Cuddyer’s Contract?
Tim Dierkes has just released a list of the worst current contracts in baseball. He came up with 44 of them. And while I figured the Twins have signed some dumb contracts recently, the fact that they have to be current basically narrows it down to just Mike Lamb — and he threw out everything below $15M total, so I didn’t think any Twins would be on the list.
But I was wrong. He listed Michael Cuddyer’s $24M deal as one of the 44 worst current contracts in baseball. I think that’s a little harsh. The contract is for 3 years and an $8M AAV — is that completely unreasonable?
Granted, Cuddyer’s 2008 was worthless given the injuries (actually worse than worthless according to FanGraphs, who put him at -$1.3M for 2008). But that doesn’t necessarily make the contract bad.
He’d established a certain level of performance — worth $10.8M in 2006 and $8.4M in 2007 — which were his 27 and 28 year old seasons. You could reasonably expect him to decline 10% per year from his prime years during the contract, which puts his expected value for 2008, 2009, and 2010 at $7.5M, $6.8M, and $6.1M. Baseball Prospectus is considerably less enthusiastic about his chances, projecting him to be worth $4.5M in 2009 and $4.6M in 2010, though most of that is probably due to the “No Twins are capable of hitting a baseball because Minnesota is really far away from anywhere important and also BP is based on the south side of Chicago” factor in their calculations.
The Twins obviously thought Cuddyer would be able to stay healthy and decline slightly less rapidly than 10% per year given his late breakout. It wasn’t a completely unreasonable assumption at the time, and it’s not out of the question that he returns to his 2007 form this year in 400-450 PA or so. Additionally, Cuddyer is a fan favorite and one of the leaders in the clubhouse, which tends not only to be ignored by the statistical community, but even villainized. I disagree with their hatred for friendly players who show leadership, and I think teams do value that. Especially the Twins.
And while we currently have a logjam in the outfield and Cuddyer may well have been the odd man out if it weren’t for the contract, nobody could have predicted that Denard Span would break out like this. And there’s nothing wrong with having too many good players.
If Cuddyer continues to suck and get hurt like he did in 2008, the contract will obviously be a disaster, performance-wise. But if he rebounds to a level anything like his 2006 or 2007, the contract won’t end up being that bad.
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yeap, Cuddaver’s contract is that bad. Any way you look it. He had a single above average year on the plate, his right field defense is perennially ranked at the bottom of the league (even with that supposedly great arm). At some point Smith might have to bite the bullet on that (Ryan’s) mistake…
As assistant GM, Smith was often in charge of contracts, so its probably his bullet to bite. Cuddyer doesn’t have a “supposedly great arm”, he has a great arm. Since 2006 he is second in the AL in outfield assists behind Nick Markakis. Now, I know throwing people out is only part of playing defense, but he holds his own out there. I’m not even a Cuddyer fan, and I agree it was foolish (Joe Mays-ish?) to hand Cuddyer a big contract after one good year. He was decent in 2007, but my guess is we won’t see 2006 Cuddyer again, and the best we will se will be 2007 Cuddyer. I would rather see the Twins bite this bullet, as you mentioned, and use him as a 4th OF/DH against tough lefties than play him everyday because they feel obligated to due to his contract.
Cuddyer is the forgotten man for some fans right now, but he CAN supply some of that right-handed power we’ve been itching for. He also gets bonus points from me for playing off the baggie in right perfectly, too. Watching him gun down Jeter at second never gets old. Cuddy’s in his prime, and without freak injuries slowing him down, I’d bet he ends the year somewhere between his ‘06 and ‘07 numbers.
If Cuddy and Delmon both improve from last season and Casilla and Span don’t regress too much, with Joe Crede or even the platoon holding down third (Buscher and Harris aren’t too shabby), Carlos Gomez taking a few pitches (and he’s shown power potential), Kubel hitting away, and M&M being their usual awesome selves- this could be a pretty impressive lineup. That’s the cool thing- the Twins have lots of combinations to try to achieve success if someone falters.
Yes it could be awesome. But that is too many ifs for me to rely on. Kubel should be fine, but I don’t know if we can count on Gomez taking pitches. Although word out of camp says he matured. Does that mean he matured from a JV high school hitter to Varsity? Or from whatever the hell he was last year to a true major leaguer, obviously I hope its the latter.
True, it is a lot of ifs- and I’m certainly not penciling in playoff dates yet. But I definitely think there are more reasons to think this will be a winning team than not.
The thing is though that while there are a lot of “ifs” going around here, we don’t necessarily need all of them to happen in order to be successful.
IF Kubel hits. IF Mauer & Morneau are their normal selves. IF Span & Casilla don’t regress too much. IF Cuddyer is healthy and rebounds a little. IF Delmon finds his power stroke. IF Gomez matures a little as a hitter. IF Crede’s back is healthy.
We don’t need ALL of those things to happen in order to be a good team. If half of them come true we’re contending.
Although if a certain combo don’t come true it could really hurt us. If Gomez doesn’t mature AND Span regresses a lot, we have no true CF. but for some reason I think Span is going to have another good year. He just seemed to locked in for it NOT to happen again. There. That is my one uber-optimistic comment of the season.
I usually look for good rookies to regress significantly in their second year, but I don’t see that happening with Denard.
He succeeded with a combination of a good eye, patience, and a compact swing. Those typically aren’t things that desert a player after a good rookie year. (Those aren’t things that a rookie typically has.)
and this time last year he was widely considered a non-prospect who was third in line to be the CF for 2008 behind Gomez and JASON PRIDIE. For good reason too, his track record prior to recently has been dreadful. Pridie was polished and seemed to be a suitable stop-gap until Gomez was ready. Well, I was wrong.
Nobody foresaw the difference Denard’s eye surgery was going to have.
Also Torii told him to “play angry,” which he claims helped a lot. I don’t see how being angry would help you draw walks, though. Seeing better probably has a lot more to do with it.
[...] all that talk a while back about Cuddyer’s contract? I talked about it back in March; while Tim Dierkes rated his deal as one of the worst current contracts in baseball, I pointed out [...]