After locking up AL MVP, it's time for Twins to lock up Joe Mauer

Great success! After a few months of the intangibles crowd being threatened with severe online mockery by the rest of us, Minnesota's Joe Mauer(notes) was rightly awarded with the first American League MVP of his career on Monday afternoon.The stud Twin Cities catcher received 27 of 28 first-place votes and it isn't hard to see why. Despite missing the beginning of the season with a back injury, Mauer won the AL batting title (.365) for the third time in the last four years while also leading the league in OBP (.444) and slugging (.587). That's a slash-line Triple Crown that hasn't been achieved in the AL since George Brett took it for the Royals in 1980. Throw in some Gold Glove defense behind the plate, career-best totals for homers and RBIs and the Twins' late surge to take the AL Central from the Tigers and Mauer easily earned enough support to outpace the Yankees' tandem of Mark Teixeira(notes) and Derek Jeter(notes) than finished behind him. He's th...