Michael Cuddyer got into the habit of playing postseason baseball during his Minnesota years. He's rekindled his love for October baseball this year in New York.
"I got to go [to the playoffs] six out of my first nine years" in the majors, the former Twins All-Star said. "And my last four years, I've lost 93-plus games. So this feels pretty daggone good."
The Mets outfielder, who chose New York over a significantly bigger salary in Colorado last winter in part because he believed the Mets were more likely to win, came back strong after a midseason knee injury, batting .313 with an .819 OPS over the season's final seven weeks to help his new team capture its first division title since 2006.
"I understand what this means to the city, to our fans, because I've been going through the same thing," Cuddyer told mlb.com after the Mets clinched last week. "You just want a chance to play for a championship — that's why we're here. And if you don't get that chance, and suddenly years have gone by, it gets pretty hard to watch others earn something you want so badly."
Cuddyer will get that chance this month, and he's not the only former Twins player who will. In fact, of the 42 former Twins who competed for another team in the majors this season, as many as a dozen could perform on the postseason stage in 2015, some of them with prominent roles.
R.A. Dickey, for instance, will be in the Blue Jays rotation, handed the ball in Toronto's first postseason since 1993. Same for Francisco Liriano, the 31-year-old lefthander, if the Pirates survive Wednesday's wild-card game against the Cubs. Cuddyer is a career .338 hitter in 22 postseason games, so he will be in the Mets lineup, while Kendrys Morales, who drove in more than 100 runs this season, bats fifth for the Royals.
Ben Revere has taken over in left field for the Blue Jays since being acquired in a trade-deadline deal, and Chris Colabello has had a career year for Toronto, turning in an .878 OPS, better than every current Twins player but Miguel Sano. And LaTroy Hawkins, who reached the World Series with Colorado in 2007, will take the final bow of a 21-year major league career in a postseason game, perhaps even another championship round.
Assuming the Astros reach the postseason, Park Center High grad Pat Neshek will return to the postseason for the fourth time, carrying a 2.89 ERA in 11 playoff games. And Carlos Gomez will have much attention on him, as he plays in October for the first time since the Brewers reached the NLCS in 2011.
