Right-hander Jake Odorizzi will accept a qualifying offer from the Twins, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). He’ll now be signed for the 2020 season at a rate of $17.8MM.
It’s a bit of a surprise move but likely a welcome development for a Twins club that previously stood to see 80 percent of its starting rotation hit free agency. Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson, Michael Pineda and Martin Perez (whose $7.5MM club option was bought out) were all slated to hit the open market.
Instead, the 29-year-old Odorizzi will return on a one-year deal at a strong annual rate with an eye toward testing the market in earnest next season when he wont’t have a qualifying offer attached to his name. The collective bargaining agreement stipulates that a player can only receive one qualifying offer in his career, so Odorizzi won’t cost any teams any draft or international forfeitures when he hits free agency again next winter.
The 2019 season proved to be either a rebound or a breakout for Odorizzi, depending on how one views it. He looked like a pitcher on the rise from 2014-16 with the Rays before posting a pair of solid but unremarkable seasons with Tampa Bay and Minnesota in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Last winter, Odorizzi embarked on a new offseason training regimen with a focus on biomechaics and did similar work with newly hired Twins pitching coach during Spring Training, which led to an uptick in velocity and career-best marks in terms of K/9, overall strikeout percentage and swinging-strike rate. The results spoke for themselves, as Odorizzi turned in 159 innings of 3.51 ERA ball with 10.1 K/9 (a 27.1 percent overall strikeout rate), 3.0 BB/9, 0.91 HR/9 and a 35 percent ground-ball rate.
While most pegged Odorizzi as a candidate to secure a multi-year pact in free agency — he landed 10th on our ranking of the Top 50 free agents — he and his representatives at Excel Sports Management clearly weren’t enthused by their early talks with teams throughout the league. Once a player receives a qualifying offer, he has up to 10 days to accept or reject it, and he’s free to explore the open market during that time. Odorizzi’s decision largely came down to the wire, and he’ll now have another year to further build his case. If he can repeat his 2019 success next season and return to the open market in advance of his age-31 campaign, he’ll presumably fare quite well in free agency. Of course, as is always the case, he now runs the risk of damaging his stock with a poor performance or a notable injury.
For the Twins, Odorizzi’s return adds a notable salary to the books, but that’s of little concern given the enormous amount of payroll space the club has available. Even with Odorizzi back at $17.8MM, the Twins have a total of just $48.9MM in guaranteed contracts on the books, plus another $40.8MM worth of projected arbitration salaries. (That number could drop to $33.1MM if C.J. Cron is non-tendered.) That puts the Twins in the $82-89MM range, depending on Cron’s fate. Even after accounting for pre-arbitration players to round out the roster, Minnesota checks in under $100MM and vastly below the organization’s club-record payroll of $130MM from the 2018 season.
That’s good news for the Twins given the club’s need to address the rest of the rotation. While in-house candidates like Randy Dobnak, Devin Smeltzer, Brusdar Graterol and, eventually, prospect Jordan Balazovic all present intriguing 2020 options, the Twins still need to add at least one more proven arm — if not two proven arms to the mix. President of baseball operations Derek Falvey and GM Thad Levine have been candid about the team’s plan to pursue “impact” starting pitching, making that remaining payroll capacity all the more pivotal. For now, however, Minnesota surely feels better about its rotation outlook, knowing that one major piece of the puzzle was filled in less than two weeks into the offseason.
Smart. Good for him.
Good deal for the Twins here.
2/3 on my picks lol
2/2
2/3
So if I recall, next year in free agency, he doesn’t have a draft pick attached to him, correct? (regardless if the Twins offer him a QO next season)
You can only get a qo once
they cant offer him a QO for a second time.
You only get a Qualifying Offer once.
You didn’t read the article.
You can’t get the QO more than once, so he can’t get it offered again.
“You can only receive a qualifying offer once in your career.” He received a qualifying offer this year. which means if he pitches until he is 100 years old he can NEVER receive another qualifying offer. Is that clear enough?
Smart man, he wasn’t gonna get anywhere close to that AAV on a multi-year deal, not with a draft pick attached to him. Of course, if he absolutely bombs next year, the lack of draft pick compensation won’t matter.
He would have easily gotten 2/30 in a heartbeat,this move only make sense if there is a longer term deal coming from the Twins.
Maybe. I’m guessing he could have gotten 3/39ish. Maybe 3/42. In any case, Odorizzi and his agent decided the outlook wasn’t great and they weren’t going to get what he wanted so taking the 1 year deal at way above his AAV target was the best choice.
I’d say his value is limited by the fact he can’t pitch 6 innings and has a significant track record of decline and mediocrity before last season’s surprise performance.
For all the “smart man comments” . He very easily could be a 4.50 fip pitcher or get hurt next year. These seems reckless for 15% more money.
He could also be a 3.50 FIP pitcher with no QO attached to surpress his earning value and still pockets nearly $18M for one season of work. Sure, it may not work out, but it also very well could.
Again. From a life quality perspective every dollar has diminishing value given how much money we are talking about here. The idea to lose 80% of it for the upside of 15% seems like bad advice.
A bit of a gamble on himself but I like it. That’s enough money to live comfortably for a few lifetimes and if he has another solid year he’s set to get a longer contract.
Not a bad thing for the Twins,either. Probably a few million more than they’d prefer but not enough to hinder them.
It makes it easier to sign the other three FA starters with Odorrizzi and Berrios already in the house.
Dang. Would have been great for the Cubs to sign him. They need to focus on re-signing Castellanos 5/75. Or 4/75. With an option for a 5th year.
Could the Twins still sign him to a long term deal this season?
yes, they could extend him
The Twins could.
I feel like he could have gotten a significantly better offer, but great news for the Twins.
Ask Dallas Keuchel about the risks of looking for a contract with a QO next to your name.
Of course. Fair point.
Ask Dallas Keuchel about the multiple contracts he had last season for multiple years that he passed on. It’s not like these guys didn’t receive offers. It’s that they shot way above what teams were offering and they waited and waited and before too long most of the contenders spent their money.
If he got a significantly better offer he wouldn’t have likely taken this. It seems like he is betting on himself to try for a longer term #2/ 3 starter contract of say $16M a year/4 years + option with another big year….not a bad idea. Risk, but not a ton.
Also, he may like playing in Minny or with those guys as well.
He could have at least made something like 10M for 3 to 4 years imo.
Great to have Jake back. Now the Twins just need to sign Hyun-Jin Ryu, Cole Hamel and Brett Anderson, and the Twins are ready to play baseball in 2020. It wouldn’t hurt to resign Sergio Romo if they can get him cheap enough, and Michael Pineda, if cheap enough, as insurance if someone falters of gets injured, or bull pen help if all stay healthy. Who’s going to pick up Jonathan Schoop’s 23 home runs?
Got 1 right
Odorizziwould have gotten at least 3 years 40/45 million on the open market even with a draft pick attached.
For a pitcher coming off a career year at age 29 kind of a risky move imho.
Maybe, but he clearly didn’t feel confident in that happening.
Maybe a gentleman’s agreement in there to not QO him again or workout a LT deal.
There’s no “gentleman’s agreement.” A player can only receive one qualifying offer in his career (as the post indicates)
How about you make a gentleman’s agreement with everyone here, and read the article fully, right to the end, before commenting?
I love the self-confidence from Odorizzi, going the Grandal route. Still I would’ve liked to see Randy Dobnak in the rotation because that name sounds lifted right off the ’91 twins roster.
Must not be a Boras client. He put on his big boy pants and made a decision for himself. Good.
Great deal for both sides. Even if Odorizzi doesn’t replicate his 2019 success, as this article expressed, the Twins were (still are) in desperate need of starters. And who knows, maybe Odorizzi continues what he did in ’19, and goes into next off-season without a QO attached at the hip.