Old pal Lucas Duda signed a minor league deal with the Twins over the weekend. He’ll get $1.75 million if he makes the majors and with incentives, he can pull down $3.25 million. It’s been far from a smooth ride since he was traded from the Mets during the 2017 season. His OPS dropped 150 points after being dealt to the Rays. Then last year he was unimpressive with the Royals before doing a nice job down the stretch as a pinch-hitter for the Braves, delivering two doubles, a homer and four walks in 22 PA.
It will be tough to find PA as a DH in Minnesota, as the Twins added Nelson Cruz earlier in the offseason. But there’s potentially a nice platoon situation at first base with C.J. Cron getting PA versus lefties and Duda against righties. But first he’ll have to earn a spot in the majors with either a strong Spring Training or early output in the minors.
Duda will have to have a tremendous spring to make the club because he is limited to first base and DH.
Tough road for The Dude for sure. He was a fave of mine, but the inconsistency and most importantly piling on stats in games that were already over just didnt help his cause. Good luck Luke…hope you make it back to The Show.
The whole piling up stats thing has been debunked many times and remember back on August first 2015 when he pretty much beat the Nats himself with two homers and a go ahead double. Duda was excellent in 2011, 2014-2015 and the first half of 2017 he may be be done now though.
That’s ridiculous. He piled on solo HR after solo HR with games out of reach endlessly. It came to a point that I suggrested we stop even counting stats after a 5 run lead
Chris, David must remember that one game… because I agree, he was the most unreliable hitter in the lineup, especially when everyone and his mother knew to just throw him down and in sliders and he will get himself out in three pitches.
We’ve seen a lot of Duda type players over the years – guys who were not stars, but likeable people who gave us a few solid years. I’ll look back fondly on his time in blue and orange and hope he will too. I wish him well. I feel the same way about Blevins, Cabrera, Pelfrey, Flores, et al.
The idea that the Mets should pay deGrom 155 million over the next 5 years is absolutely insane. While I believe the present compensation system in MLB is totally corrupt, pretending that it’s not the system in place is brainless.
Syndergaard should refuse to pitch for 6 million….Conforto should refuse to play for 4 million….and deGrom should sign a Contract that recognizes His interests in being a little less wealthy with the protection of a guarantee, rather than risking injury and fading performance over the next 2 years.