January 25, 2008
Long Term Twins
The Twins lock of the heart of their batting order, signing Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer to long term contracts:
The Twins and Cuddyer have come to an agreement on a 3 year contract worth $24 million. Minnesota has also agreed to terms with first baseman Justin Morneau on a six-year contract (worth a reported $80 million).
I would have let Morneau go year-to-year to see if he could repeat the MVP season and used the money to keep Santana. Although $13 million a year for Morneau is a very good price.
Did he get hurt in july or august? On first glance his season wasn't all that great, but through July 30st he was well on his way to repeating his 2006 (.946 OPS vs .934 in '06). Unfortunately the last 2 months of the season he batted .222 with a .640 OPS...
The parallels to Chris Duncan's 2007 are astounding, actually. Almost right down to the day they started their precipitous declines- Duncan peaked at .955 on 26 Jul, then hit .165 until season ending surgery.
The difference being the cardinals didn't lock up Duncan, and in fact couldn't find anyone willing to trade a decent young pitcher for him, and the Twins gave Morneau $80M despite no apparent reason for his decline (or proof that he'll recover). Hmmm.
I love your day-by-day tool, btw!
$13M a good price if he plays like he did in '06. If he stays at his career average it's just a guy with a salary you can't move for 6 years.
