Michael Cuddyer gets to fulfill a retirement wish Sunday at Target Field. He gets to watch — just watch — a ballgame.
"It's so much fun to watch baseball like a fan again," said the Twins' 1997 first-round draft pick, who walked away from the game in December. "For the last 15 years, I'd watch with a scout's eyes, watch the action on breaking pitches or where the hitter is trying to hit the ball. Because I'd know we were going to face these players in three months or whatever. So it's nice to be able to watch baseball the way I did when I was in high school."
Appropriate, since these days, Cuddyer lives, year-round, just a short drive from Great Bridge High near Virginia Beach, where he starred in the 1990s. He has given up the life of a big leaguer, choosing to spend his summer with wife Claudia and his three kids rather than play in Minnesota, Colorado or New York. Rather than face the Twins when they visit the Mets' Citi Field in September, he's in the Twin Cities this weekend to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Twins Community Fund.
It's a choice every ballplayer is forced to make at some point — but few choose to make it mid-contract.
The Mets owed Cuddyer $12.5 million, guaranteed, for the 2016 season, and the 15-year major league veteran intended to earn those paychecks when he signed the deal 18 months ago. But when the Mets' World Series run ended last November, Cuddyer realized something disheartening: He was tired of it all.
"Emotionally, my heart was with my family. Mentally, I just felt exhausted. And physically, I was beat up. I had core-muscle surgery after the World Series, and I was going to need to rehab from that before I could begin training for another 162 games," Cuddyer said. "I didn't feel like I had enough to give to be the player I expected myself to be and the team expected me to be. Could I have still produced? Yes, definitely. I could have gotten back into baseball shape, but I wasn't sure I could reach the level I expected of myself."
The decision was a surprising one, given that the Mets, with all their young pitching, are one of the favorites to return to the World Series. Cuddyer could have collected that $2 million a month and come along for the ride, even if he was in a sharply reduced role. But "usually when I get to the end of the season, I'm pretty beat up, but I still love the game, still love playing," Cuddyer said. "This time, that was gone. And I didn't want to hang on if I didn't love it."
He earned more than $75 million playing baseball, plus a reported buyout of more than $2 million for this season, and he reached the World Series, even if his role in it was a letdown: three at-bats in Game 1, and three strikeouts, capping a 1-for-11 postseason. But Cuddyer, who reached the playoffs six times in his 10-year Twins career, says he relishes the memory anyway.
