Notes, quotes and comment

Because three colors aren't enough.

Word leaked out almost a week ago that the Twins were going to change the home uniform -- most notably, dropping the pinstripes, adding gold as a drop shadow to the letters and numbers and reversing the name from red with blue outline to blue with red outline.

The new look was officially released Monday, and I'm no more impressed with the result than I expected to be, which was not much at all.

My take on this stuff is: Simple is better. The uniforms I think look best -- the Tigers, the Royals, the Yankees, the White Sox  -- are two-color schemes, white and something. The more colors you're working with, the busier the design becomes.

Which might be why they dropped the pinstripes. to clean up the design some. I prefer the pinstripes to the gold.

The gold is supposed to mimic the Kasota stone of Target Field, and I suppose that, as one who has now lived in Mankato more than half my life (and spent most of my career here) I should like that. But the stone is good enough. They don't have to put it on the uniform too.

Ah well. There are worse changes coming. Someday MLB is going to start putting ads on uniforms. I expect they'll let the NBA go first with that, but it's coming. That will be a monstrosity. This is not.

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Francisco Liriano, of whom I wrote in Monday's post, declined the qualifying offer Monday. So did the other 11 free agents who received QOs.

Another ex-Twin, Michael Cuddyer, not only declined his one-year $15.3 million QO from the Colorado Rockies, he signed a two-year deal with the New York Mets for $21 million.

Nothing with Cuddyer this offseason has made any sense to me. I was surprised the Rox made the qualifying offer to begin with. I figured Cuddy was pretty much a lock to accept it. I could not imagine the Mets giving up the 15th pick in June's draft to sign him. Wrong once, twice, thrice.

So discount this next prediction as much as you wish: The Mets will sign at least one more of these QO free agents, onthe basis that it's easier to swallow giving up a second-round pick for Cuddyer.

The Rockies clearly read the market better than I, or most outsider observers did. They're getting a compensation pick. We'll see if the Mets have the better read on Cuddyer's next two years.

Financially, it's an ... interesting decision by Cuddyer. Subtract the Rockies' qualifying offer from his Mets deal, and he's effectively playing in 2016 for $5.7 million. This leads me to surmise that he's leaving some money on the table, that he'd make more if he went year-to-year.

But I suppose that if he has another 49-game season in 2015 he might get Jason-Kubel'd and find that he didn't have a 2016 season.

Plus there's this: The Mets believe they're on the cusp of contention. Cuddyer has, with this contract added in, made roughly $100 million in his career. He can afford to chase a ring.