Twins CEO Jim Pohlad sat down with the team's beat writers at Target Field today for a wide-ranging Q&A session. He said the team promised catcher Joe Mauer and his agent, Ron Shapiro, that they wouldn't discuss their negotiations.
Speaking in general terms, Pohlad did say that the Twins remain opposed to giving players deferred compensation. This is something that could come up in Mauer's extension talks, since both sides are trying to find ways to pay Mauer's salary and still build a winner around him.
If Mauer were to make $25 million per year, for example, the Twins could pay him $20 million and defer $5 million down the road with interest. But the Twins have not delved into deferred compensation for at least a decade and have no plans on changing their philosophy.
"There's a ton of real-life examples of that kind of thinking," Pohlad said. "It's either going to be somebody else's problem, or we'll worry about that later. And eventually you've got to worry about it. And at that point, when you've got to worry about it, it affects your current operation. So it's really not a good thing. You've got to pay the money no matter what, you might as well do it while a player's playing for you."
For now, the longest Twins contract is Justin Morneau's six-year, $80 million deal, but Pohlad is not opposed to signing a player for a longer term.
"I don't think that six is a magic number in any situation," Pohlad said. "Each deal is different. It's always a function of term and dollars per year, but total value is what drives it. We do not have a term policy."
Last month, at TwinsFest, a fan asked Pohlad during a radio interview, "When are you going to tell [GM] Bill Smith to sign Mauer?"
"We all tell him that," Pohlad said Monday. "We're all driven from that because we want Joe Mauer as a part of the Minnesota Twins."