FORT MYERS, Fla. — One by one, Michael Cuddyer has watched the teammates he grew up with in the Minnesota Twins organization head out the door.

Eddie Guardado and LaTroy Hawkins left in 2004. Doug Mientkiewicz, Corey Koskie and Cristian Guzman were next in 2005. Then Torii Hunter and Johan Santana departed in 2008. Finally this offseason, Matt Guerrier, Jesse Crain and Nick Punto signed elsewhere.

Now Cuddyer is the only one left from a group of players that turned the team from a perennial doormat into the dominant team of the AL Central with six division titles in the last nine seasons.

That means the 31-year-old, do-everything, pillar of the clubhouse has had to introduce himself to more new faces this spring than he has in a long time.

“A lot of turnover,” Cuddyer said. “This feels like when LaTroy was gone, Eddie was gone and Mientkiewicz was gone. But the guys that were replacing them were the guys I played with in the minor leagues so it was a little different. This year, Matty and Jesse and Nick, those are guys I hung out with 90 percent of the time.”

Guerrier and Crain, two of the team’s longtime relievers, went to the Dodgers and White Sox, respectively, while Punto, a valued utility man, signed with the Cardinals. They’ve been replaced by a bevy of new, young faces, players that Cuddyer is still getting to know.

It’s the circle of life in baseball. Younger, cheaper talent replaces older, more expensive veterans as the Twins look to sustain the success that started in 2002 when Mientkiewicz, Hunter, Koskie and Cuddyer helped the Twins win their first division title in a decade.