Sign and Trade

The big spring sports story here in the Twin Cities is the Minnesota Twins. They're the defending AL Central Champs and they have reigning AL MVP Joe Mauer leading the team and a brand new outdoor ballpark. Much of the discussion surrounding the Twins this winter has been speculation about the re-signing of Mauer. Mauer is set to be a free agent after this season and conventional wisdom is that the Twins will re-sign Mauer to a long term deal at about $20-$22 million/year for about 10 years. Most people think Mauer will agree to this contract - which will be less than what Mauer might get from the Yankees or Red Sox - because Mauer will grant the team a hometown discount.

Signing Mauer for about $200 million over ten years makes some sense, but a bold forward thinking strategy might be to sign Mauer to an even larger contract, heavily loaded to the last few season and then trade Mauer after the 2012 season - preferably to the White Sox or Tigers. Mauer will be 27 this season. His values as a hitter will peak over the next three seasons. By the end of 2012 Mauer will still have value and will probably not have begun the rapid decline that hit most catchers meaning that the Twins will be able to get several prospects for him.

Imagine getting Mauer's three remaining elite seasons, stealing the 3-4 best prospects from a division rival and saddling that rival with 7 years and $140+ million dollars of salary for a declining player. It might even be worth dumping him a year earlier if you could get an even richer package of prospects. If you throw in the added possibility of drafting 2 college catchers each of the next three seasons, you'll probably end up with an above average replacement.

For those of you who way, "but he's the best catcher in baseball, he'll have greater success for longer", I invite you to look at the careers of Yogi Berra, Johnny Bench, Pudge Rodriguez, Mike Piazza, Darrell Porter, Jorge Posada and Jason Varitek. They all hit the wall once they turner 30. Sure some of them had good season after that season, but none were dominant. Only Berra was close to as good as he had been and that was because he started spending a lot of time in the outfield.

Yes, this might annoy some Twins fans who are tired of seeing the best Twins leave via trade or free agency when they become expensive. But it would be a far smarter move than hanging on to Mauer and paying him a huge percentage of the team's payroll as he declines. As for Detroit, Chicago, New York, or Boston going for it consider that three of them have aging catchers who need to be replaced soon and Detroit hasn't had a great catcher since Lance Parrish. All four teams also have a tradition of adding aging veterans in an attempt to patch holes in their lineup.

I'm not suggesting that Mauer will have no value or even little value as a hitter in four years. But by that point, his value to other teams will be at its peak and his value as a hitter for the Twins will be in decline as his salary increases. There's a feeling of nostalgia for a time when players played for one team for their whole career. People love the idea of once an X always an X, but very few players are worth keeping for their entire career but an injury prone catcher being the exception is incredibly unlikely.