Quick hits: Paul Konerko, Joe Mauer, prospects, and basketball

December 23, 12:31 PMChicago White Sox ExaminerJJ Stankevitz

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Could Joe Mauer leave Minnesota for more money after 2010?

We're in the midst of another dull day on the White Sox front—but that all could change soon.

• Mark Teixeira is expected to sign a contract today—we just don't know with what team yet. However, what we do know is that it almost certainly will not be with the Los Angeles Angels, meaning the defending AL West champs could be looking to fill a hole at first base. Kendry Morales is a likely in-house option, but if the Angels look outside of their organization, Paul Konerko would be the most likely candidate if they make a trade. Ever since Konerko spurned the Angels to stay in Chicago after 2005, it seems like every offseason there are rumors of a Konerko-to-LA trade. However, the Angels always had Casey Kotchman, and predictably, the whispers never amounted to anything. Now that Kotchman is in Atlanta, these trade rumors may actually amount to something. The Angels are in a "win-now" mode, as they only have a window of one more year until Vladimir Guerrero's contract ends and the A's massive rebuilding project begins to bear fruit. This could lead the Angels to make a strong play at Konerko and maybe even Jermaine Dye, although the asking price for both of those players would be a good amount of young pitching, which the Angels may not want to give up. However, Konerko is finally a realistic option for the Angels—that is, if he waives his no-trade clause to go to Orange County.

• Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote that the Red Sox are already "salivating" over Twins catcher Joe Mauer, who will become a free agent in 2010. It's hard to picture Mauer leaving his hometown of the Twin Cities, but given the state of the economy, it's no guarantee that the Twins will be able to come up with the money to pay Mauer in two years. It wouldn't surprise me if Mauer took a hometown discount to stay in Minnesota, but if he has the chance to have the next three or four generations of the Mauer family set for life money-wise, he might just consider that offer from Boston if it's astronomically higher than the one from Minnesota. Of course, that's just pure speculation (and maybe wishful thinking) on my part, because everything I've read and heard about Mauer would indicate that he might be the one guy in baseball who would take a massive hometown discount and stay in his hometown. Either way, it'll be interesting to see how his situation plays out over the next couple of years.

• Prospect guru John Sickels released his top 20 White Sox prospects, and not surprisingly, Gordon Beckham heads the list. The Dayan Viciedo grade may be a little low, but he has a fair caveat in that he (like most of us) hasn't seen Viciedo play yet. What I found the most interesting about the list was that Lance Broadway didn't make it—which really isn't all that big of a surprise. The fact that Broadway and Kyle McCulloch—the White Sox' first-round picks in 2005 and 2006—did not make the list is a pretty strong indictment of how the farm system was run a few years ago. Both Broadway and McCulloch never had the upside to be strong starting pitchers that you would expect to be drafted in the first round. In fact, when they left college, both Broadway and McCulloch were pretty close to their ceilings—which never really were that high. In the last two years, the Sox luckily went away from this drafting approach and took more high-ceiling players like Beckham and Aaron Poreda. The farm system is far from perfect, but lately the Sox have pushed it in the right direction.

• Finally, a non-baseball note: My school is now in the top 25 in both basketball and football (and, hey, even Mizzou's baseball team should be in the top 25). Mizzou takes on Illinois in the annual Braggin' Rights game tonight in St. Louis, and this year is probably the Tigers' best chance at knocking off the Illini, something they haven't done since 1999. The key to winning the game for Mizzou will be the play of forwards Leo Lyons and Demarre Carroll, who both have struggled against the 2-3 zone this year. If Illinois comes out running a 2-3, the game shifts into the hands of Mizzou's perimeter players. That means the mercurial Matt Lawrence will be shooting a lot of threes, and he's very much a "feast or famine" type player. If he's hot, he's hot, but if he's cold, man is he cold. Mizzou's exciting freshman class will see a lot of playing time today as well, and if somebody (Marcus Denmon, Kimmie English) gets hot, Mizzou may stand a chance. However, none of these things could happen for Mizzou and they still could win by running Illinois into the ground with the "fastest 40 minutes in basketball." M-I-Z...