THURSDAY, 8:48am: Mauer told Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that contract talks "haven't really started."
WEDNESDAY, 2:00pm: The Twins have begun extension talks with Joe Mauer's agent Ron Shapiro, according to Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. That hardly qualifies as news, but I'm guessing Twins fans on this site crave every detail.
Mauer, 27 in April, hit .365/.444/.587 in 606 plate appearances this year. He'll earn $12.5MM in 2010, the last year of an extension signed in February of '07.