The Long Road to Hudson

I'm supposed to be writing about Orlando Hudson on this blog today, given reports that he's all but signed with the Twins. But what do you write about a guy who you've covered from just about every angle over the last few months?

The answer, of course, is that you write about how much you've been writing about him. This has extra benefits in that:

a) it's basically phoning in a story and
b) I get to remember stories I had completely forgotten about.

So let's go back a little over a year and see where this path started....

October 1st, 2008 - In the Minnesota Twins GM Cheat Sheet, I pointed out that Orlando Hudson was the top second baseman on the market. Remember, this was last year. It says something about how deep this year's second base free agency class was that last year Hudson was clearly the top guy available and this year he's middle of the pack.

You can see why he held out for more money this year. He really did get screwed over last year when he didn't take arbitration from the Diamondbacks. I estimated he would make $44 million over four years in that story. Instead, if this is a $5 million deal he'll make $13 million over two of those years instead. I know I'd be a little bitter.

October 21st, 2008 - Three weeks later in Procrastinatory Notes I cited Hudson as an example of how difficult it was going to be to get any kind of upgrade in the infield. Eventually the Twins settled for Joe Crede.

July 19th, 2009 - The Twins signed Mark Grudzielanek a couple of weeks before the trade deadline, and I wrote about it in The Grudzielanek Twist. Hudson was mentioned as an example of how difficult it was for second basemen to get a job last offseason.

October 27th, 2009 - At the beginning of this offseason I acknowledged my Polanco Crush. I reprinted my excerpt from the TwinsCentric Offseason GM Handbook where I mentioned Hudson as one of a handful or desirable options the Twins could pick up for second base.

November 5th, 2009 - A week later, I mourned the loss of Akinori Iwamura (who I still believe the Twins almost traded for. But I pointed out to the Geek Chorus in Silver Linings that there were lots of better options freely available, including Hudson.

November 10th, 2009 - While many folks were writing off Hudson as unavailable because he was going to be a Type A free agent, I talked about pendulums and suggested he could still be an option because he should not be offered arbitration.

November 12th, 2009 - In a longer story about the other Orlando, I noted at the end that it was looking increasingly unlikely that the Dodgers would offer arbitration to Hudson.

December 23rd, 2009 - Twins fans were tired of waiting for a move to be made, and so I compared the offseason to an ebay auction. I stated that the only way the Twins were going to end up with Hudson at that time was to overpay for him, and that the Twins were playing this the right way.

January 12th, 2010 - Two weeks later, as the free agent field narrowed, we started Watching Washington, who was making overtures to Hudson and Adam Kennedy. I also started to worry that this was going to be a wasted opportunity.

January 27th, 2010 - Two weeks later I was plenty worried. So I locked and loaded a story outline if the Twins came up empty at second base.

January 28th, 2010 - And the next day, I Touched Base with Second Base, reexamining Hudson and Felipe Lopez, and added Orlando Cabrera to the list of acceptable options. I noted that neither Hudson or Lopez were perfect players, but either was close to a perfect fit for the Twins.

Which takes us to today. Hopefully the long road to Hudson will finally be complete, and he'll end up being worth the journey.