Thread: Article: What Would a Francisco Liriano Trade Look Like?

Originally Posted by TheLeviathan

"Pitch to contact" = "Throw strikes" = "Bust the ball in the zone". That's all it is. You can argue he needs to hear a different term for it, but they are all the same.

Twins have gotten WAY too much flack for that advice to Liriano from day 1.

Agreed. As to the topic, I think we should hold onto right up the deadline, hope he continues to improve and, if he does, get a good deal for him or offer him arbitration (which he might accept). I don't want the Twins to trade him for Dustin Martin/Drew Butera type deal.

There's a few things to consider with this, the biggest is whether the Twins view themselves as contenders next year.. If they do, they are going to need Liriano. I'm going to assume that while they may publicly say they are, in private, they are writing off next year and will trade him, hopefully for a front line starter in A+/AA to complement the crop of hitting prospects that are coming through the system. If they can get that for him, they should move him in a heartbeat.

I'd be leary of offering him too big a pay day... His history is eratic enough that he will not likely be a team's top aquisition. If the Twins offer him the 12M to ensure a draft pick, they may be shocked when he accepts arb with the hope of having a second good season and getting a payday.

It is good news that he looks like a player with value again.

The Twins can set the bar for a Dan Hudson level pitching prospect. BBA had Hudson at #66 and Chicago's #3 entering 2010.

It may not be reasonable that they will get that offer. In that case, they can offer him a 12.4 million/1 year contract. That level will guarantee compensation of two picks if he chooses free agency.

His talent is worth the risk that he will accept the one year deal.

With Liriano, any decision is a risk. The Twins may turn down an offer of middling prospects and then watch him fall apart or come up injured after the trade deadline. At that point, offering a compensation level deal wouldn't make sense and the Twins would be left empty handed.

I would hold out for a good pitching prospect and risk the reasonable possibility that Twins will end up with nothing.

Originally Posted by peterb18

I think they should keep him. If they re-sign Liriano, sign Baker(who has a real live arm when healthy), hope that Gibson is ready, and then sign Grienke as your fourth starter. That would be 4 strong arms with good stuff. Then have Diamond as your other starter--that is a pretty good staff. A lot of big ifs! Also, I think most fans want a competitive team next year. Not a repeat of the last two seasons.

Re-sign Baker and Liriano??????? LUDICROUS!!! That would take $20mill. of our (hopefully) 100mill. payroll not counting Mauer. Neither has shown he is capable of being an ace (Verlander, CC level) for more than a month at a time. (and those months are few and far between). If we did re-sign both, there would be absolutely ZERO dollars for any free agent.

Trade Liriano for any two minor leaguers and whatever else we can get. Maybe like Lohse he will have ONE good year elsewhere. Maybe not--but only one. No GM is gonna give us much for Frankie. No GM is gonna give Frankie a $10 million contract for 2013 that Twins have to.

Originally Posted by DAM DC Twins Fans

Re-sign Baker and Liriano??????? LUDICROUS!!! That would take $20mill. of our (hopefully) 100mill. payroll not counting Mauer. Neither has shown he is capable of being an ace (Verlander, CC level) for more than a month at a time. (and those months are few and far between). If we did re-sign both, there would be absolutely ZERO dollars for any free agent.

Trade Liriano for any two minor leaguers and whatever else we can get. Maybe like Lohse he will have ONE good year elsewhere. Maybe not--but only one. No GM is gonna give us much for Frankie. No GM is gonna give Frankie a $10 million contract for 2013 that Twins have to.

No way would Baker and Liriano get 20mm on the free agent market.

The only way to keep Baker is to pick up his option for about 9 million. If allowed to be a free agent, he will sign elsewhere. While that will likely be less than 9 million, he will no longer be a Twin.

If Liriano continues to pitch well, the only way to have a shot a keeping him is to offer the compensation level of 12.4 million.

The point is that in order for the Twins to keep these two, they will need to budget 21 million. The likelihood that they will get less in the market is irrelevant, because they won't stay with the Twins for less.

The only good side of both of these deals is they will be one year commitments to players with an up side. The risks are overwhelmingly obvious.

If they get a good offer anytime befroe the trade deadline the should jump on it imo. Liriano's biggest problem (even bigger than his mechanics) has always been his own head. It could take one bad inning, say an error, a walk and a bloop double to ruin the value he's built up with these last few starts.

I think you could realistically offer both Baker an Liriano a low-end, 2 year deal with incentives. Maybe $7mil + incentives/yr for Frankie. For Baker, offer $4+incentives for 2013 and $7+incentives for 2014. If the pitchers outperform the base rate, they earn what they believe they are potentially worth, but the club would limit risk with pitchers who are currently known by everyone in baseball to be high-risk. If it takes more than the above to sign either of them, you have to look elsewhere.

About 2 months ago, this question seemed absurd because Liriano's ERA was in the neighborhood of 10.00. Now he looks like a Top 25 starter again. I don't get it. I think Twins fans have accepted the fact that he'll have some degree of success wherever he ends up. The guy is in his 5th season after returning from Tommy John, and in only one of those seasons (2010) has he put together "front of the rotation" numbers.

Even worse (and this sticks in my head more than the numbers), he completely fell apart in September in both 2008 and 2010 against mediocre AL Central opponents, in critical games down the stretch when the rest of the rotation seemed to be doing well. He's a total headcase, and while there's clearly something there, I would much rather have the budget flexibility for signing other starters or improving positional players.

Ironically (and one of the reasons some are tempted to keep him), if there was a type of free agent pitcher the Twins should target this offseason, it would be a slightly younger version of Liriano: A post-hype guy who seems to have something left in the tank, but has been marred by inconsistency to go with his considerable upside.

We all like the Edwin Jackson comps, but think no one will give Liriano $10m? Jackson has a year of service time on Liriano (so one more payday, essentially) and got $11m in his first go-around in free agency (granted he earned more his arbitration years). I also read on other sites (because TwinsDaily wasn't up yet), where many - though not all - would have endorsed giving Jackson the contract the Nationals did.

I'm not trying to say its a no-brainer to keep Liriano for the rest of year and hope he accepts arbitration. But I think there are worse ways to potentially spend $12.5m. I would take the risk, under the belief that there is a 25% chance he accepts and a 75% chance he wants to test the waters.

Liriano has probably earned between $8-9m for next year on the FA market... and if he continues to pitch like he has been since May 30, he could earn a lot more...

Originally Posted by SpiritofVodkaDave

Is Liriano the most frustrating player in not only the history of this franchise, but in all of baseball as well?

He's the pitching version of Jeff Francoeur.

Originally Posted by SpiritofVodkaDave

No way would Baker and Liriano get 20mm on the free agent market.

I agree with the above.
The only way I see a competitve pitching staff for the next two years is to sign Liriano, Baker and hope that Gibson develops. From what I see there are no potential 1 or 2 starters in the farm system. Otherwise it is going to a rough next couple of years.

Originally Posted by TheLeviathan

"Pitch to contact" = "Throw strikes" = "Bust the ball in the zone". That's all it is. You can argue he needs to hear a different term for it, but they are all the same.

Twins have gotten WAY too much flack for that advice to Liriano from day 1.

Leviathan,
No they are not the same. If you ever pitched a lot of games you would know there is a big difference. However, only a few pitchers can pitch this way--a guy like Liriano can. Maybe the only way he can pitch. There is a big difference between throwing strikes and pitching to contact than just trying to bust the ball. With the later you can just try to get relaxed with your arm and rock back and just try to hit the plate and let natural movement take over. The type of movement is determined by your arm angle. Over the top is best for strikeouts. Like Bert always says," set them up with fastball and the strikeout pitch is the curve, or slider in the dirt". If you told Sandy Kofax to pitch to contact he would be in a lot of trouble. Now a guy like Radke, that is a different story.

Originally Posted by peterb18

Leviathan,
No they are not the same. If you ever pitched a lot of games you would know there is a big difference. However, only a few pitchers can pitch this way--a guy like Liriano can. Maybe the only way he can pitch. There is a big difference between throwing strikes and pitching to contact than just trying to bust the ball. With the later you can just try to get relaxed with your arm and rock back and just try to hit the plate and let natural movement take over. The type of movement is determined by your arm angle. Over the top is best for strikeouts. Like Bert always says," set them up with fastball and the strikeout pitch is the curve, or slider in the dirt". If you told Sandy Kofax to pitch to contact he would be in a lot of trouble. Now a guy like Radke, that is a different story.

peterb18,
I think you might have a point, but it's pretty much just semantics.

It is not a given it will take $12.5M to sign Liriano for 2013. That's just the offer the Twins would have to make under the new CBA to get compensation if he signs elsewhere.

It is also not a given he would need to be signed to a 1 year deal.

I remain convinced the Twins should have signed Liriano to a 3 yr deal last winter, when they could have done so cheaply, and remain convinced they should be looking to sign him to a 3 yr deal now, when it would be slightly less cheap, but doable. Liriano would take a 3 yr deal, at something like $21-$24/3.

Where else are the Twins going to get a starter with higher upside over the next 3 yrs? What would you rather see them spend that money on? There is nothing in the upper minors, save the possibility Gibson or Wimmers comes back to be effective in 2014 or so, and little chance the Twins are going to spend the type of money necessary to acquire top line starting pitching.

I would agree if he refuses a long term contract, then maybe you have to consider dealing him. But the "dump him for anything" crowd is just completely idiotic, and trading him before trying to get him signed to a reasonable long term deal is only slightly less stupid.

To combat Morosi's point, Buster Olney spoke to some evaluators who were "skittish" about pursuing Liriano and favored the Cubs' Matt Garza in spite of his higher salary. Can't say I don't disagree.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/0...medium=twitter

Originally Posted by Parker Hageman

To combat Morosi's point, Buster Olney spoke to some evaluators who were "skittish" about pursuing Liriano and favored the Cubs' Matt Garza in spite of his higher salary. Can't say I don't disagree.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/0...medium=twitter

I'd favor Garza as well.

Originally Posted by peterb18

Leviathan,
No they are not the same. If you ever pitched a lot of games you would know there is a big difference. However, only a few pitchers can pitch this way--a guy like Liriano can. Maybe the only way he can pitch. There is a big difference between throwing strikes and pitching to contact than just trying to bust the ball. With the later you can just try to get relaxed with your arm and rock back and just try to hit the plate and let natural movement take over. The type of movement is determined by your arm angle. Over the top is best for strikeouts. Like Bert always says," set them up with fastball and the strikeout pitch is the curve, or slider in the dirt". If you told Sandy Kofax to pitch to contact he would be in a lot of trouble. Now a guy like Radke, that is a different story.

Was it intentional that you picked THE guy as your example of a non-pitch to contact player that also happens to have given THE pro-pitch to contact quote? The irony is fantastic either way, although I'm partial to the flavor where it wasn't.

It's been claimed (I don't know the veracity) that for a while Liriano was given a target down the middle and was told to just fire the ball over the plate to let his natural movement thrive. That...didn't work.

Congrats on having pitched a lot of games.

Baker? He just had TJ surgery, he won't be effective until 2014. I don't get how anyone thinks that makes sense. They aren't contending next year, trade them all. Where has anyone said "dump him for anything", where has anyone said that? Straw man arguements are weak.

Originally Posted by peterb18

Leviathan,
No they are not the same. If you ever pitched a lot of games you would know there is a big difference. However, only a few pitchers can pitch this way--a guy like Liriano can. Maybe the only way he can pitch. There is a big difference between throwing strikes and pitching to contact than just trying to bust the ball. With the later you can just try to get relaxed with your arm and rock back and just try to hit the plate and let natural movement take over. The type of movement is determined by your arm angle. Over the top is best for strikeouts. Like Bert always says," set them up with fastball and the strikeout pitch is the curve, or slider in the dirt". If you told Sandy Kofax to pitch to contact he would be in a lot of trouble. Now a guy like Radke, that is a different story.

Why are you responding like this is a civil war correspondence?

You're talking about the difference in these approaches as mechanical. Which would work for your argument if the Twins had tried to change his mechanics. They didn't. The "pitch to contact" issue came up two springs ago when he was throwing 100 pitches in barely four innings. He wasn't trusting his stuff and throwing strikes. So the Twins labeled it "pitch to contact" to get him to start throwing the ball and trusting his movement. If you throw it to where they will swing...your stuff will cause missed bats.

Your example also falls apart because no matter if you're Koufax, Johan Santana, Randy Johnson, or Fransisco Liriano - you don't strike people out if you don't throw strikes. Guys will just take pitches and beat you that way. To put it more simply - you can't get strike three if you can't get strikes one and two first. Hitters aren't dumb. Hell, AJ said it on Barreiro yesterday - the gameplan with Frankie is to see if he'll do the work for you. If he's in the zone - you're in trouble. If he's not, you're going to beat him around.

And, for the record, Nick N., Phil Mackey, and others have confirmed that the "pitch to contact" criticisms are nonsense. I'm not saying anything that isn't well known. I just happened to be on that same bandwagon from the get-go.