It’s long been known that while the Twins would like to keep Michael Cuddyer, his value on the open market would likely exceed what Minnesota could offer. After receiving a three year deal from the Rockies that topped their own offer, Minnesota has elected to go in a different direction. That direction is called Josh Willingham.
Joe Christensen of the Star Tribune in Minnesota tweeted at about 11:13 pm EST on Tuesday that it looked like Cuddyer and the Twins agreed to a three-year deal at $21MM.
Notice how I circled the time I saw the tweet and how long it had been since @JoeCStrib actually tweeted it. My math is pretty solid here, folks.
Is this signing earth-shattering from a fantasy perspective? No. I’ve long used Willingham as a cheap source of power that is usually readily available on free agency, and his 29 home runs and 98 RBI last year in the cavernous Oakland Coliseum only improve his reputation as a bargain bin type option in fantasy leagues.
The thing is, though, his 2011 numbers aren’t wholly unsustainable. He hits fly balls almost 50 percent of the time and his HR/FB rate (17.5 percent) wasn’t too much greater than his career average. Minnesota’s outfield sans Cuddyer is thin and their lineup lacks a certain presence of pop, so expect Willingham to get a lot of at-bats. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tops 600 plate appearances for just the second time in his career.
Target Field in Minnesota finished 20th in home run park factor according to ESPN (0.913) but that was a step up from 26th-ranked Oakland (the oddly named O.co Coliseum).
Willingham’s fantasy value: slightly up.
As I said above, the real importance of this deal is that it almost surely means Cuddyer is gone. I don’t like writing posts on deals that could happen but haven’t yet because if things fall through then that’s a piece of wasted writing. (Even though I did that with this one. I was sort of bored.) I will go as far as to say that we might see the 30-homer Cuddyer again. He has some serious help in that lineup with Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez (though I see him being their protection rather than the other way around) and Coors Field has been second in home run park factor for each of the last two seasons. Statcorner.com rates it at 117 for right-handed batters whereas Target Field was just a 95.
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