Cuddyer Shift Could Effect Santana Trade

 

From the Pioneer Press:

Torii Hunter’s successor in center field for the Twins could be Michael Cuddyer.

“With Delmon Young in right and Jason Kubel in left,” manager Ron Gardenhire said.

That’s a consideration of Gardenhire’s if minor leaguers Denard Span and Jason Pridie can’t convince the manager during spring training that they’re ready to succeed Hunter, who left for the Los Angeles Angels via free agency.

“I’m going to talk to Cuddy about it,” Gardenhire said.

If this truly is the case, then the Santana trade situation (assuming he’s still traded) could be greatly effected by a Cuddyer position change. Cuddyer has played RF, LF (barely), 1B, 3B and 2B over the course of his career, but he has never played CF. He’s been extremely “solid” at each of these positions (career .975 FP), with 3B as the exception (career .941 FP). Last year in RF, he played 140 games with a .986 FP and a .818 ZR (below-average).

Moving Cuddyer to CF, as Gardenhire stated, could be a possibility, although it’s probably not the likely route. From what I can tell, his range would come into play and could effect the team negatively. After years of being juggled around, he finally situated himself in RF in 2006, therefore, I don’t know how he would react to another switch.

However, if this actually does occur, one could easily assume that the Red Sox and Yankees would be effected in their attempts to deal for Johan Santana. The Twins have been looking for a CF and if they decide that their best option would be having Cuddyer transition to that position, then, both the Yankees and the Red Sox would probably have to rebuild their packages around starting pitchers and other minor leaguers.

The Yankees would have to include Phil Hughes in a package and then supplement it with other young pitchers or players (including Melky Cabrera would no longer be necessary). The Red Sox, who have pretty much built their best packages around Jacoby Ellsbury, would then have to rely upon a package spearheaded by Lester or Buchholz (supplemented by more minor leaguers like Masterson, Lowrie, etc.). In this scenario, Coco Crisp would obviously be out of the deal.

Again, this is highly speculative and theoretical, simply because Cuddyer to center doesn’t necessarily seem like a great fit (defensively). The Twins would feel that too, especially after having the defensively great Torii Hunter roaming CF for so many years. But, if the change did happen for whatever reason, the packages for Santana would definitely have to be adjusted in relation to the position switch (remember, this applies to those stubborn Mets as well).