SI's top 50 FA and predictions

[gunnarthor]

Nothing too surprising here. They have the Twins nabbing Jose Iglases as a stop gap to Lewis and Wade Miley to fill into the rotation. Both make some sort of sense as low budget moves. Iglesias is a very good defender but would suggest a defensive arrangement of either Cron/Polanco/Iglesias/Sano with Arreaz squeezed out or we don't resign Cron and go with Sano/Polanco/Iglesias/Arreaz. Or, possibly, Iglesias is signed to more of an Adrianza role but I'm not sure he'd do that.

 

They have Gibby going to KC, Romo back to Miami, Odorizzi going to Milwaukee, Schoop to Cleveland and Pineda going to Houston.

 

I think of those guys, we're most likely to bring back Pineda or Romo but we'll see. 

 

https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/10/24/baseball-free-agent-rankings

 

If Miley is the best starter we sign then the rotation would be either weak or maybe the FO expects a young arm to make a sizeable jump. 

 

Berrios

Miley

Graterol?

Dobnak

Bullpen game?

 

That doesn't look good. So I'd expect at least one more FA signing or a trade of some kind.

[ashbury]

Both of Odo and Big Mike moving on seem like a low-odds parlay. You're right that if that's what transpires, we'll do something beyond Miley. Theirs being a FA article, I guess that means a whopper trade - thus the lack of closure on a projected rotation.

[Dantes929]

Other posts have fans asking for the Twins to sign Cole and another ace to go along with Pineda and Odorizzi when signing aces is unlikely and retaining Pineda and Odorizzi is hardly a given.   I'm ok with and support giving young guys a chance and depending on them to step up but not with 3 or 4 spots.    Pineda and Odo are both better than Miley and quite possibly Dobnak, Graterol and Smeltzer are also.   My priority would be to resign Pineda and Odorizzi.   Then talk about how to surround them.    

[Battle ur tail off]

I just don't think it makes much sense to sign a SS without moving one of Arraez or Polanco over to 3B. 

 

This shows how much the national media knows about our team. Aaraez will be a starter somewhere on this team. If you move Polanco off short, there is no way Aaraez sits, one of them would play 3B with Sano moving over to 1B IMO. In this article, they don't even factor him in. 

[Battle ur tail off]

I also feel with the lack of starting pitching we have coming back next year that there is no way they let both Pineda and Ordorizzi walk. And Gibson for that matter. 

 

I think at the very, very least the Twins will sign one of those 3 back. If it is up to me I place them in the order of Odorizzi, Pineda, Gibson. 

[DocBauer]

That article seems very short sighted to me and lacking a lot of practicality

[ashbury]

I didn't stop to think about Miley specifically. He's not on the Astros roster for the WS, correct? So they let him start 33 games but then leave him off now? If we have WS ambitions, that's kind of a red flag, without doing any further research on him. I don't want to see this team spend millions (even if only "a few") to fill a fifth-starter slot - that is what the logjam of AAA choices is for, in my view. Fifth-starter isn't even a role, except for short periods of time, and is where you conduct tryouts, always with an eye toward finding a fourth rotation member or better.

[Mike Sixel]

That would be an utter failure by the Twins. No way it's that bad. No way.

[raindog]

Yes, let's let Iglesias to the Twins gather more steam. Arraez at 3B, Iglesias at SS, Polanco at 2B, and Sano at 1B. Dramatic defensive improvement. 

 

Now the rest is garbage. Miley alone for the rotation obviously wouldn't be good enough. 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I didn't stop to think about Miley specifically. He's not on the Astros roster for the WS, correct? So they let him start 33 games but then leave him off now? If we have WS ambitions, that's kind of a red flag, without doing any further research on him.

Miley was an interesting pick-up for the Astros, but he was awful in September and they're apparently going with bullpen games in the postseason instead of using him as a 4th starter (and not even using him as a lefty or long reliever out of the pen either).

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I just don't think it makes much sense to sign a SS without moving one of Arraez or Polanco over to 3B. 

 

This shows how much the national media knows about our team. Aaraez will be a starter somewhere on this team. If you move Polanco off short, there is no way Aaraez sits, one of them would play 3B with Sano moving over to 1B IMO. In this article, they don't even factor him in. 

I think the unstated presumption would be Sano to 1B, Arraez to 3B, and non-tender Cron.

 

But I agree, and generally, predicting a sudden position switch seems a little beyond what the scope of the article should be. Seems more likely they'd retain Cron at 1B and keep Polanco at short until Lewis is ready.

[Otto von Ballpark]

If there's one thing good about the article, it gives a bit of a market overview -- both supply and demand.

 

For example. seeing Odorizzi to Milwaukee makes you realize, there are other mid-market teams who would probably like him in his expected price range.

[gunnarthor]

I don't hate the idea of Miley individually. He is what he is and he'd probably be better than Perez. But he's the 5 guy in the pen and we'd need to do better up front. I don't think Odorizzi is coming back but I like Pineda a lot, I think he'll come back. But we still need another good pitcher or two and I don't think we have him in-house right now. 

 

I'm honestly not sure how the Twins go about fixing the rotation. They aren't going to spend the money to bring in a guy like Cole or Strasburg. I also don't think they'd go more than 3 years on anyone which might stop them from even re-signing Odorizzi. I'm afraid we're going to do the bullpen thing but I don't know if we even have the pieces for that. 

 

For coming off a 101 win season, I'm surprisingly pessimistic about next year. I don't like that.

[Kelly Vance]

No to Miley. We have enough pitchers that flame out by September.... oh wait. 

 

But seriously, Twins have inside track on Odo and Big Mike.And likely Romo. We won't need to find 3 starters.

 

Iglesias to replace Jorge who was the All Star starter at SS?   Which means Luis moves to 3b and Sano to 1b and Jorge to 2b?  Really?  What is this musical chairs?  Not seeing it. Too many position changes on one infield. You might move everyone around in little league but not MLB.  Not everyone. 

 

 

[Dave Overlund]

Their predictions are going off of 35 years of Twins' free agency history and seem fairly accurate to me.

 

Miley fits the lineage of Twins free agent pitcher signings perfectly. Low cost, and if alllll the stars align, he could win 13 games. 

 

 

[Jham]

I can see the front office really trying to lure back Odo, sign Ryu, trade for Darvish or Thor. Then I see them getting very frustrated by other teams willingness to overpay or demand premium prospects in trade.

 

This is why they were mad about Stroman. It's a deal we actually could have done if we weren't preoccupied in waiting for prices to drop on Thor and Madbum.

 

In the end, I see Dobnak and Smeltzer getting shots, I see Perez coming back on an incentive based deal with an option for 2021 (I actually don't hate this idea). I think there's also a string possibility we'll look at non-tenders or even a rule 5 pitcher to fill a spot as we test the waters with our rookies and reclaimations while we're constantly "in on" Odo and whoever's sitting out with a QO awaiting the draft or whatever pitcher will be dealt before the deadline.

 

This FO has cobbled together competitive teams from scraps. They love prove it deals. Other than Cruz, they haven't worked. Maybe we'll get lucky this time.

[Mike Sixel]

Perez has been terrible for two years now, why would anyone want him back?

[ND-Fan]

This may sound crazy but i was thinking other day could the Twins be candidate for trade for Price if Boston was to eat some of the salary left on his contract. He would possibly fit in as fourth or fifth starter and big question is he healthy to eat bunch of innings. Also he's left hand pitcher something the Twins need in their rotation. Price is 33 and has two years left on his contract and if the Twins could get some regression back he would fit into Twins projected starting rotation. Also Boston is desperate to free them selves of salary to get under salary cap. The big question can they get him produce but he's still young enough where he might have one or two  seasons left in the tank.

[James]

The fact that this article has Alex Gordon going anywhere but back to the Royals makes the whole thing suspect to me.  He's made it very clear that his opinion is to play with the Royals, or retire.  I can't see him going to a Giants team that probably isn't going to compete.  

 

But then again, this just says best fit, not necessarily a prediction of where they will go. 

 

 

[Shaitan]

 

I can see the front office really trying to lure back Odo, sign Ryu, trade for Darvish or Thor. Then I see them getting very frustrated by other teams willingness to overpay or demand premium prospects in trade.

 

Ryu is 32, has a spotty injury history, is coming off a big year and is a Boras client. I don't think anyone will get value for the price Boras will ask.

[darin617]

Let's bring in Mike Moustakas on a 2 year deal with club option for 3rd.  Make it worth up to 23M.  I also would not feel bad about bringing in a SS like Iglesias. Need solid defense from SS.

[old nurse]

Have any of these types of opinion pieces on where players are going articles ever been remotely correct. If nothing else they give you an idea who the team is not going to sign

[Mike Sixel]

 

Have any of these types of opinion pieces on where players are going articles ever been remotely correct. If nothing else they give you an idea who the team is not going to sign

 

some of them are pretty good....but it's something to talk about.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Have any of these types of opinion pieces on where players are going articles ever been remotely correct. If nothing else they give you an idea who the team is not going to sign

I don't know about SI, but MLBTR predicted Marwin Gonzalez and Nelson Cruz both signing with the Twins last winter. Most of their other predictions didn't come to fruition, but it's pretty darn hard to match up 50 FAs with 30 teams.

 

They're more just an overview of the market than anything else -- I don't think anyone claims great results on the prediction side. Like here, you get an overview of the guys available, and see what other teams might be in the market for.

[Number3]

Don't you love pro sports? Every team , repeat; every team tries to juggle their lineup and promises the gullible fans that they will be better than the prior year if they will just buy those season tickets. It only makes sense that the teams that did the worst should improve the most. The Twins won 101 games. What are they going to do next year, win 110 games? Good luck. Goal 1 should be to hang on to as many of the players as possible that won 101 games and ask them to learn and improve from last year. Goal 2 should be to grab low hanging fruit who can help but not rock the boat and/or replace those who leave. I still can't believe that Lewis isn't ready to contribute at the major league level.

Chasing the Coles and Strasburgs would be a major mistake.

Teams that don't have the ability to develop their own young talent are doomed.

[Tomj14]

 

Don't you love pro sports? Every team , repeat; every team tries to juggle their lineup and promises the gullible fans that they will be better than the prior year if they will just buy those season tickets. It only makes sense that the teams that did the worst should improve the most. The Twins won 101 games. What are they going to do next year, win 110 games? Good luck. Goal 1 should be to hang on to as many of the players as possible that won 101 games and ask them to learn and improve from last year. Goal 2 should be to grab low hanging fruit who can help but not rock the boat and/or replace those who leave. I still can't believe that Lewis isn't ready to contribute at the major league level.

Chasing the Coles and Strasburgs would be a major mistake.

Teams that don't have the ability to develop their own young talent are doomed.

I think Goal 1 is to repeat as Central Division Champ. Goal 2 should be get a home playoffs series. Goal 3 should be to move past the 1 round of playoffs. If hanging on to players from last year helps with the goals than that should be part of the plan for achieving goals 1 - 3, if upgrading at certain positions is needed to meet the goals, than that should be part of the plan.

[beckmt]

Remember many of these publications are on the coasts and tend to make assumptions based on the coast teams.  I saw an article this morning that claimed Cole to NY Yankees was a given unless he decided he was going to pitch on the West Coast for less money.  So I take them with a grain of salt.  Same article had the Yankees using Clint Frasier in every major trade they were predicting the Yankees would make (including one with the Twins for Polanco). 

I would offer Cole enough (maybe 7/240) to make the Yankees go into major tax territory to sign him (and I believe you have to sign an ace when you get the chance). Strasburg or Wheeler I am lower on, but Wheeler would still be an upgrade (Strasburg is a fall back for me, too many injury issues), but think the Twins will attach a QO to Oderizzi and probably resign him on a 3/45 area deal.  Pineda I would also want, but on a like about 3/36 or that range.  Prices are going up for decent starting pitching and that is all the Twins need to be competitive.  

[PseudoSABR]

Lazy article. He pegs the Twins payroll around like 80 million, a year after they win the division and have money to spend.