Whoa..

Ok. I'll get this off my chest right off the bat. I'm an unadulterated, diehard, Minnesota Twins fan. Actually a diehard Minnesota MLB or NFL team fan (yes, that means the Vikings), and I have certain favorite players on both as any good fan does. One of which is Twins catcher Joe Mauer. Who was just put on waivers. Barely 2 seasons after they gave him an 8-year, $184 million dollar contract. Holy smokes.
Now before I burn up my jets and disown the team, there are several things to consider about this move:

• He was placed on the "Revocable Trade Waivers (I'll shorten it to RTW)"
• Because it is the "Revocable" waivers, the team can withdraw the player without actually making a move with said player
• Mauer has a "no-trade clause" in his contract. This means that he has to approve any trade, so he can wreck any deal if he doesn't want to get traded to a different team.

All this means that there are many variables going into any move that the Twins might make with Mauer. Also there is the fact that he's a St. Paul native (St. Paul and Minneapolis sit right next to each other and make up the vast majority of the Twins' fanbase), meaning he's a local boy and may not, for that reason, not leave the team.
In terms of the RTW,  it is a common occurrence for teams to place almost their whole rosters on the waiver wire around this time of year in a kind of "fishing for interest" event. If another team places a claim on one or more of their players, they can use it as kind of a gauge to test interest in their players and to see what kind of deal they can make.
Now, if a deal was to be made, who would be good fits for Mauer and his gargantuan contract? David Schoenfield looked into this in his blog. He mentioned the Texas Rangers, who in the offseason picked up ex-Twins reliever Joe Nathan, would be a good fit based on available cash and a stacked farm system.
Finally all I have to say about this whole waivers thing is this: the Twins overpaid for Joe Mauer. No two ways around that. They paid for his MVP award. They paid for his local-boy status. They paid for his status as fan favorite. They paid for just about everything and then a little extra. They're a small-market team, albeit a really popular small-market team, but still small-market. Up until they shelled out for Mauer and Justin Morneau, they were in the bottom 10 in the MLB in payroll. After? Top 15.
And that's all I got.
Resources: Mauer placed on Trade Waivers (ESPN.com)
                 Would anyone want Joe Mauer?