set the bar. So my bottom line is the deal is good with me and it secures the future of the Twins for the next decade.