Mr. MVP Joe Mauer

This seems like a very timely post with Joe Mauer winning the AL MVP at age 26 yesterday. I just wanted to touch on a few of my thoughts about Joe Mauer, his MVP award, and his looming free agency.

First of all, I will be the first to admit that I was one of the people that thought the Twins made a mistake by passing on Mark Prior to take Joe Mauer number 1 in the 2001 draft. I really didn't feel that an untested, 18 year old catcher was the right choice when you had a proven pitching ace up for grabs. Oh how wrong I was, Prior has basically fizzled out since the draft, while Mauer has done...well, I think most of us know what he has done. So now you add Prior's performance on top of his 10 million dollar signing bonus, and I guess you can say the Twins made the decision of the decade.

Ok, enough of me admiting how wrong I can be. Now let's make a quick comment about how wrong Keizo Konishi was with his 1st place vote for Miggy. Are you kidding me? Here's my thought on what Konishi was thinking. Since Konishi writes exclusively on Ichiro, he must be upset that Mauer has taken away Ichiro's batting championships. That's it, that's all I can think of.

Now, for the meat of the post...Mauer's contract. I guess by meat I really just mean the most important part of all of this. It's obvious Mauer will get the largest contract for a catcher, when and where is what has yet to be answered. I'm just going to cut through all of the bull on this and say that the Twins need to step up for once, and give Mauer the contract he deserves. It's not everyday you get a chance to keep the best player in a sport, let alone a hometown boy that's the face of your team. Mauer needs, and deserves at least a 7 year contract that's worth right around the $154 million mark (that includes a hometown discount). On top of that, the Twins need to put a team together around Mauer that's capable of winning a World Series. We gave you the stadium, now give us our team!!