Jake Odorizzi

[Brock Beauchamp]

All Jake Odorizzi ever wanted was a home. A home to call his own.

For a man who made over $50 million playing baseball, Odorizzi was quite an unlucky player. Drafted in the first round of the 2008 MLB Draft by the Milwaukee Brewers (32nd overall), he was traded to the Kansas City Royals in 2010 as part of the Zack Greinke trade. He made his MLB debut in September of 2012 and made two appearances for the Royals.

Odorizzi was traded again that offseason, this time to the Tampa Bay Rays in the James Shields trade. Here he (unsurprisingly) thrived, pitching parts of five seasons in Tampa, posting a 3.82 ERA (103 ERA+). Suffering recurring back problems that limited his ability to pitch effectively and stay on the mound, in February of 2018 Odorizzi was traded to the Minnesota Twins for Jermaine Palacios.

The Twins, fresh off a 2017 Wild Card berth, had high hopes for the 2018 season and Jake Odorizzi was a key part of their attempt to see October baseball in back-to-back seasons. Unfortunately, Odorizzi had a mildly disappointing season where he posted a 4.49 ERA (95 ERA+) and was limited to only 164.1 innings despite making 32 starts. The Twins as a whole were also a disappointment, finishing 78-84 and finishing 13 games behind the Cleveland Indians.

2019 brought new hope and, ultimately, the Bomba Squad. As the Twins rolled their way to a 101-win season, Odorizzi had a career year. He started 30 games, posted a 3.51 ERA (129 ERA+), and made his only All-Star team.

Following the 2019 season, Odorizzi was given the option of becoming a free agent but the Twins stuck him with a Qualifying Offer that offseason. Typically, there is no bad outcome if given the Qualifying Offer... unless you're Jake Odorizzi. Coming off a highly-successful age-30 season, he took the QO, expecting to receive close to $20 million for the 2020 season.

Cue pandemic sirens. The baseball season was delayed and Odorizzi ended up receiving roughly one-third of the Qualifying Offer money in 2020. Naturally, he also had a very disappointing campaign riddled with injury and made only four starts.

This took the wind out of Odorizzi's negotiating leverage sails the following winter, where he ultimately settled for an incentive-laden deal with the Houston Astros. He pitched in Houston for parts of two seasons. He was later traded to the Atlanta Braves and then again to the Texas Rangers. That brought the total number of times Jake Odorizzi was traded to five.

Jake Odorizzi, once on the cusp of possibly receiving a $100 million contract, had to ultimately settle for a fraction of a Qualifying Offer and then an incentive-laden deal that paid him less than $30 million.

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[jkcarew]

Hey…we all have to have our LEAST favorite Twin, right!?

At least for recent years, Odorizzi fits that bill for me. At the point in his career when he was a Twin, he had developed into a hall-of-fame level nibbler and slow worker. Got out in time to avoid pitching with the clock. Was effective at times for the Twins, but I swear it was mostly the opponent giving in to boredom, and swinging at stuff deliberately thrown out of the strike zone. To be fair, I’m not objective here, because I could not stand his pace. Thankfully, even bad baseball is good.