Michael Cuddyer A Hot Commodity
December 13th, 2011
One of the aspects I love about baseball’s offseason is when the most random player becomes a hot commodity on the open market. Latest case in point: Michael Cuddyer.
Cuddyer has a career 14.6 WAR in eight full Major League seasons, but yet he has been one of the more popular players this winter. Right now, there are three teams in the mix for him according to Jon Heyman. Those teams are the Minnesota Twins (Josh Willingham isn’t officially signed yet), Seattle Mariners, and Colorado Rockies.
The numbers being tossed around for Cuddyer are three years and $7 – $9 million annually. That’s a lot of boxes of ziti for an average one-way player, who has averaged just 133 games a year since 2004. And oh yeah, he is 32-years-old. How is he older than Kelly Shoppach? That’s baffling to me.
I would feel much better about Cuddyer at two years for $13 million and a club option for 2014. That probably won’t happen. He will get three guaranteed years from some team. Most likely the Mariners. They are desperate.
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The Cards should look to him over Beltran. Can play 1B, RF and even a little 2B.
I think he would be a good fit for the Cards as well, but I see Carlos Beltran in their future.