fletcher21 wrote:Joe Mauer signed an 8 year 184 million dollar deal with the Twins. I'm sorry, but he's not worth that much jack. He's the best contact hitter in baseball (Pujols is probably better overall) but he plays the most demanding position in the game. The Twins better move him to 1st or 3rd if they want to save his body. He won't last 8 more years behind the plate and keep up these numbers. I think this was a bad move on the Twins` part. Let the Yankees and Red Sox make these big moves. They have a lot of other needs at pitcher that will not be met now. So much for him wanting to play for a winner. Twins will be in the cellar in 8 years just like the Royals are now.
That whole statement is idiotic. Contact hitter? Twice in the last four years he finished in the top 10 in OPS, plus he led the league in Slugging Percentage last year when at age 26 his power started to come on.
He's already one of the best catchers of the last 20-30 years, and with a few more years will start to put himself in the pantheon of great catchers in history.
Chances are that they'll have to move him out from behind the plate later in the contract a la Biggio, but they just have to monitor his body to see how he handles the wear and tear of catching full time.
And none of this even mentions what would have happened from a fan standpoint if the Twins had let Mauer go one year after moving into a publicly funded stadium. There would have been a mutiny and the Twins knew it. You can't take the face of your franchise, who grew up in the town you play in, and let him go for money reasons after getting a new park to play in. That would just be bad business.
The side effect of the signing is that it gives them less margin for error with other moves, but that's a risk they had to take on to keep him in Minnesota.
The sing-along songs'll be our scriptures.