Assessing Cuddyer’s place in Twins history

His number won’t be retired now. Of he stayed here his whole career, it would’ve been.

I’m going to miss him.

Apparently Cuddyer is number 1 in team history for being overvalued by fans. He’s had two good seasons and a couple of middling ones.

I can’t believe the Hrbek bashing either. Good grief.

Cuddy’s numbers are deceiving. Sure the ERA is a sparkling 0.00, but the secondary numbers concern me… 9.0 BB/9 and a WHIP of 3.00? Hardly worth 3/31mil if you ask me.

Just another greedy baseball player. No loyalty to people that have barely been paying you to feed your children for 11 years. Im so glad that now he is able to. Sports is such a joke.

I saw Allison play a lot and he was a better overall player, not really close. I’d compare him more to Hunter. He also played his prime in the era when the mound was higher and typical era’s and hitting stats were a lot lower.

Ok, Cuddy was a great player. He is worth the money he got from the Rockies. One thing that most people do not realize, and I say this with several friends working in Twins front office, is that Cuddy did not like the new batch of younger Twins. Did not like their approach to the game, their attitude, or the personality. I could have told you he was gone before the epic collapse. Kubel, he is another I wouldn’t bank on coming back. He is a California boy and wants to play closer to home.

The State of the Twins is not promising. We saw our upper tier prospects last year, and it wasn’t pretty. The Twins have had several years of poor drafting. In order for the Twins to be competitive, they must draft better than most teams. A fundamental change in philosophy is needed in regards to their pitching. We can no longer go after guys with a low 90s fastball, change, curve, and slider like Brad Radke. You wonder why our starters get rocked? It’s because they are all the same. Over a 3 game series, teams will beat up on the same delivery, pitch type thrown, etc. See our playoff runs over the last decade for proof.

The 2012 Twins, in order to possibly flirt with a 500 campaign must keep both Mauer and Morneau on the field. They do this by using Mornaeu as a DH. He is in his last year of his contract. He bounces back, awesome, if not, he retires. You play Mauer at 1st several times per week, since he has proven he can’t catch more than 120 games per year. Target Field is a pitchers ball park, so don’t expect hitters to seek it out as their power numbers will drop, effecting future contract negotiations. The farm system is in shambles. The Twins must string together several good to great classes. If they can do this, 3-5 years down the road they will be competitive. Until then, not looking good.

Cuddyer was quite good the past few years, but I still say his soft play in the field is what cost them the ALCS against the Angels back in the day. The Angels kept hitting it at him and he just didn’t have the hustle back then to get the ball.

Would I trade the past 2-3 years of Cuddyer’s talent with a world series appearance in 2002? You bet I would.

Cuddyer might be the most revered average ball-player the Twins have seen since the turn of the century.
People say we’ll miss his bat. In many ways, Matt LeCroy (he, with a 114 OPS+ in 2003, 110 in 2005) could have filled that gap (Cuddyer had three seasons out of 11 over a 112, and six seasons under 100). Do we miss LeCroy that much?
His arm, though showing some wonderful strength here and there, was erratic, and he GAVE UP 25 more runs than an “average right fielder” defensively. (Rdrs statistic)
His “battle-my-tail-off” quotient was half of LNP’s.

Was he a personable guy? Absolutely- I’ve mailed him cards twice, and he signed and mailed them both back. However, any talk of HOF or number retiring is ludacris.

Gaetti was a great player for us in the 1980’s and 90’s. Why haven’t we considered his number?
I think the same will be the case for Cuddy.