I think this is a good point. The people who post on this site are smart baseball nerds who play things strictly by the numbers. But to your average fan, your star players have value beyond that and I think sometimes that's forgotten. Mauer and Morneau are all that's left of a strong late-2000s team, and both potentially have years of productivity left in them - modulo, of course, injuries. They could both be around as the veteran part of a better team in two or three years, and if you get rid of them, your average fan is going to lose even more interest. And average fans need to be interested, because they need to show up at games to fund the payroll.