The Twins lost a trio of starters in free agency, as Sonny Gray signed with the Cardinals, Kenta Maeda signed with the division-rival Tigers, and Tyler Mahle signed with the World Series-champion Rangers. The acquisition of Anthony DeSclafani helps to replenish some depth, but they’re still poking around the market for further starting pitching help.
Both Bobby Nightengale of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Jon Morosi of MLB Network (video link) have suggested recently that Minnesota could make some further additions before long. The Twins, who’ve scaled back payroll while spending much of the offseason facing questions about their television broadcast rights, aren’t likely to sign Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery. The Twins reportedly had interest in Michael Lorenzen prior to adding DeSclafani, and Morosi suggests that pitchers like Lorenzen and Noah Syndergaard are in the general price range the Twins are actively considering.
As things stand, the Twins still have a solid group of starters, though the depth isn’t as strong heading into 2024 as it appeared to be in 2023. Pablo Lopez had the third-most strikeouts in all of baseball last season while finishing ninth innings pitched and logging a 3.66 ERA. He’ll lead the staff, followed by righties Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober. The former carried a sub-3.00 ERA with outstanding K/BB marks through his first 15 starts before fading down the stretch. He’ll look for a stronger finish to the 2024 season but has nonetheless cemented himself as a useful big league starter. The latter touts a 3.37 ERA, 24.5% strikeout rate and 5% walk rate in 200 1/3 frames dating back to 2022.
Beyond that trio, the Twins are hoping to get a full season’s worth of starts from righty Chris Paddack, who returned from Tommy John surgery late in 2023 and pitched well out of the bullpen. The former Padre allowed three runs in 8 2/3 innings between the regular season and postseason, turning in an electric 14-to-1 K/BB ratio in that time (41.8% strikeout rate, 2.9% walk rate). However, the 28-year-old has just 40 2/3 innings total since 2022 (minors and postseason included), and he’s only reached 100 innings in two MLB seasons. Counting on him for 30 starts seems wildly optimistic.
The veteran DeSclafani and 26-year-old right-hander Louie Varland will vie for the final starting job. DeSclafani, 34, has battled injuries over the past two seasons and pitched poorly when on the field, but he gave the Giants 31 starts of 3.17 ERA ball as recently as 2021. The Twins are only on the hook for $4MM of this season’s $12MM salary, with the Giants paying $6MM and the Mariners kicking in $2MM as part of the Jorge Polanco trade with the Mariners that also brought reliever Justin Topa and top prospect Gabriel Gonzalez to Minnesota. Varland has pitched 94 innings of 4.40 ERA ball in the big leagues. He was immensely homer-prone in 2023 (2.12 HR/9), but he boasts strong strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates, leading metrics like SIERA and xFIP (which normalize home-run rate) to peg his 2023 performance at solid marks of 3.77 and 3.81.
It’s a fine top six, but the departure of Maeda and particularly Gray, who finished second in AL Cy Young voting this past season, still loom large. The Twins will surely be banking on more consistency from Ryan and more innings from Paddack, but there’s no getting around the fact that the group looks weaker than it did in 2023 — particularly late in the season, when Gray and Maeda were both pitching quite well.
Barring some type of surprising trade, it doesn’t seem likely that the Twins will find a way to replace the quality of Gray’s innings. Free agents Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery are still out there, but the Twins have been cutting payroll due to their murky television situation. Minnesota formally announced a one-year extension of their deal with Diamond Sports Group/Bally Sports today, though presumably at a lesser rate than they received in 2023. The outlook beyond that point remains unclear, too. A major splash for Snell or Montgomery would come as a shock.
Deepening the group by bringing in someone like Lorenzen probably wouldn’t give the Twins the same type of Game 1 or 2 playoff starter they had in Gray, but springing for quantity has some merit as well. Even adding 150 or so league-average innings would help to safeguard against injury concerns among the current group (Paddack and DeSclafani, most notably), push DeSclafani to a long-relief role to open the season and push Varland to Triple-A, where he could work out of the rotation and be summoned as injuries dictate. Roster Resource currently projects a $123.5MM payroll for the Twins — more than $30MM shy of last year’s season-end mark but in the general $125-140MM vicinity they were reportedly targeting for the upcoming season.
Twins offseason is similar to the Mariners except the Mariners GM made a bunch of deals to keep it interesting. Twins won their first playoff series since I can remember and they follow it up with this. This TV rights stuff is nonsense it’s just an excuse to be cheap. And if you aren’t gonna compete why not sell and plan for the future?
“Just an excuse to be cheap”…Sounds like you don’t really understand the RSN issue. MILLIONS of people are cutting the cord and once profitable tv contracts are no longer profitable. Do you think ESPN has laid off THOUSANDS of people the last few yrs because they’re “cheap”?..I guess you don’t realize the USA’s largest cable TV provider(Comcast/Xfinity)has lost 15 Million+ paid customers in just the last 6 years.
Yes the TV contract house of cards is beginning to fall. But that doesn’t mean you take what was a playoff team last year and watch numerous big time free agents leave and go elsewhere and do nothing. And like I said even if you do that then go full rebuild. Don’t do this half measure nonsense like them and the Mariners are doing. Being average is the worst thing to be in sports. You either need to be good or be bad enough to where you get high draft picks and can save money for the time you will be good again.
You lost me at “watch numerous big time free agents leave.”
The only “big time” free agent they lost was Sonny Gray. Maeda and Pagan may be losses too, but they are nowhere near big time so I can’t figure out who else you’d be talking about
That being said, I do agree with you that the payroll shouldn’t be dropping this significantly. I would be satisfied, not happy, with a $140ish payroll.
Pagan is a good reliever. Maeda is a talented pitcher. They also traded away Polanco. The team is worse than last year no doubt about that. Not the way a playoff team should be behaving.
You must be a hit at parties…. Pagan was very good at the end of last year, but his career stats say otherwise. Maeda got paid WAAAAY more than his age and talent should dictate. There are about 8-12 guys who can take Polanco’s place at alot less in salary (make note of Brooks Lee and Austin Martin). I would argue the the Twins are the same as last year (full season of Buxton / Royce Lewis would put them WAAAY over last year). If Pagan and Maeda blow up this year, will you admit you were wrong?
I mentioned Pagan may be a loss. It would depend upon which Pagan shows up. Honestly I’m not sure if the BP is better or worse than last year. I had no feelings about the BP before 2023 and I feel the same about the 2024 BP. The BP in 2023 was good, so I hope for that again. Pagan was not “big time.”
Losing Maeda hurts the depth, but I think Paddack can put up Maeda’s 2023 numbers which were 100ish IP and around a 4.25 ERA. Maeda was solid. I liked him a lot. I absolutely loved that they traded for him, but he was not “big time.“
Polanco is one of the most underrated players in MLB. It’s a loss for sure, but Julien has replaced him. Julian’s knowledge of the strike zone is elite. I don’t know how many of his K’s were from not swinging at balls out of the zone that were incorrectly called strikes, but it was at least a handful if not much more. Polanco was a consistent 2-3 WAR guy and I think Julien is that too with a chance to be more. I wouldn’t call a 2-3 WAR guy “big time” even though I like him.
The offense may be better than last year. I think Julien will be great. Wallner and Lewis will be around from the start which is an automatic improvement…though Wallner I am more nervous about. Then there’s Correa and Buxton. I think Correa will be good. Buxton is just always hope. I think healthy Julien, Correa, and Lewis makes this offense better than the 2023 offense.
The rotation is definitely worse. No doubt about it. I do not like any rotation that has Varland or Desclafani in it. They need another Lopez or Gray. I’m hoping those two (Varland and/or Desclafani) prove me horribly wrong or that the front office makes another good offseason trade for a pitcher.
Someone will pick all these teams up tho. Unless TV goes under real fast. So, in a sense, it is an excuse. Though I can see the point of view of it being responsible, too.
“Unless tv goes under real fast”…TV most certainly will NOT “Go under” but it is rapidly changing and moving from a broadcast to a streaming model….MLB , like many in the TV business, is still wedded(by contract)to the old business model, which is losing paying customers at a tremendous rate.
Sports teams are vanity projects and huge wealth generating machines for billionaires. Many owners could eat the costs from the RSN mess, they just choose not to because they are cheap… and because they are successful at business. To be successful at business, you generally have to be cheap, but sports franchises are really public-private partnerships, the same rules don’t quite apply. If owners can’t eat these costs, sell to richer ownership groups that can.
Fans can vote with their feet and the teams being cheap with the players I think are just pushing their fans away. People aren’t dumb.
You are correct sir. Seattle is not even involved in what you reference but has peddled the same excuse. The Orioles and Nats have had big money every year yet claim otherwise.
I was reading the other day that the Orioles get a lot of the Nationals TV money. Yet they are another team that cries poor.
Baseball needs both a salary cap and salary floor. And not these nonsense caps like they have in the NBA that can be ignored a real cap. Then we can get back to fir competition instead of this wannabe college sports nonsense.
“Seattle is not even involved”…You need to do more research my friend because Seattle is directly involved in the RSN mess. I’ve had access to Seattle M’s games for 15+ years and now they’re completely on a MUCH MORE expensive cable tier and I LOST ACCESS to their games completely, unless I fork over another $20/mo. I think this MORE than qualifies as “involved” since MILLIONS of M’s fans lost access to their games and who knows how many can afford an extra $20/mo.
So you are mad you have to pay for baseball now?
One thing about baseball is ifs for old people. Most old people have money that kinda comes with the territory for most. In other words you can pay you simply don’t want to. You will get over it.
A bit late to the party aren’t they?
Snell and Montgomery signed?
Twins need a solid SP, not more #5-6 type guys which we already have some of….
“Sign Bauer”…Trevor, I thought we talked about this already. You’re not exactly helping your case with these “anonymous” posts when everyone already knows it’s you. Please get off the internet and we’ll talk more later.
“Sign Snell”…Blake, I thought we talked about this already. You’re not exactly helping your case with these “anonymous” posts when everyone already knows it’s you. Please get off the internet and we’ll talk more later.
Bauer is willing to pitch for league minimum on an incentive contract. He doesn’t meet the goals, the Twins only pay league minimum. He’s even said that if he doesn’t meet the expectations of the team, they can cut him and only owe the league minimum.
Also have Zack Greinke and Domingo German.
Teevor Bauer and Julio Urias have unresolved legal issues, they’re not pitching in 2024.
German has a drinking problem that needs to be taken care of first and Greinke might not want to pitch for anyone else besides the Royals.
@acoss13
Which legal issues for Bauer? And I never mentioned Urias in the post above.
Old York,
Bauer mentioned his ongoing legal dispute with another case during his interview, that hasn’t been resolved. I mentioned Urias since he’s in the same boat, I lump them both together.
@acoss13
It seems the legal issues are behind him, at least from the PBD Podcast interview. What legal dispute is ongoing?
If I remember correctly, he had another defamation case for one of his accusers, and that has yet to be settled. Fact check that, not 100% on it.
Bauer’s ego won’t let him sign a league-minimum deal.
@DarkSide830
He’s publicly stating that he’ll play for league minimum + incentives.
Don’t know about the ’24 Cy Young even if he were to play, but they or any other team should definitely try to sign him. He’s an excellent pitcher who essentially becomes a second pitching coach anywhere he plays. That said, he is quite obviously “silently banned” from the league–and that’s a damn shame.
“Silently banned”..When people conclude you’re more trouble than you’re worth is that really being “banned?”….Are crazy, stalker ex-boyfriends “banned” because women now avoid them?
Why would adding Lorenzen or Syndergaard help the rotation?
Adding a top 2 starter should be the goal. Anything less is unnecessary at this point.
Not many of those around, and none for the price the Twins will pay.
Burnes got acquired for not much. Twins got Pablo as well. There are options or at least there were
Brooks Lee for Keaton Winn
oh dear god no….
Twins already have enough guys for the #5 slot. Lee is worth much more than Winn.
If the Twins intend to spend $140 million than Lorenzen is the obvious choice. Desclafani, Paddack and Canterino are capable pitchers who all had significant, recent injuries. Backing up that trio with roughly 150 innings of 4 ERA starts is a pragmatic move.
They should trade for Bieber
Bieber, Cease, or Luzardo/Garett….
Elon Musk would make a great owner and solve all of the Twins issues
Batteries in the ball park would mean lighting failures
Steve Adams
“carried a sub-3.00 ERA with outstanding K/BB marks ”
“The latter touts a 3.37 ERA, 24.5% strikeout rate and 5% walk rate”
Why not just cite FIP or xFIP?
Bring back Michael Pineda!
LOL
See if Boras will let you sign Snell on a pillow contract like Correa’s first deal. Understand the aversion to long term commitment, but they need to put a better product out there to maintain enthusiasm from last season.
I think they’re waiting to see if that’s an option since they’ve gotten some tv money. If it takes too long hopefully they can still get a Ryu/Clevinger instead
I would love that
They should grab Ryu
Cubs have some good young starters with little a little experience, what do the Twins have as far as 3B prospects?
Let’s see what Miranda has in spring training.
Lewis and Lee are it. Lee is still playing SS but is said to be a future 3B. Lewis is obviously the starting 3B for the Twins.
Miranda used to be a 3B but earlier this offseason they made it sound like he would only play 1B. He’s not a good 3B.
Ryu looks like a decent fit for the Twins; pair him with Paddack & you’ve got a solid chance of doing OK into the eighth inning…
There should be no comma before “too” in that sentence, Adams. That’s an archaic rule you should know.