A few years back, my parents got me a Minnesota Twins t-shirt with a player's name on the back. This wasn't the first time and I distinctly remember A.J. Pierzynski's being the first one I had, with Doug Mientkiewicz (all these years later and I can still spell his name) and Joe Mauer coming in later years. For some reason, I cringed at the name and number on the back. It was the No. 5 of Michael Cuddyer.
As a sports fan, you will naturally like players and find others that you will despise with a passion. It takes a special blend to create a scenario where there's a player on your favorite team that you could care less about. Somehow that happened with Cuddyer and my baseball fandom.
In my heart, I knew that Michael Cuddyer was a good guy. (Even if I didn't, Bert Blyleven would remind me every game.) And it surely seems that he has the best outfield arm in recent Twins history. (He led the American League in outfield assists with 19 in 2007. Seriously.) However, I had seen too many of those awful hacks at the plate and he would be heading back to the dugout as quickly as he arrived. It might have been that he never has had a truly permanent position in a Minnesota uniform.
The Twins always treated him like he was untouchable and that he could not be traded for anything, despite my most desperate pleadings to get some value for him. I can honestly say that anytime I talked to someone about the Twins making a trade, I would propose that Cuddyer be traded for a box of bats and a player to be named later, straight up. Maybe it was because he is not the most clutch hitter of time, hitting .262 in innings 7-9.
Regardless, it looks like I could not have been more wrong.
Cuddyer has been unbelievably steady for the Twins this season and has been the only Opening Day starter to be a constant on Ron Gardenhire's lineup card everyday. He's been willing to play anywhere, including 1B, 2B, RF, and DH this season, not to mention 3B and CF last year. With Minnesota's offense even more meager than it usually is, Cuddyer leads the Twins in every category that matters, including hits, runs, home runs, walks, slugging percentage and is second to Danny Valencia in RBI. Sending him to the All-Star Game is a big a no-brainer as it gets, especially with his flexibility and the substitution fracas that is the Mid-Summer Classic.
Sid Hartman had some great numbers in Thursday's Star Tribune, saying that "The Twins' record when Cuddyer gets a hit, over the 11 years he has been with the club, has been 425-303. In games in which he gets an RBI, their record is 245-105. The Twins' record when Cuddyer just plays in a game is 579-497, a winning percentage of .538." Not all of it, of course, is directly related to Cuddyer but he has been an integral part of this team for a long time.
Now, when I'm actually rooting to keep Cuddy around longer, he'll be a free agent after the season and I wouldn't blame him if he looked around to find another spot. Regardless, he's proved that he's a winner in every sense of the word and in every way he's been asked to perform for the Twins.
With the way the Twins' medical staff is being worked, I better make sure that Cuddyer shirt still fits. I know he'll still be in the lineup.
One Final Note
I went to the Twins-Rays game on the 4th of July. If anyone recalls (and surely I'm the only one), these two teams played in Minneapolis on America's Birthday last year. (Why was Delmon Young caught stealing in that game and why was it the third time that happened last year?) I was sort of surprised in both occasions of how many Rays fans were in attendance. There was more than just a few speckles of light blue in the crowd and I thought it was sort of cool. One expects the AL Central opponents to bring a decent number of transplants to Target Field. Same with the Yankees and Red Sox. Of course, the Brewers are in another category when they invade Minnesota. Just something that caught my eye.
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