Why Stop at $120 Million?

In 1981 the Los Angeles Lakers offered a 25 year contract to Magic Johnson worth $25 million dollars. He gladly signed the contract. It was a brilliant move by the Lakers to lock up a superstar player before his career truly took off. The Minnesota Twins should take a page from the Lakers playbook when negotiating with Joe Mauer this offseason. Don't even come to the table with a 5, 6 or even a 7 year contract. Yes, they will have to pay Joe $20 million a year. So offer him a 10 year $200 million dollar contract. Forget $100 or $120 million. Go big! Joe Mauer is worth it. In an age of athletes behaving selfishly and like spoiled children Joe Mauer is squeaky clean, puts the team first and is the ultimate home town boy story, which the Twins love. Statistically he has won the batting title 3 of the past 4 seasons, has a career OBP of .408 and a SLG of .483. Mauer's OPS+ last season was 170 (meaning he was 70% better than the average hitter) and for his career it's 136. Simply, Joe Mauer is the best hitter to ever put on a Twins uniform in addition to being the best defensive catcher in team history. Let's have fun and look into the future. The Baseball Think Factory came up with a ZiPS career projection for Joe Mauer:

Bat. Avg: .318 (Cochrane .320, Berra .285, Bench .267) Mauer=2nd

OBP: .403 (Cochrane .419, Berra .348, Bench .342) Mauer=2nd

SLG: .477 (Berra .482, Cochrane .478, Bench .476) Mauer=3rd

Games: 2306 (Bench 2,158, Berra 2,120, Cochrane 1,482) Mauer=1st

AB: 8616 (Bench 7,658, Berra 7,555, Cochrane 5,169) Mauer=1st

Runs: 1377 (Berra 1,175, Bench 1,091, Cochrane 1,041) Mauer=1st

Hits: 2743 (Berra 2,150, Bench 2,048, Cochrane 1,652) Mauer=1st

Doubles: 491 (Bench 381, Cochrane 333, Berra 321) Mauer=1st

Triples: 43 (Cochrane 64, Berra 49, Bench 24) Mauer=3rd

HR: 263 (Bench 389, Berra 358, Cochrane 119) Mauer=3rd

RBI: 1296 (Berra 1,430, Bench 1,376, Cochrane 832) Mauer=3rd

BB: 1265 (Bench 891, Cochrane 857, Berra 704) Mauer=1st

OPS+: 133 (Cochrane 128, Bench 126, Berra 125) Mauer=1st

How do those numbers stack up against the all time greatest catchers? Statistics guru Rob Neyer has stated his top 3 catchers all time are:

1. Mickey Cochrane

2. Johnny Bench

3. Yogi Berra

Compare their career numbers to the numbers Mauer is projected at. Mauer's career rank is listed last in bold. At the very least he will be one of the top three catchers of all time, if not the best. Is he worth $200 million? Of course he is.