Fire Gardy

This morning, the Twins announced that they’ve picked up Cuddyer’s option for 2011, and will be paying him $10.5M; so Cuddyer will be on the team for the next two years. While it seems weird to me that his contract required the Twins to decide on his 2011 option within 5 days of the end of the 2009 World Series, it’s not at all surprising that they picked it up. Given the reality of his contract, the Gomez trade virtually assured that the Twins would keep Cuddyer around.

As I quoted this morning, Rob Neyer’s take on the Gomez trade was that it was a mistake because the Twins need four outfielders in case Cuddyer gets injured.

So how does Neyer feel about the Twins keeping Cuddyer?

For a franchise that routinely cries poor, $10.5 million is a decent chunk of change.
Particularly for a player like Michael Cuddyer.

He then admits that Cuddyer was worth roughly that much in two of the last three years, before pointing out that by the time 2011 rolls around, Cuddyer is surely destined to be half the player he is today — after all, that’s what happens when a baseball player turns 32.

That airtight logic leads to this conclusion:

No, the difference between Cuddyer’s salary and his value is not a great deal of money. But the Twins have a history of overspending on decent players while complaining about the high price of truly great players. Remember, it was just a year ago that they couldn’t afford Johan Santana but quite happily blew $9 million on Craig Monroe and Livan Hernandez. And if they’re not able to keep Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer in the long term, their money mismanagement is simply going to drop them from contention.

Firstly, I don’t see how the $9M the Twins spent on Monroe and Livan prevented them from spending $120M+ to keep Santana. Secondly, Morneau already has a long term contract, and will be with the team through (at least) 2013. Thirdly, passing on Cuddyer’s option would have been enough for Mauer to forget about signing with the Twins; players want to be on a team with other good players, and Mauer has basically said as much already.

But perhaps most importantly, I just don’t understand how Neyer thinks it was foolish for the Twins to lose Gomez because they need four outfielders, and thinks it was foolish for the Twins to keep Cuddyer because they’d be better off with fewer than three.

The non-Cuddyer RF options for the Twins would have been:

• Jermaine Dye (36 year old Type A free agent)
• Vladimir Guerrero (35 year old Type A free agent)
• Austin Kearns (30 year old not-event-Type-B piece of crap)
• Xavier Nady (31 years old and not as good as Cuddyer)
• Eric Hinske (32 years old and worse than both Kubel and Cuddyer both offensively and defensively)
• Or an internal option like the replacement-level Jason Pridie or the probably-not-ready Rene Tosoni

Or they could switch Delmon Young to RF and go for an LF:

• Garret Anderson (38 years old)
• Jason Bay (31 year old Type A free agent)
• Marlon Byrd (32 years old and probably very expensive)
• Johnny Damon (36 year old Type A free agent, and expensive)
• Matt Holliday (30 year old Type A free agent who’s demanding a Teixeira-sized deal)
• Wily Mo Pena (28 year old former-prospect who once had the potential to be a Cuddyer-like player, but never panned out)
• Gary Sheffield (41 year old malcontent who can’t really play any more)
• The same Pridie/Tosoni options as before

Does anyone really think the Twins would have been better served by sending a message to Cuddyer that they don’t want him around and to Mauer that they’re not dedicated to putting a team together around him, and by giving up a first round pick to spend more money on an older player who’s already been showing signs of age-related decline?

It’s easy to say that spending $10M on Cuddyer is a foolish thing to do, and that therefore the Twins aren’t allowed to complain about not having enough money to sign elite-level players. But when the actual alternatives are giving up a top draft pick for the right to spend more money on an older player who’s essentially the same as Cuddyer, is the criticism really valid?

Once again, Neyer’s Twins-related analysis leaves a whole lot to be desired.