the starting rotation?
The Minnesota Twins will pursue “impact pitching” this offseason, according to Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey. They probably start with Free Agency but the top target, current Houston Astro RHP Gerrit Cole, could fetch $40M plus because he has lights out stuff, is the best pitcher in the game right now and he’s 29-years-old. In the 2019 regular season, he had a record of 20-5 in 212.2 innings and allowed 142 hits, 59 earned runs & 29 home runs while walking 48 and striking out 326 batters. That comes out to an opponent’s batting average of .186, an ERA of 2.50 and a WHIP of 0.89.
*ERA=Earned Run Average; WHIP=Walks + Hits per Inning Pitched
The Houston Astros acquired Gerrit Cole from the Pittsburgh Pirates on January 13th, 2018 for RHP Michael Feliz, LF Jason Martin, 3B Colin Moran & RHP Joe Musgrove. Feliz, Moran & Musgrove played the majority of both 2018 & 2019 in the majors and Martin made his Major League Debut this season on April 6th so the Pirates wanted Major League or close to Major League-ready players. Right now, that doesn’t look like a great deal by a long shot.
They had an ace and they traded him away for…well, as it looks right now, none of those players will become what Gerrit Cole has become. Could he have become the same Gerrit Cole in Pittsburgh? There’s really no way to tell but obviously, the Houston Astros know how to develop pitchers and knew exactly what to do with Cole.
The Minnesota Twins are headed in that direction. We just haven’t seen the results from it, yet. It feels like they are close, though. Their pitching prospects are developing very well with a lot of them reaching the AA (Top 30 Twins Prospects RHPs Brusdar Graterol, Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Jorge Alcala, & Cole Sands) in 2019 and Graterol, Jax & Alcala got to AAA and, of course, Twins fans saw Graterol and Alcala pitch at the end of the season although, it was out of the bullpen instead of starting. We’ll guess they’ll be moved back to the rotation for now but that’s really still up in the air.
The bottom line is the Astros saw an opportunity to get an ace and they were somehow able to do it without giving up any of their top prospects. Then they were able to help him develop into the best pitcher in the game and, honestly, it’s weird that they’d want to let him go but maybe they’ll be in the running. They would probably have to move RHP Zack Greinke to do that since it’s hard to believe they’d trade RHP Justin Verlander and both of them will combine to make $68.4M (Verlander $33M, Greinke $35.4M) next season in the last years of their contracts.
So, we thought we’d check every Major League Baseball team’s roster to see if there is an opportunity for the Twins to find “impact pitching” to bolster their starting rotation. Here’s what we came up with.
We did go through every team but there are some teams who didn’t really appear to have anything the Twins would be looking for or the pitchers the Twins would be interested in would likely be unavailable. We put a “?” if we didn’t find anything worthwhile from those teams.
Keep in mind, we were just jotting down names so there may be some pitchers who don’t necessarily qualify as impact pitchers but we are also thinking the Twins & pitching coach Wes Johnson can help them improve to become or get back to being impact pitchers. That doesn’t necessarily mean they would develop into an ace, either.
Read the notes after the list to see who we favor the Twins pursuing via a trade.
- Arizona Diamondbacks (Age)
- RHP Robbie Ray (28)
- Atlanta Braves
- RHP Julio Teheran (28)
- $12M club option with $1M buyout
- RHP Julio Teheran (28)
- Baltimore Orioles
- RHP Dylan Bundy (26)
- Boston Red Sox
- LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (26)
- Chicago Cubs
- RHP Kyle Hendricks (29)
- RHP Yu Darvish (33)
- can opt out of 4-year, $81M remaining on contract
- Chicago White Sox
- RHP Ivan Nova (32)
- Cincinnati Reds
- RHP Luis Castillo (25)
- Hard to believe the Twins could pry him away from Cincinnatti
- RHP Anthony Desclafani (29)
- RHP Luis Castillo (25)
- Cleveland Indians
- ?
- Colorado Rockies
- RHP Jon Gray (27)
- Detroit Tigers
- LHP Matthew Boyd (28)
- LHP Daniel Norris (28)
- Houston Astros
- LHP Framber Valdez (25)
- RHP Josh James (26)
- RHP Zach Greinke (35)
- 1 Year Left at $35M+
- RHP Aaron Sanchez
- Injured?
- Kansas City Royals
- RHP Jacob Junis (26)
- LHP Danny Duffy (30)
- Los Angeles Angels
- LHP Andrew Heaney (28)
- Los Angeles Dodgers
- LHP Hyun-Jin Ryu (32)
- LHP Clayton Kershaw (31)
- Would a change of scenery help here? Has he lost some of his pitches? Can Wes Johnson help him get that back?
- RHP Ross Stripling (29)
- Miami Marlins
- LHP Caleb Smith (27)
- RHP Trevor Richards (26)
- Milwaukee Brewers
- RHP Chase Anderson (31)?
- New York Mets
- LHP Steven Matz (28)
- RHP Marcus Stroman (28)
- Is he available?
- New York Yankees
- ?
- Oakland Athletics
- ?
- Philadelphia Phillies
- RHP Jake Arrieta (33)
- Can opt out of 1-year, $20M remaining on contract; Club can exercise 2-year, $40M option
- RHP Vince Velazquez (27)
- RHP Nick Pivetta (26)
- RHP Jerad Eickhoff (28)
- RHP Jake Arrieta (33)
- Pittsburgh Pirates
- RHP Joe Musgrove (26)
- RHP Trevor Williams (27)
- RHP Chris Archer (30)
- $9M club option with $1.75M buyout
- Intriguing because he was very impactful in Tampa Bay
- RHP Jameson Taillon (27)
- Cancer so will he pitch? Only 7 starts
- San Diego Padres
- LHP Joey Lucchesi (26)
- RHP Dinelson Lamet (26)
- San Francisco Giants
- RHP Jeff Samardzija (34)
- RHP Derick Rodriquez (27)
- Former Twins Draft Pick
- Seattle Mariners
- LHP Marco Gonzalez (27)
- RHP Mike Leake (31)
- St. Louis Cardinals
- ?
- Tampa Bay Rays
- ?
- Texas Rangers
- RHP Mike Minor (31)
- Toronto Blue Jays
- ?
- Washington Nationals
- ?
The ultimate goal is to get a pitcher who has yet to turn 30 with some team control left. After going through this list a few times, there are only a few names that stand out and will also likely be available. The best of them is RHP Robbie Ray from the Arizona Diamondbacks. He’s still just 28 and has shown the ability and the arsenal to be a top of the rotation pitcher. We’d follow with Atlanta Braves RHP Julio Teheran and we’re intrigued by Philadelphia Phillies RHP Vince Velazquez & Pittsburgh Pirates RHP Chris Archer.
What would the Twins have to give up to acquire a Robbie Ray or the top pitcher available on the trade market? It’s hard to say because we saw above that the Pirates didn’t acquire any of the Astros top prospects so how do we know other than looking at where the team looks to be at right now. For instance, Arizona sold Greinke but they also acquired some MLB pitchers so are they in between rebuilding and tweaking?
