Joe Mauer is set to return Friday. Trumpets will blare, people of every gender will cheer and the Twins can expect to be better for his return. That’s Joe Mauer the two-time batting champ, two-time Top Ten MVP finisher, defending Silver Slugger/Gold Glove holder at his position, .399 career on-base percentage holder. All of that in a career of four full seasons during which he has played in 81 percent of the Twins games.

Yeah, he should make the Twins a bit better, I guess.

Now let’s get to the interesting part: Mauer’s contract runs out after next season. It doesn’t take a particularly astute baseball fan to know that there aren’t a lot of high-end catchers in the major leagues. Also, the two teams of endless payrolls — the Yankees and Red Sox — have catchers who are clearly on the back end of their careers. Jorge Posada and Jason Varitek are both 37. Throw in the Mets, Angels and a couple of Team X’s whose owners may be looking to make a splash in a substantial way, and the market for Mauer could be even more economy-proof than what happened last winter with CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeria.

Here’s the challenge: Once the Twins are as sure as they can be that Mauer is fit, they need to start negotiating the deal that will keep Mauer here for the next decade.

Don’t ask me how they will determine the first part of that equation because the riddle of his current health combined with the wear of being a catcher is dicey enough from up close, much less from a blogger’s or fan’s chair. I get to bring up the subject; they get to figure out how to deal with it.

The Twins are going to have to figure out a strategy that will convince Mauer and his agent, Ron Shapiro, that it will be best for everyone for Mauer to remain with the Twins. The good news for the Twins is that Shapiro is a first-rate act who doesn’t raise blood pressure in the same way as some other agents. It will be Shapiro’s responsibility, on Mauer’s behalf, to put the Twins negotiators to the test early and determine a strategy for getting top dollar.

The bad news is that the Twins will be competing with other teams of seemingly limitless resources who have already shown they will spend — sometimes wisely, often times not — on what they see as a game-changing acquisition. If Mauer is imagining a contract of x years and that information gets shared with the Twins this summer, how do they respond or counter in a way that keeps the negotiations from  going down the Santana highway? The Santana drama was basically played out in the season before his contract expired, which is the season we’re in right now with Mauer.

By the way, it’s not an accident that I said the Twins are competing with other teams of seemingly limitless resources. I don’t want this to become a debate about whether fans/media/players have the right to tell the owners how to spend their money. But the money is already there. Plus, there will be new revenues from Target Field that didn’t exist at the Metrodome. Whatever the case, an ownership decision can always be made that whatever payroll model exists can be departed from in a way that it wasn’t for Santana or Torii. This negotiation can be the one-time exception. (And I acknowledge we can debate whether it should be.) Is this negotiation sensitive and important enough for the Pohlads to handle it themselves — a position that would go against past practice, based on what we know?

The Twins have already been discussing this internally, of course, and probably have a plan of action. In other words, the Mauer negotiations are already game-on. But I expect that lips are sealed hermetically tight on this one and the contract news (if it happens) will come without much warning.

In the meantime, it’s good to have him back.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 9:34 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.