Joe Mauer at 30 Millon a year

Joe Mauer – why should/would he take less money to play for the twins?

Let’s think through potential motivators that will impact his decision:
(a) money. I’ve never met someone who wanted less (I never met Gandhi). Everyone prefers more, though each additional dollar is presumed to be worth less to that person. However, our MN friends Petters/Hecker certainly prove that isn’t always that case. Anyway, the NYY/Bos/NYM/LAA/LAD and a handful of others can all pay more than the twins. If Mauer perfers more money to less money, edge to him leaving.
(b) winning a championship: most players prefer winning, even when sandbagging (e.g. Karl Malone), to playing for a competitive team (good, but not a pre-season favorite to win it all). NYY/?Bos/NYM/LAA/LAD are all more likely than the twins to win a world series in the next 5-10 years. This is even more true if the team has to spend $30m/yr on Mauer. The above teams could still sign other players. The twins would have mortgaged the farm on one player, and would have to hope that baby jesus can do it all on his own.
© Not moving: Mauer probably prefers living in St. Paul. His parents/grandparents/high school friends/etc are all in St. Paul. Still, a lot of people love trying to live in new places (I do), and will prefer to move over staying stationary. Plus, $5 extra million will buy a lot of plane tickets, both home, and for people to visit you. Also, I don’t know if you guys have noticed (I’ve been back in MN since Dec 25), but the weather in MN sucks. Only some kind of wierd pride over how awful it is convinces people that they “actually like the winters”. I can’t believe, that when most of this continent was virtually uninhabited, some people chose to plant roots in MN, instead of, say, anywhere else. Anyway, edge: Twins, not sure by how much.
(d) Loyalty to an organization: most people don’t care. Some are convinced by some vague sense of romanticism, or in the case of sports, by local sportswriters, that loyalty to one team makes you a better person, or more loved. Frankly, Mauer would gain more love from the NY metro area than he would lose for teh 500,000 or so twins fans. Still, we can hope that he reads blogs like this, and decides that die hard fans like those here are right: Changing teams for extra money makes you a bad person. Edge: probably the twins, but IMO, he would be stupid to make any decision based on this.
(e) Friendship/loyalty to his teammates: this one most people care about a lot. I know that I like my coworkers. I’d probably like new coworkers as well, but it would be sad to change jobs (I’ll end up doing it anyway, but it’s still a downside to changing). Also, in baseball, Mauer can count on lots of his peers leaving anyway. Edge: maybe the Twins, but again, this is a stupid reason.
(f) injury risk: If Mauer really cares about money, then signing this offseason is worth something, on the odds that he could not be able to get a big contract next offseason. Edge: twins.

I think I’ve listed a lot of reasons that Mauer might want to stay with the Twins, but frankly, he’d be stupid to, unless it really makes him happy to stay around MN, and he enjoys competing for a team that is always in the mix, but not elite. He just has to decide how much money that is worth to him, and that will determine his price point.

For all the fans on this site – it’s easy to say he’s greedy if he leaves for more money, because you LOVE the Twins. It doesn’t matter whether it’s $1 or $100 million, you’d be upset if he left for money, because you would feel that he betrayed you. On the other hand, the conclusion that it reflects greed assumes that he loves the Twins as much as you do. Ask yourself this question: Do you love your current employer as much as you love the Twins? Remember, that though he grew up as a Twins fan, he’s not part of the labor pool. He is going to make decisions the same way you do when you look for a job. Where would I enjoy working, where would I get financial benefits, how would this impact my family? While he doesn’t need the incremental $$$ as much as some of us might, the number of extra dollars getting thrown at him is also a lot bigger. He has the chance to leave the kind of money to guarantee that his next 5 generations of offspring are wealthy. Lot’s of people would pursue that. Lots of people would also pursue working at the most successful company in their industry, working with the most talented coworkers, living in a new city, or just a change for the sake of change. It isn’t crazy.

Wow that was long – but I’m done now.

I don’t have as much knowledge of the inner workings of baseball like most of you have but here is my armchair analysis.

I love Joe Mauer and his velvet swing. I’d like to see Joe Mauer in a Twins uniform for the rest of his playing days. I don’t want to see Joe Mauer in a Twins uniform if it’s going to cost the team a long contract for a catcher and about 20% of its payroll. He’s a very good catcher that a team could build a team around but we all know the estimated amount of payroll we will be spending each year. A $25 to $30 million contract per year is going to make our team capsize like it was 1912 and we renamed the team the RMS Titanic.

For everybody clinging to the hope he will take a hometown discount, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. How many times in a baseball player’s career do they get the chance to sign a contract worthy of their playing ability? I’m my limited knowledge, it’s once. Twice, if you count a token contract when the person is in their mid-thirties but even that isn’t guaranteed (ask Damon).

Let’s put the hometown discount into perspective. Let’s say his worth is $30 million a year. Let’s say the Twins offer him $25 million. I mean…what’s $5 million less? It’s 17% less than $30 million. Would you take a 17% pay cut to stay with a company you like? The percentage gets even worse with less money; $25 to $20 million, 20% cut. I don’t know anybody in my current tax bracket that wouldn’t take a job for 20% more compensation. It’s tough to understand this because we don’t make millions of dollars. A $5 million cut seems like peanuts to us…just like a $25,000 cut from a $100,000 job would seem like peanuts to somebody making $20,000 a year. Is it peanuts to the person making $100,000? Absolutely not! Let’s not assume that $5 million is peanuts to people making millions either.

Plus, if he signs with the Yankees or Red Sox, he DOES have a better change of winning the World Series. Can he win a World Series with the Twins? Yes. Does he have a better statistical chance on a Yankees or Red Sox team? Yes.