Tuesday Twins: Joe Mauer set to Mauer it up in his 15th MLB season

Baseball is almost here! Here’s today’s links:

• Even though it’s the last season of Joe Mauer’s contract with the Twins and I’m having like 27 breakdowns about it a day, Mauer is keeping pretty cool, telling the Pioneer Press’s Brian Murphy, “I’m not going to get too far ahead of myself and enjoy where we’re at. This is my 15th year in my big-league career, and I’m just going to enjoy the heck out of it.”
• Murphy’s piece also includes the sad (but not surprising) tidbit that Mauer has found fans’ complaints about him “discouraging”.
• According to Twitter, it’s also National Joe Day, so cheer up, Joe!

• If you were planning to go see Joe on buying tickets for the Twins Home Opener on April 5th, you’re going to have to look on StubHub or something because it’s official sold out. Who here already got their tickets?
• After briefly releasing him, the Rangers have re-signed old friend Bartolo Colon. He’s apparently penciled in to start their game on April 2nd against the Athletics. (The Rangers also released and re-signed old friend Trevor Plouffe, but he’s starting the year in Triple-A. The whole release-and-re-sign thing is a way around paying a retention fee.)
• Gabriel Moya and Tyler Kinley are still battling out for the final spot in the Twins bullpen, and it looks like Moya might be leading the battle right now. The Twins play their final exhibition game of the spring today against the Nationals in Washington, DC.
• The Twins also released this strange video of players and coaches making their best looking strikeout calls. Joe’s is.... very Joe.