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Orlando Hudson is nearing a contract with the Minnesota Twins, reports indicate. The deal would be for one year and worth $5 million. Several other teams were interested in Hudson's services, but the Twins offered a deal that was both close to what he made with the Los Angeles Dodgers (after incentives he made around $7 million last year) and a chance to contend, which was apparently more than any other team had to offer. Hudson shores up the one big remaining hole in Minnesota's lineup, as he'll take over the starting job at second base from Nick Punto. With the Dodgers last year, Hudson hit .283/.357/.417 with nine homers while Punto hit .228/.337/.284. Punto has 12 career home runs. Hudson may have slumped down the stretch with the Dodgers last year and lost his starting job to Ronnie Belliard, but he still represents an upgrade at the plate over Punto.
Hudson will also bring his excellent defensive reputation with him to Minnesota, but according to UZR his defense has slipped a bit in the past few seasons. Either way, he can just be about average (or a little below), the huge improvement over Punto at the plate more than makes up for that.
Signing Hudson should conclude a busy offseason for the Twins, which saw them add J.J. Hardy (in a trade of Carlos Gomez), Jim Thome, and Hudson for reasonable prices without weakening the team that won the AL Central in 2009.
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