With the speculation recently about whether the Twins should, or would, look into trading Joe Mauer, there have also been conversations about how much it would take to sign the two-time batting champion and reigning American League MVP.

Mauer enters the 2010 season in the last year of a four-year deal.  At the time the contract seemed like a no brainer; buy out the arbitration years of a very good, young player, and deal with the inevitable “how can we resign this player” concerns when the time comes.

Well, the time has come.

Not only is Mauer a homegrown talent, but the real-life Bill Brasky is also from St. Paul, so that makes him the face, identity, persona, and thesaurus, of the franchise. He’s also the entire reason the Twins have been or will be relevant on the Big Stage in the near future. So what’s a player like that worth?

The stats speak for themselves: a career batting average of .327, a career OPS a shade under .900, and he’s coming off a career year which saw his season high homerun total jump from 13 to 28. All trends are pointing upwards for this soon to be – April 19^th – 27 year old.

How much is arguably the game’s best player, playing a premium defensive position, worth?

Instead of giving the “he’s worth whatever someone is willing to pay him” line – let’s remember that doesn’t always ring true, Yuniesky Betancourt made $2.3 million last year to be the worst player in baseball – we should look at it from the Twins’ perspective.

We can be pretty well assured that the Yankees will offer Mauer a contract north of $200 million, so does it make sense for the Twins to offer Mauer the same knowing how big a chunk that would take out of their overall payroll? Absolutely.

Rob Neyer recently speculated if a team could afford to spend 25 percent of its payroll on one player and continue to succeed. The Twins are moving into a new stadium and have just locked up centerfielder Denard Span – buying out his arbitration years and a year a free agency – so there is already a presumed influx of money coming, as well as future money being saved on a key everyday player.  Add in that the Twins have Ben Revere and Aaron Hicks on the way to be cheap alternatives to the expiring contracts of Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel, and Minnesota could easily justify how paying Mauer so much could fit within their economic model.

Whether it’s best for baseball that Mauer stay in Minnesota is a discussion for another day. He is almost assuredly to be offered a contract mirroring or coming close to the 10-year, $275 million deal Alex Rodriguez signed in 2007. Is Mauer worth it? Yes.

And to Minnesota he’s worth so much more.