Musing on Mauer

The Twins pretty much "had" to get this deal done as far as their local community was concerned. Joe Mauer was a legend before he ever finished High School in the area. He was coming from a prominent athletic family to begin with that was already known to avid sports fans all over Minnesota. He led his school to state football titles and turned down Bobby Bowden's offers at Florida State to play Quarterback. The Twins used their local knowledge to pass over Mark Prior (the Stephen Strasburg of his day!) to get Mauer.(Local sports radio types excoriated the Twins when that happened for being too parochial and, of course, cheap).

Mauer came quickly through the Twins' system and showed promise even while dealing with early spates of injuries to his knees and back. Despite calls for a position switch almost immediately following his first injury, he's become a defensive plus behind the plate. His offensive game of course has now reached stratospheric heights...and not only "for a catcher"...but he's just plainly an offensive force.

During this time in MLB he has become an Icon in Minnesota (and I hate bestowing the overused word "icon", but in this case it has merit). Young girls love him, old folks love him, guys in their 20's would want to be him. He's the sole reason a lot of folks follow the Twins in Mauer-sota. You can't overstate the feeling that Minnesotans have for Mauer being "One of us!". (I lived in MN from '97 to '07 btw....I saw this first-hand) Losing Joe Mauer would have turned off a generation of Twins' fans. It would be bigger than Jeter becoming a Dodger to a Yankees' fan (proportional to the markets).

The Twins used taxpayer money to fund their new palace Target Field. Not investing in Joe Mauer carried costs well beyond the baseball field. There would have been severe backlash in my mind.....not one quelled merely by a winning streak or a winning ballclub after his leaving.

So, how will it play on the field? Well....how long will he catch? How durable will he be? Can he continue to hit for the power he flashed so impressively in '09? Will the $184M commitment over the next 8-yrs (no word that I've seen on what money is deferred) affect what other talent the Twins will put on the field?

I think the Twins will probably be okay. I see no reason, other than injury, that Mauer isn't very good through the first half of this deal at least. Can they continue to scout and develop pitching like they have over the years on the relative cheap? If the answer to that question is "yes" then they're going to be okay. If the cheap pipeline of pitching dries up however then the Twins might run into some real issues keeping a solid crew around Mauer despite the promised revenue engine that Target Field might become.