Mauer and waivers

No matter how much certain talk-radio
mouths may desire it, the Twins aren't
waiving Joe Mauer good-bye.

Ken Rosenthal, who is probably the best of the baseball rumormongerers (which isn't saying much) touched off a bit of a furor with a late Tuesday night report speculating on a Joe-Mauer-to-the-Red-Sox waiver deal.

It's pure barnyard waste material. Joe Mauer isn't going anywhere. Period.

Joe Mauer has a full no-trade clause. Joe Mauer has something over $160 million left on his contract. And despite the "best" efforts of Dan Barrerio and Jim Souhan to make it so, Minnesota has not become a living hell for the St. Paul native.

Again: Joe Mauer isn't getting traded.

Rosenthal knows this, of course; he's been covering baseball a long time. He knows that everybody gets put on waivers in August. Everybody. It might mean something; it usually doesn't.

In this case, it doesn't.

Why, you may ask, would the Twins bother putting Mauer on waivers if they have no intent of acting on them? Two reasons:

• It's cover for everybody else. Nothing personal about putting you on waivers, Terry Ryan or Rob Antony can tell a player. We run everybody through waivers. Even Mauer.
• It might serve as conversation starter. Somebody calls about Mauer, and the talks can be deflected to other players.

Rosenthal, as I say, may be the best of the rumormongerers. But he's just a rumormongerer, and therefore not to be trusted.