Joe Mauer is off to a superhuman start with the Twins, even hitting for power for the first time in his career. Of course, now Minnesota fans are fearing that Mauer, who can be a free agent after next year, will soon fly the coop, especially with the Yankees and Red Sox having franchise catchers who are nearing retirement.
I think the Twins need to make it their primary objective as a franchise to make sure Joe Mauer stays with the team for his entire career. He's a hometown guy, the best Twin since Puckett, and the best player in baseball at his position. With the new ballpark on the way, they'll need him, in a way they didn't need, say, Torii Hunter or even Johan Santana.
At any rate, I'm with Calcaterra:
But one thing I do know is that I am sick and tired of the fans and media that follow the Red Sox and Yankees putting virtual dibs on every single decent player who even sniffs free agency. We get it: your team has money. We know: you probably will get just about any star player you want when they become available. And to be honest, I don't even have a gigantic problem with your teams actually signing these guys. The system we have is the system we have and all the Yankees and the Red Sox are doing is exploiting it.The same thing, of course, happened for years with Garnett. Even sadder, we're only a year-or-two away from Phillies fans adopting this, too. Bad times.