The Rockies' willingness to consider a three-year offer to free agent right fielder Michael Cuddyer makes them a serious suitor, writes Troy E. Renck of the Denver Post. The Rockies freed up $7MM in yesterday's Huston Street trade. They have mild interest in Cody Ross as a complementary piece and are not pursuing Josh Willingham, writes Renck.
The Twins reportedly have a three-year offer worth $24-25MM on the table for Cuddyer. GM Terry Ryan told MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger he still thinks they have a chance. Ryan would like to get something done sooner than later. Cuddyer's wife just gave birth to twin girls, however, so Cuddyer may be occupied with diaper duty.
Diaper dooty?
the guy just had twins. He really can’t leave Minnesota now, can he?
I’ll believe it when the ink is dry…
Please let this happen – I want Willingham with the Twins. Better bat. Not as “plucky” as Cuddy which makes me fear the Twins will overpay to keep him. LET HIM GO GARDY
Careful what you wish for. Willingham’s OBP fell nearly 40 points coming to the AL and his 150 strike outs will drive you nuts. He might have a little more pop than Cuddy, stats like oWAR, wOBA, wRC still give the offensive edge to Cuddy. And that doesn’t take Willingham’s bad LF defense or adjust numbers between leagues into account.
3/25m is an overpay IMO for Cuddyer. Just saying.. throwing a little more out to Willingham would probably be a better idea.
He’d put up some solid numbers in that stadium for 81 games a year.
that may be but will he fall off a cliff on the road?
This is nothing more than more yarn being spun by O’Dowd…he gets way too much credit for being a good GM when he is anything but…
for similar money willingham has more upside. if he can crank in oakland he can crank anywhere.
if they gave willingham 3/33 he would go and hit 30 plus homers there annually.cuddyer is goog for 15-20.
So Willingham’s hrs totals would go up playing his home games at Coors but Cuddyer’s would go down if he was to play at Coors 80 times a year? Got it.
If I’m the Rockies which I’m not, because I’m a human, I would sign Willingham over Cuddyer.
I wonder if the Cardinals will check in on outfielders with Albert leaving and Berkman moving to first.
Maybe Beltran winds up in St. Louis now?
I like the fit. But it doesn’t seem like enough. Hopefully it’s only a two year deal or so. Cuz we have Adams and Craig and Taveras all coming up.
I just can’t see Cuddyer covering enough ground to play the OF at Coors.
Dex and Cargo can easily help out with that….they did it with a very bad statistical fielder in Smith.
This doesn’t improve the OF defense, though. It’s probably not enough of a difference to be noticeable. It’s still about pitching, though, and the Rockies have not addressed the rotation as of yet.
I definitely agree its no upgrade on defense, what I was trying to make a point about is Smith/Spilly are not all star defenders and we lucky to have two guys at the other OFer positions to make up for that with their speed and glove.
Pitching is definitely what needs to be addressed but I think O’Dowd would much rather give Cuddyer 3 yrs in the 8 mm range (which would be a nice addition in that 5 hole) rather than throw 12-15 at Kuroda when you don’t even know if he truly wants to be there in the first place. I’d love to see Oswalt but he’s already been ruled out.
From a marketing perspective, can you imagine the creative Twins Territory ads that could be done if Cuddy resigns with his new bundles of joy? Cute.
300 Days of Sunshine in Denver each year
I am hoping Cuddy will make a decision soon so GM Ryan can move on to trying to find the Twins the 5th starting pitcher.
solid #’s
what’s the matter with irish oatmeal ????
They would have to offer 3/30+ imo. I think Cuddyer would leave $4-7 MM on the table easily. A Twin had twins! haha!
I’d go 3/$30 to see Cuddyer replace Drew in RF.
I don’t see how he’d leave the Twins for the Rockies with nearly identical offers from both clubs. Someone’s gotta step up and admit that they’re undervaluing him by at least a couple million. I don’t see how the Twins can’t go to 3/$30 if they offered 3/$25. I’m sure that’d get it done and it’s what Cuddyer deserves as a consistently productive veteran and beloved Twinkie.
Love Cuddy, but the smart baseball move at this point is letting him sign elsewhere to take the draft picks, and then going after Willingham to replace both him and Jason Kubel in the lineup.
Willingham is a Type A free agent as well so Twins would turn around and have to give up draft picks as well…
Nope, Willingham is a modified type A under the new CBA. Twins would not have to give up picks. The A’s would get picks back, but it wouldn’t be “Twins picks.” Same if Cuddyer left the Twins. The Twins would get draft picks back, but the signing team would not have to give any up.
So signing Willingham would give the Twins Willingham and the picks that they’d get from Cuddyer leaving. Signing Cuddyer would just give them Cuddyer.
what twins33 said. No picks are “lost” for either Cuddyer or Willingham under the new CBA, which is why it’s the smart baseball move. Plus, the Twins pick is still “protected”, so Twins would only get pushed back 1 draft spot in the SECOND ROUND for signing Willingham.
I heard that there would be no picks surrendered with a Willingham signing. Not sure if Oakland didn’t offer arbitration, but that’s the word from Twins blogs.