Minnesota Twins Joe Mauer Wins AL MVP Award

Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer, age 26, wins the 2009 MLB's American League's Most Valuable Player award. This was not a surprising win at all-Joe Mauer lead the American League in batting average (.365), on-base % (.444), and slugging % (.587).

In a 27 to 28 vote by Baseball Writers Association of America, Joe Mauer takes the American League MVP award by a landslide. (The stray vote keeping this from a unanimous win went to Detroit's Miguel Cabrera from Kezio Konishi of Kyodo News out of Seattle, Washington).

Despite starting the season with a back injury and missing all of April, Joe Mauer hit a home run in his first at-bat after the injury and went on to have an amazing season for the Minnesota Twins. He set a major league record for the best batting average for a catcher. In addition to the MVP award, this season Joe Mauer also received a Gold Glove award and the batting title award. He's the first player to make this achievement-sometimes known as the "Triple Crown" since the Seattle Mariners Ichiro Suzuki accomplished this in 2001.

With the exception of a few stars like Mauer, catchers are not known for their great batting average and are notoriously bad hitters. Joe Mauer is only the second MLB catcher in 33 years to win the MVP award in the award's history.

Runner-ups to the AL MVP award were Yankees' Mark Teixeria, Yankees' Derek Jeter, Detroit's Miguel Cabrera, and Angels' Kendry Morales, respectively.

In accordance with his contract Joe Mauer receives a $100,000 bonus for winning the MVP award.

The Minnesota Twins won an unlikely AL Central Division title in the 2009 season, coming back from a 3-game deficit to overtake the Detroit Tigers, eventually going to a one-game "play in" at the end of the season. Joe Mauer helped the Twins tremendously during their unlikely, but thrilling run. A candidate's post-season performance is not taken into consideration for this award-good thing too, since the Minnesota Twins put up a dismal performance in the ALDS against the New York Yankees.

Minnesota Twins fans are quite fond of Joe Mauer-he's a hometown boy, born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. His contract expires at the end of 2010. Though the Minnesota Twins are not known for opening up their pocketbook and signing star players to costly contracts, the Minnesota Twins are expected to re-sign Joe Mauer to a new deal in the near future. Joe Mauer is a huge fan favorite - hopefully the Minnesota Twins will pay whatever he wants to keep him here in town. With the new stadium opening next season, Twins' brass have no more excuses regarding the Metrodome and its low profits!