MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO)--Sources tell WCCO-TV's Mark Rosen that American League MVP Joe Mauer has come to a preliminary agreement with the Minnesota Twins for a 10-year contract extension.

Mauer, 26, and the Twins had been pretty quiet about contract negotiations, while fans were eager to find out if their hometown hero would be staying put at last weekend's annual fan festival.

This is Mauer's final year of his current contract and manager Ron Gardenhire said Friday he was confident that both sides would come together and strike a deal.

Mauer's current salary this season is $12.5 million. Contract details about his new salary were not immediately released.

Mauer became only the second catcher in 33 years to win the coveted AL MVP award, finishing first in an almost unanimous vote in November.

Mauer set a major league record for highest batting average by a catcher and won his third batting title, becoming the first repeat batting champion since Nomar Garciaparra in 1999-00.

He's been voted to the All-Star team three times and won his second straight AL Gold Glove award.

Mauer was born in St. Paul and would've been a free agent after the 2010 season.

Rosen will have all the latest details on WCCO 4 News at 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.

LINK:
http://wcco.com/sports/twins/joe.mau...2.1462891.html

10 years for an oft-injured future 1b/DH?


This is highly questionable. Not Alex Rios questionable though.

wow

Premature.

http://twitter.com/Buster_ESPN/status/8514431354

Mark Rosen is behind only Sid Hartman and the Common Man for idiocy in Twin Cities sports reporting.

I am skeptical the agreement will end up being ten years.

The idea that Mauer is "oft-injured" is mistaken. No AL catcher has started more games since 2005. There really isn't any concrete reason yet that he can't stay a catcher into his mid-30s.

Possibly premature, but just last week Common was the first to report the Jim Thome signing, and Rosen is as inside as anyone with the Twins. I have no reason to believe that Rosen is off base here.

I was kidding.

i finally understand your custom title

My bad. I get a little defensive about Joe Mauer.

Hey, thats the first time if seen good defense and Joe Mauer in the same sentence!!!

what an odd conditional statement.

Laugh out loud, you got me.

***UPDATE***

It was said best by Eric In Madison yesterday: There's too much smoke for there not to be any fire. While Rosen's WCCO report of a ten-year extension for Minnesota golden boy Joe Mauer may have been called premature, bits this big don't just fall out of the air. Here's what we know so far...

* Early Monday afternoon Mark Rosen of WCCO reported that the Twins and Mauer had come to a preliminary agreement on a ten-year contract extension.

* Ensuing reports could not confirm that an extension had been agreed upon and signed.

* There's been speculation that the framework for a deal has been laid out and likely agreed upon (from "two people close to the Mauer family"), but that the two sides are still working on the small print: deferred payments, details on incentives, and whether or not Minneapolis will now be called Mauerapolis.

* Whatever kind of contract this ends up being, it will be a "Legacy Contract": "It will recognize what Mauer has done for the franchise until now, and what he will do in the future, and it could be worth at least $20 million per year." I'd replace the word "could" with "will".

* There have been confirmed reports that clueless Yankee and Red Sox fans are doing one of two things: pretending they never made ignorant predictions about Mauer playing in New York or Boston, or crying. Intelligent Yankee and Red Sox fans resigned themselves to this deal months ago.

* This deal could now come at any time.

Stay tuned...

what?

how can a prediction be ignorant?

Apparently "ignorant" means the same as "wrong".

I'm thinking he meant "uninformed."

I understand as part of the deal Mauer will build a new stadium for the Vikings.

but its a prediction.

nobody knew if he'd re-up before he actually hit free agency or after. and the speculation was that IF he hit the open market, both NY & BOS would throw huge sums of money at him.

the fact that he may very likely NOT hit the open market, does not make the prediction right or wrong/uninformed/ignorant... it makes it needless.

Who thinks we need a Minnesota Twins thread?

A lot of things I read suggested that he would wait to hit the open market so that Boston and New York would throw the money at him. Those predictions were wrong. That's what I thought it was referring to.

FTFY