According to a report on ESPN, the Twins have not approached Torii Hunter with a deal since the end of the season. This is, of course, Hunter's side of the story; Fox reported during the season that Hunter turned down a deal for 3 years, $45 million, and Hunter laughed as if the deal either hadn't been offered, or the numbers were way off. But what struck me was what Torii had to say:

"There's other stuff, inside stuff, that people don't know about," Hunter told the paper. "Money has something to do with it, but trust me, that's just a percentage. We need to talk about stuff that needs to change before we start to get into deep talks."

I wonder what "other stuff" there is that's holding up a deal. It's possible (perhaps probable) that this other stuff is nothing more than the number of years on the deal, but the way Hunter phrased it makes it seem like he has issues with the team or the organization that he feels should be fixed before he makes a deal with them. I'm curious as to what he feels these issues are, and whether they're legitimate or he's just posturing for the media to make himself look like the good guy when he ditches us for the big bucks. The first part of his statement (read the article) definitely has that kind of tone.

I'm starting to think about what it'll be like when the most vocal and media-friendly player on the Twins is Michael Cuddyer. Torii Hunter has definitely used his time as the face of the franchise to boost his marketability and his perceived value to a team, oftentimes to the detriment of the team; this practice has increased drastically over the course of the last year, and that tells me it's time for Torii to go. If money is more important to him than the team or camaraderie with the other players, then the team (and the fans) need to demonstrate to Hunter what's actually important to the Twins.