Monday's Free-Agent Deals Should Give Us All the Information We Need About the Chris Paddack Market

[Matthew Trueblood]

Two free-agent pitchers who (in different ways) closely match the value of Chris Paddack found new homes Monday evening. The deals should give us clarity about what the imposing Twins righty is worth as they try to clear his salary from the books.

Image courtesy of © Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images

Within a couple hours of one another, right-handed hurlers Michael Lorenzen ($7 million, with $5.5 million paid in 2025 and $1.5 million as the buyout on a mutual option for 2026, with the Royals) and Chris Martin ($5.5 million, with the Rangers) signed one-year free-agent deals Monday. Lorenzen will, presumably, be a starter for the Royals, while Martin is a career reliever who took slightly less money than he was offered elsewhere in order to land close to home and pitch for Texas.

Those were important moves for the Twins, because it's already Jan. 7, and they still need to clear at least a chunk of the $7.5 million they owe to Chris Paddack for 2025. Paddack is crowded out of the team's starting rotation (which consists, at the moment, of Pablo López, Bailey Ober, Joe Ryan, David Festa, and Simeon Woods Richardson, with Zebby Matthews and others waiting in the wings), and while he profiles better as a streamlined-repertoire reliever, the money the Twins owe him on the teams of the extension the two sides struck in early 2023 is more than they can afford to pay to fill a middle-relief role under their ownership-friendly budgetary constraints for the coming season.

Thus, trading Paddack is the only sensible thing to do. Ideally, the Twins will spend some money to upgrade first base and their outfield mix, and to find a left-handed reliever to round out their bullpen, but as things stand, they have to move significant money just to hit the number set by the miserly Pohlad family. Waiting out the market a bit has given the Twins time to let demand and supply balance one another, but the Lorenzen and Martin deals have also given them some insight into what marginal value Paddack has on the trade market.

That answer is blessedly simple, too, though not exciting: it's zero. Paddack is very close to equal in value to the likes of Lorenzen and Martin. The first run of Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA projections for 2025 list Lorenzen at a 111 DRA- (where 100 is average and lower is better); Paddack at 99, but in fewer innings; and Martin at 86, but in several fewer innings than Paddack. He's capable of either starting or relieving, but either way it breaks, one of his easiest comparators just signed—and they signed for almost exactly what he'll make in 2025.

Unfortunately, that probably means that the Twins will have to kick in something whenever they trade Paddack. In theory, the implication of these deals would be that he could be traded straight-up for nothing, but that's not really how baseball transactions work. It's more likely, for reasons personal and logistical and on-field, that the Twins will trade Paddack and some amount of money to offset his salary for a player who addresses one of their needs, even if it be in a fairly unsatisfying way. They could always trade him for a couple of far-off prospects and simply attach $1-2 million, but that would leave them stuck: they still wouldn't have spending power, and their list of needs would not get shorter.

Instead, we could see them attach $2-3 million and target a player like Sacramento's Hogan Harris or T.J. McFarland (two lefty relievers) or a similarly low-level bat. Paddack doesn't seem to have any marginal value, but these deals suggest that he is tradable. It will just have to take the form of patching a minor hole and achieving minor savings, rather than deriving any major value from the move.

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[Jocko87]

Quote

Thus, trading Paddack is the only sensible thing to do.

I'm not sure you supported this assertion. 

Given all you laid out, I'd say it was quite the opposite. Any upside on trading Paddack is at the trade deadline, as it always has been.

[Danchat]

38 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

I'm not sure you supported this assertion. 

Given all you laid out, I'd say it was quite the opposite. Any upside on trading Paddack is at the trade deadline, as it always has been.

Perhaps, but he may not be healthy at the deadline. 

[Cory Engelhardt]

37 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

I'm not sure you supported this assertion. 

Given all you laid out, I'd say it was quite the opposite. Any upside on trading Paddack is at the trade deadline, as it always has been.

But then the question gets asked; is there upside to having Paddack ahead of Festa/SWR/Zebby/Morris in some capacity? 

I still think Paddack could be a decent back-end starter for a lot of teams. And I also agree you can never have enough pitching. But comparing how much is out there now in the trade market to what MIGHT be available at the deadline, assuming he stays healthy, is hard to comprehend for me. 

Plus, with the apparent payroll maximum the Pohlad family has decided on, it's hard for me to see why keeping Paddack past opening day makes sense. 

[chpettit19]

Put him in the pen, let him dominate there for half the season, then trade him at the deadline if the Pohlads really need to save that 3ish million and you'd actually get something in return for him.

[ashbury]

39 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

Any upside on trading Paddack is at the trade deadline, as it always has been.

But that does hardly anything to address the reason for trading Paddack away in the first place: the salary he's being paid.

[Blyleven2011]

The situation we are in is crippling the front office  , they either go with what they have for 2025 and a payroll of 140 million  ...

Fans should at least try and get answers at twins fest as we corner falvey with questions ...

I'm not going because I stated I'm not spending money on the twins until I see a contender and not a pretender , hope our fabulous writers will be there drilling falvey ( seth or nick would be my favorite to accomplish this ) ....

[DJL44]

The advantage a team has getting Paddack is the player can't say "no" like a free agent can. The Twins may have to take some salary back in the deal but that might not be awful. Paddack for a veteran reliever making $2.5M would be a small downgrade in the bullpen but save $5M. 

[thelanges5]

Keep Paddack and roll the dice. Start Zebby at AAA. We used 8 SPs last year and could use the depth. 

[GNess]

I agree with the basic point that Paddack's value may be best realized by having him pitch for the Twins rather than free up a few million to acquire a FA player TBD. If he pitches well he might have much more trade value at the trade deadline.

 

[Cory Engelhardt]

14 minutes ago, thelanges5 said:

Keep Paddack and roll the dice. Start Zebby at AAA. We used 8 SPs last year and could use the depth. 

Most teams (even the Dodgers) use 10 or 11 different pitchers to start a game in a full season. That’s pretty normal 

[tony&rodney]

Paddack would be a good swing man in the bullpen. It would also protect his arm and allow the Twins to use the better starting pitchers ahead of him. I would agree with those who suggest using Paddack in the pen and trading him at the deadline if at all, unless the Twins find a suitable, useful transaction before that time. The only decent or interesting right handed bats are available via trade. The cost may be dear and require some additional moves as well.

If anything, the demand for Chris Paddack may be increased with the signing of Lorenzen. They are similar pitchers, although I feel Paddack might be better as a high leverage reliever late in the year. As pitchers come off the board a few teams will be left with some shortages in the pitching department.

For now, Paddack fits nicely in the bullpen. It would be ridiculous to ignore where Paddack fits on the team just because he has a salary higher than another player. Neither Jax nor Duran makes as much as Paddack and we should not elevate Chris P. to the closer role. Put the players in the best role for success.

A quick search will show that the Twins have not made one single comment about cutting payroll nor having a hard number, say $130 million. The only references to payroll from ownership have stated that no cuts will be made. Everyone, everyone who is a fan of the Twins would love a $150-200M payroll. The mandatory false statements in almost every article are detracting from the articles. False statements do that. 

[DJL44]

6 minutes ago, GNess said:

I agree with the basic point that Paddack's value may be best realized by having him pitch for the Twins rather than free up a few million to acquire a FA player TBD. If he pitches well he might have much more trade value at the trade deadline.

True, but the point of the season isn't to maximize Paddack's trade value. They need to win as many games as possible on a $130M budget. Keeping Paddack in the rotation means you can't use Festa in the rotation and Festa has potential to be better than Paddack. It also means you have to trade someone like Willi Castro to hit the budget target and that's going to make the 2025 team worse overall.

I'll put it another way. If Chris Paddack was a free agent, would anyone here be advocating the Twins sign him to a $7.5M contract? I think that answer is clearly no. If they can dump him for nothing they should absolutely do that.

[tony&rodney]

51 minutes ago, ashbury said:

But that does hardly anything to address the reason for trading Paddack away in the first place: the salary he's being paid.

The Twins do not need to clear his salary. There has never been any statement to that point. Twins Daily and people who comment here have pushed that narrative, partially in order to find a pile of cash to sign a free agent. What free agent do we want? We all want the Twins to have a top twelve payroll. Is that actually a reasonable demand? It is a great wish.

[DocBauer]

11 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Paddack would be a good swing man in the bullpen. It would also protect his arm and allow the Twins to use the better starting pitchers ahead of him. I would agree with those who suggest using Paddack in the pen and trading him at the deadline if at all, unless the Twins find a suitable, useful transaction before that time. The only decent or interesting right handed bats are available via trade. The cost may be dear and require some additional moves as well.

If anything, the demand for Chris Paddack may be increased with the signing of Lorenzen. They are similar pitchers, although I feel Paddack might be better as a high leverage reliever late in the year. As pitchers come off the board a few teams will be left with some shortages in the pitching department.

For now, Paddack fits nicely in the bullpen. It would be ridiculous to ignore where Paddack fits on the team just because he has a salary higher than another player. Neither Jax nor Duran makes as much as Paddack and we should not elevate Chris P. to the closer role. Put the players in the best role for success.

A quick search will show that the Twins have not made one single comment about cutting payroll nor having a hard number, say $130 million. The only references to payroll from ownership have stated that no cuts will be made. Everyone, everyone who is a fan of the Twins would love a $150-200M payroll. The mandatory false statements in almost every article are detracting from the articles. False statements do that. 

Two comments have been publicly made.

1] The Twins stated they were not looking to cut payroll any further.

2] They also stated they weren't expecting to add to payroll. 

The gray area is the fact they've never stated $130M or the proposed end of 2024 season and expected cost of bringing the team back as is, which pretty much puts the expected payroll of $134-140M.

Since, to my recollection, and actual, firm $ amount has yet to be stated, conjecture varies with $130M being the starting point based on the 2024 opening day number. 

[DocBauer]

Personally, I'd like to keep Paddack for the same reasons I think he's valuable to other teams. He's under 30yo, not overly expensive in the least, he's further removed from his surgery so the hope is for greater consistency in his velocity, and if his feel for his change comes back, he's potentially as good as a #3.

I'd rather open with him, have Festa and SWR battle for the final spot, and the other begins the season at St Paul as Ober did in 2023. Fair? No. But the depth for the entire system just got better. 

All that being said, he's the most logical trade candidate to free up $ to add SOMETHING to the roster. Word has it he could be moved at any time, but Falvey wants more than a salary dump and is holding out for a decent return. My guess would be Paddack and a lower level prospect for a cost controlled 4th OF or possible, controlled LH pen arm.

 

[tony&rodney]

1 minute ago, DocBauer said:

Two comments have been publicly made.

1] The Twins stated they were not looking to cut payroll any further.

2] They also stated they weren't expecting to add to payroll. 

The gray area is the fact they've never stated $130M or the proposed end of 2024 season and expected cost of bringing the team back as is, which pretty much puts the expected payroll of $134-140M.

Since, to my recollection, and actual, firm $ amount has yet to be stated, conjecture varies with $130M being the starting point based on the 2024 opening day number. 

I did not find any statements or quotes by any Twins officials that used the number $130M. Cots currently has the 2025 40 person year end projected at $141.6M. Fangraphs has the 2025 payroll at $142M. Other sites are around $138M. The Twins have stated that cuts are not being made. Thus, fans have speculated that in order to add payroll, subtractions must meet the additions. Twins Daily used $130M for their roster construction. I will remind you that they actually used $170M for a week last year. We just play around with this stuff and it is entertainment. i don't believe it is fair or decent to continually publish false information about what the Twins have said. I do think it was fair to rant fourteen months ago when the public relations debacle type statements were made. But that was over a year ago. I do think people might consider that falling attendance and the failure of the team's media contract looked like a reason to expect a new payroll of around $110-120M. I prefer $170M, but I'm just a fan.

[ashbury]

12 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins do not need to clear his salary. There has never been any statement to that point. It is a great wish.

I give "young" Joe Pohlad (who is older than any of my adult children) credit for learning not to say the quiet part out loud.  He got a lot of blowback from using business-speak to refer to "right-sizing", and since then has clammed up about money.

In a very pointed interview by Aaron Gleeman, Joe was pressed on matters concerning payroll.  When Aaron speculated that revenue was down in 2024 and asked what impact that would have on payroll, Joe gave the correct answer in terms of PR: "I'm not going to get into payroll right now."  If he had something positive to say, such as "a decline in revenue won't push payroll downward," he would have grabbed that opportunity to say it.

The most optimistic view is total payroll remains unchanged. But some salaries have gone up year over year, and the departures of Kepler and Santana don't make up for that.

In light of Joe's non-statement, I think the onus is on those who believe "salary does not need to be cleared" in the form of Paddack, Vazquez, and Castro, to give some evidence why.  An article like this one on what shape a salary dump of Paddack would look like, is a worthwhile discussion.

Quote

We all want the Twins to have a top twelve payroll. Is that actually a reasonable demand?

That's a nice strawman to close your rebuttal with.  Did anyone in this thread imply something like this at all?

[ashbury]

1 minute ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins have stated that cuts are not being made.

Source? All I could find was silence all-around.

[tony&rodney]

The Twins’ investment in player salaries for 2025 “will not be further reduced this winter, no matter what their new television partner pays them,” according to a source cited by Phil Miller of the MINNESOTA STAR TRIBUNE. 

Look, I'm not at all a fan of oligarchs, but the inaccurate bandwagon hate is not healthy nor does it help. It is also not realistic. My comment about wishing the Twins spent more (top 10 or whatever) is merely that - a wish. You are free to think it was whatever. I would like the articles and comments to avoid all mention of the Pohlads, but I guess I probably need to just back away from TD. I don't think this is similar to Oakland (Fisher) or Pittsbugh. I opposed Carl buying the team in 1984, but I'm not still carrying a grudge there. Prefer the discussions on usage, etc.

[Linus]

Just keep the guy - there is a decent chance we don’t make it out of spring training without having an injury to a starter.

[GNess]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

True, but the point of the season isn't to maximize Paddack's trade value. They need to win as many games as possible on a $130M budget. Keeping Paddack in the rotation means you can't use Festa in the rotation and Festa has potential to be better than Paddack. It also means you have to trade someone like Willi Castro to hit the budget target and that's going to make the 2025 team worse overall.

I'll put it another way. If Chris Paddack was a free agent, would anyone here be advocating the Twins sign him to a $7.5M contract? I think that answer is clearly no. If they can dump him for nothing they should absolutely do that.

Excellent counter points.

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins do not need to clear his salary. There has never been any statement to that point. Twins Daily and people who comment here have pushed that narrative, partially in order to find a pile of cash to sign a free agent. What free agent do we want? We all want the Twins to have a top twelve payroll. Is that actually a reasonable demand? It is a great wish.

I have no idea what their payroll will be. It's certainly feeling more and more like 130 is too low. But Gleeman, Hayes, and Park at least have used the 130 number in articles. It's not just people on Twins Daily saying it, it's also people very closely connected to the Twins who speak to people inside the Twins organization about such things.

Do the Twins themselves ever give statements about what the actual payroll number is or do those estimates always come from people like Gleeman, Hayes, and Park? From my recollection it always comes from reporters telling us what they're hearing from their sources. Which is what we're getting this year as well. Now 130 may be wrong. And we should also remember that the payroll number doesn't have to be hit by opening day. They don't cut everyone their check on opening day. They can trade people throughout the year to clear salary as well if needed. Like keeping Paddack until the deadline and trading him then to clear 3+ million. 

Maybe people shouldn't state it's an absolute mandate to cut salary down to 130, but I also don't think you can claim that the Twins don't need to cut salary. At this point we don't know anything for sure. But at least 3 people very tied into the Twins have given 130 as the number so it's as decent of a guess as any.

[rdehring]

The Twins don't need to trade Paddach.  Rather a smart move might be to trade Castro.  One, Castro has value and should generate the return of something meaningful to the Twins.  Certainly more than Paddach at this time.  And two, if that return is a younger player he should reduce payroll by $5M or so.

Granted it was awhile ago, but Paddach was a very good pitcher.  Another year removed from his injuries and he just might be good again.  And if he is, he is still relatively young.  The smart move for the Twins is to roll the dice and see how he does the first half of the season.  If he does well, they just might get a good return as the trading deadline approaches while also saving a third of his salary.

Trading Castro also doesn't have a major effect on the team the Twins field as they have several younger, cheaper players who are likely to produce the same as can be expected from Willie.  Kiersey, Martin and Helman should be solid both at the plate and in the field.  It is probable that one of the three will be Castro's equal in 2025.  And Kearschall just might be a future star who can play both on the dirt and in the outfield.

With this said, I will probably read in tomorrow's Strib that Paddach was traded this evening.

[DJL44]

12 minutes ago, rdehring said:

Trading Castro also doesn't have a major effect on the team the Twins field as they have several younger, cheaper players who are likely to produce the same as can be expected from Willie. 

Disagree strongly. They have zero younger, cheaper players who are likely to produce the same as can be expected from Willi Castro.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

7 minutes ago, rdehring said:

The Twins don't need to trade Paddach.  Rather a smart move might be to trade Castro.  One, Castro has value and should generate the return of something meaningful to the Twins.  Certainly more than Paddach at this time.  And two, if that return is a younger player he should reduce payroll by $5M or so.

Granted it was awhile ago, but Paddach was a very good pitcher.  Another year removed from his injuries and he just might be good again.  And if he is, he is still relatively young.  The smart move for the Twins is to roll the dice and see how he does the first half of the season.  If he does well, they just might get a good return as the trading deadline approaches while also saving a third of his salary.

Trading Castro also doesn't have a major effect on the team the Twins field as they have several younger, cheaper players who are likely to produce the same as can be expected from Willie.  Kiersey, Martin and Helman should be solid both at the plate and in the field.  It is probable that one of the three will be Castro's equal in 2025.  And Kearschall just might be a future star who can play both on the dirt and in the outfield.

With this said, I will probably read in tomorrow's Strib that Paddach was traded this evening.

I so very much wish that were true, but count me in the club that says Castro will be the most difficult of the three trade candidates to replace. None of those guys has the proven defensive flexibility that Castro has and only Martin has hit (and barely, quality wise) in the majors. The other two are successful AAA guys without much pedigree.  The success rate for guys like that is pretty low.  Could they get lucky with one of them?  Sure but the odds are stacked against it.  Remember, even though Castro didn’t seem very impressive when the signing was made, he did finish fourth in the ROY balloting a few years earlier.   That’s a pedigree that the other three can only dream about.  

[whosafraidofluigirussolo]

I'm curious, how does PECOTA rate Matthew Boyd and Alex Cobb? 

[ashbury]

1 hour ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins’ investment in player salaries for 2025 “will not be further reduced this winter, no matter what their new television partner pays them,” according to a source cited by Phil Miller of the MINNESOTA STAR TRIBUNE. 

 

Okay, but that is a non-answer on his part, that doesn't address what we actually want to know.

Others have done this and probably better, but here's my synopsis.  At the end of the season, the Twins shed the salary obligations of DeSclafani ($4M since other teams were paying part of his $12M), Kepler ($10M), Santana ($5M), Farmer ($6M), and Thielbar ($3M).  Weighing against that, for 2025, Pablo Lopez's salary goes up from $8M to $21M.  Paddack goes up from $2.5M to $7.5M.  Correa goes up from $32M to $36M.  And then you have players in arbitration who'll get pay raises: Castro, Jeffers, Ober, Ryan, Jax, Larnach, Lewis, Duran, Alcala, Topa, Tonkin - that's a lot of small numbers and I don't know the arbitration outcomes, but the sum combines to be significant because some good players are getting their paydays.

Doing nothing, the FO still faces a higher payroll.  Ownership says there won't be lower payroll, but carefully avoids saying the obvious.

Quote

I don't think this is similar to Oakland (Fisher) or Pittsbugh.

I don't see where anyone here was taking this opposite tack, either.

Quote

but I guess I probably need to just back away from TD.

Well I hope not.  You're a good poster here.  I'm sorry that my response looked too personally harsh.

[LA Vikes Fan]

This payroll debate is always been confusing to me for the coming season. Based on the reporting I've seen, it appears that the Twins are not going to add to their payroll but they are not under a mandate to cut their payroll. It looks like they are simply going to run things back as they were last year, hope for better injury luck, and hope that guys like Lewis, Larnach, Wallner, Mirnada, Festa, and SVR take steps forward so they can go from 82 to 90 wins. Add to that the team is for sale so there is no incentive to spend money or make big changes before a new owner steps in (hopefully soon). Is it a reasonable plan? Maybe, depending on what you think about the chances for improvement from the younger players in the lineup and the rotation. Is it a boring plan? You betcha. 

My real point here is the only reason to trade guys like Paddack, Castro, and Vasquez is to free up payroll to sign free agents. The problem is that even trading one of the three doesn't generate more than $5 million to $10 million. Is there someone out there that could meaningfully move the needle at that price point? I don't know of anybody but maybe some of you guys do – a relief pitcher maybe? Bottom line, is the off-season plan is pretty clear. We're running back the team from last year without Santana or Kepler and hoping for better results by younger players improving and better injury luck. Doesn't really make for a fascinating off-season.

 

[Jocko87]

5 hours ago, Matthew Trueblood said:

under their ownership-friendly budgetary constraints for the coming season.

I think it's quite clear that you can hear what ever confirms your priors in any of the payroll quotes you can dig up.

Absolutely unacceptable for the editor of this fine website to use phrases like this and let writers  continually pound the most negative interpretations of such material. 

Self-imposed narrative setting. 

We will know, when we know.