Twins Should Target J.J. Hardy

A player the Twins should give serious consideration to acquiring this off-season is J.J. Hardy, the former star shortstop of the Brewers.

As you probably know, Hardy was a terrific offensive shortstop in 2007 and 2008 (Fangraphs likes his defense, based on UZR and UZR/150, although his raw defensive numbers don’t look especially impressive to me), who had a bad year in 2009 at age 26.

The Brewers sent Hardy down to the minors around August this year, with the effect that he will have his free agency pushed back a year.  Also, the Brewers have apparently decided that the time is now for 22 year old Venezualan SS Alcides Escobar.  Escobar did nothing to discourage this belief; he hit .304 in 125 late-season at-bats for the Brewers.

In other words, Hardy is now redundant and discontented, as far as the Brewers are concerned.  He’s coming off a bad year, so his trade value should be down, but at age 27 in 2010, he’s an excellent bet for a bounce-back year to his career norms.

I definitely like Hardy better going forward than Orlando Cabrera, who will be 35 in 2010 and really didn’t have a great year with the bat in 2009 (.705 OPS, although much of that was in Oakland, one of baseball’s toughest major league parks in which to hit).  The best thing to be said about Cabrera is that he is a veteran presence.

If the Twins can sign Cabrera to a one-year contract in the $6 million range (Cabrera signed a one-year $4 million deal with the A’s last off-season), the Twins will probably re-sign Cabrera.  That way they don’t have to give up any talent to acquire Hardy.  However, after helping the Twins to the post-season this year, Cabrera may be able to garner better than a one-year deal on the free agent market, even at age 35.