After quickly shifting from buyers to sellers at the 2017 trade deadline, the Minnesota Twins’ offense went on an absolute tear during the second half, thanks in part to blazing hot streaks from Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario, Jorge Polanco and Brian Dozier. The lineup’s offensive storm resulted in a whopping 412 runs after the All-Star break, surpassing even the Indians for most in the American League. They surged up the standings to claim the AL’s second wild card spot, but fell to the New York Yankees in the one-game playoff after starting pitchers Ervin Santana and Jose Berrios gave up a combined seven runs across five innings.
The heartbreaking loss alluded to an overarching theme of the Twins’ 2017 season: the woes of subpar performances from starting pitchers. While Santana and Berrios were actually the team’s most respectable performers during the season, the rotation performed miserably on the whole. Sixteen different pitchers started games for Minnesota. Of those sixteen, only one (Santana) qualified for the ERA title. Only five finished with an ERA below 5.00. Minnesota starters as a group finished in the bottom ten in all of baseball in innings pitched (24th), fWAR (22nd), strikeouts (26th), xFIP (27th), least hard contact allowed (21st), and fewest home runs allowed (23rd).
Without dramatic improvements to the rotation, the Twins have little hope of dethroning the rival Indians as AL Central Champions. However, if they can add pitching reinforcements to an offense that’s intimidating from top to bottom, it’s easy to see a path for them to reach the playoffs again. Adding to their fortunes is a weak division wherein the White Sox and Tigers are in the midst of full teardowns, with the Royals likely to follow suit this offseason.
The problem has the potential to solve itself. Santana and Berrios will both return to their roles in 2018, with Kyle Gibson likely to slot in behind them after performing very well in the second half this past season. LHP Stephen Gonsalves and RHP Fernando Romero both rank as top 100 overall prospects and could potentially see major league action next season. And Adalberto Mejia is at the very least a reasonable back-end starter. If Berrios is able to take another step forward, and one of Gonsalves or Romero emerges as a top-of-the-rotation type, the Twins would certainly be no worse off on paper than most contenders.
But even the highest-rated prospects are never sure bets, and Santana, Berrios and Gibson all have at least a few question marks hovering over them. Meanwhile the free agent market for pitchers is full of high-upside starters who carry tremendous risk. Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta represent the top options on the market, while Masahiro Tanaka and Johnny Cueto can both opt out of their current contracts. Most of these pitchers would likely cost more than the Twins can afford to pay, and all carry significant injury risk. Japanese phenom Shohei Otani would be an incredibly exciting target, but the competition for his services will certainly be fierce. It’s difficult to imagine what the Twins could offer him that other teams cannot. So while it’s certainly possible the Twins could land a high-end starter, a foray into the free agent pool would likely end with the Twins having to settle for an even riskier tier of starters that includes Andrew Cashner, Tyler Chatwood, Alex Cobb, Lance Lynn, Jason Vargas and a somewhat resurgent Doug Fister.
To say that the trade market for starting pitchers this offseason will be competitive would be an understatement. The top starters in baseball are heavily concentrated on teams with plans to contend next season. Michael Fulmer and Gerrit Cole are examples of solid pitchers who could be made available, but due to heavy demand, the Twins would probably have to fork over at least one of top 30 overall prospects Royce Lewins and Nick Gordon. Both Fulmer and Cole come with injury concerns.
While many teams are in need of rotation help, the Twins’ situation is dire. If the offense can repeat anything close to their late 2017 production, Minnesota will be in the thick of contention all next season. But they absolutely must get significant improvements within the starting five.
How do you think the Twins will address their rotation issues? Vote in the poll and comment below with your ideas.
(Poll link for app users)
They will go cheap and not sign anyone of note and end up with another year of subpar SP.
Outside of Darvish, are there really a lot of great options? Tanaka, Arrieta, and Cueto seem primed for bad contracts.
There’s no check box for “cheap free agents”, but that’s my vote.
Royce Lewis, not “Lewins”
oh no, how will we ever understand what he meant!?
Thank you to all the typo fixers
I don’t think they match the Indians even if they add a major free agent starter.
You can sqint and see Berrios and Ervin in the middle of a pretty good rotation with the elusive “true ace” in front of them, but nobody available really fits that description, and would cost $200m if they did.
The second tier of free agents is pretty unexciting, but Cobb would be worth taking a chance on if you have to pick one.
Other than that, I think they have to hope for a Kluber style leap from someone in the org, or somehow lucking into a free Japanese ace.
Of course, even Cobb is likely to cost 4/80m or so, I suppose. Maybe LAD would be interested in unloading one of their bazillion talented but injury risky project starters with Buehler knocking on the door?
I mean, best case scenario Trevor May comes back strong. Has good peripherals, and pretty good velocity. Doesn’t walk hitters and now has a great defensive catcher.
That would definitely help. I thought the previous administration gave up on him as a starter much too quickly. Falvey &co may feel differently.
Of course, the bullpen also needs a ton of help.
Twins need to increase payroll by about 25 million over last year,but sadly they wont
They have about 70m committed in 2018 (finished this year at 108m) Gibson is likely to be the only guy due a significant arb raise, and they aren’t really losing anyone who was important to this year’s club. They should have some room to spend a bit.
“Not adequately” should be an option. That would be a surefire bet.
Agree the options are too limited.
I could easily see Dickey and/or Bart, but that “Free Agency” box is much more positive sounding than they present, and they are honestly better represented by your requested tab.
So put me down for “Not adequately”
If you believe in Polanco’s 2nd half breakthrough, Nick Gordon would be expendable in a trade. I’m not sure the Twins are that close to start making moves like that though. The starting pitching is bad but the bullpen isn’t a whole lot better.
There’s at least some potential in the pen… Burdi, Reed, Jay in the high minors, May, Chargois, O’Rourke on the 60-day DL this year, Hildenberger has interesting stuff, Rogers looks like he can be a good lefty option… they’re unproven, but it seems unlikely that none of the above will evolve into reliable relievers.
there had been potential in the pen for years now but know one is showing the ability to break through. melotakis burdi reed chargios jay are all guys twins fans expected to see the last two years in the pen and none of them are close
This is where the Twins chronic inability to develop reliable starting pitching from inside hurts. It’s a heck of a lot easier to supplement your rotation with mid grade FA than it is to use 29 other teams’ pitchers to make your entire rotation. Guys like Berrios and Gonsalves have to work out, because the Twins will never have the revenue to beat the big money teams a free agent auction for an “ace” SP.
If we want to start building a rotation for the future we need to look at trading Dozier this off-season so Polanco can take over 2nd base. A team like the dodgers would be a good trade partner. We could try and get Buehler and Alvarez for Dozier, which I think would be a great return for him.
No way the Dodgers deal Buehler for one year of Dozier. I wish they would. The problem with dealing with the Dodgers is they spent some of their bottomless stack of cash on like 3 good GMs, and they don’t make mistakes like that any more.
The Dodgers are not in need of a 2b and I don’t think they would even consider going down that route again. They have a plethora of options now and developed that major power source they needed. They weren’t willing to deal Buehler or Bellinger for two years of Dozier they aren’t for one year.
twins have 30 million to spend even if they dont raise the cap that should buy a mid rotation starter like a lynn or cobb and 2 good vets in the pen like a kintzler reed or mcgee. and they can try to make a run at otani but if that doesnt work they will have 4 of there top pitching prospects all in triple A waiting for a shot ( littell gonsalves, romero, jorge) then you have mejia, gibson and may im sure you can find two that will stick out of that and they have some young talent to trade for a front end starter a package with gordon, gonsalves, blankenhorn would be a good conversation starter in talks for guys like archer, and cole