The Twins Did Well in Trade of Jorge López Trade (The 2nd Time)

Minnesota kicked off their 2023 trade deadline on Wednesday, dealing Jorge López to the Marlins while getting Dylan Floro in return. Let’s talk about it. 

For the Twins, it was untenable to keep López in Minnesota; he allowed a run in his second career outing with the Twins, and it only got worse from there. Like a flicked switch, López went from dominating All-Star to a messy coin flip, with Rocco Baldelli never quite knowing what to expect whenever he called for the righty. A poor 2022 begat a disastrous 2023—one that has seen his ERA and FIP skyrocket to absurd levels. All the stuff in the world didn’t matter as batters pounded López’s offerings, hitting seven homers over just 35 ⅓ innings.

There was more than just athletics, though. López was placed on the recently-created mental health IL, as he revealed that he was not right mentally, perhaps in part because of health problems ailing his son, perhaps because of his sudden fall-off in performance. The mound can be the loneliest place in the world, as the camera’s spotlight captures failure and success alike, leading to painful agony as the numbers balloon and the outs never come easy. Any man’s fortitude would be tested when such pressures are magnified by personal sorrow; we root for López to find the things in life that can better bring him joy. Hopefully, that joy is in Miami. 

(It feels weird to continue analyzing the deal after writing such a thing, but analyze we must, so.)

In return, the Twins received the 32-year-old Dylan Floro. Floro—a champion with the 2020 Dodgers, perhaps most well-known as Kenley Jansen’s set-up man for a bit—is better than your typical throw-in. His ERA disagrees with him in 2023, but his peripherals rave about him; Floro is striking out batters at the highest rate of his career, and he’s acquiring groundballs at a 55.1% rate. The result is… a 4.54 ERA. That’ll happen when your BABIP is nearly touching .400. 

But his FIP is an elite 2.74. It's unlikely that he's a true-talent 2.74 FIP pitcher these days, as he has a a bit too much loud contact in his profile; still, somewhere in the mid 3s would represent enough reliability to fulfill an effective role in the second-tier of Minnesota's bullpen. 

With a boilerplate sinker/four-seam/slider/changeup repertoire, Floro likes to bully batters with a lively sinker before finishing them off with a well-placed slider. The occasional lefty will see a four-seamer. He’ll likely slot in behind Griffin Jax on the bullpen hierarchy, likely seeing time in the seventh or earlier before Brock Stewart’s return, bumping him to a more flexible, roving middle-relief guy.

And, honestly, a solid middle reliever is a pretty good get for the Twins. It was clear that López was in dire need of a change of scenery, leaving the team without much leverage in negotiations. To get a potentially, historically reliable arm for a player they couldn’t do much with is a win; the onus is now on Miami to work with López and get him to the place he needs to be. 

It's interesting as well that the Twins were willing to admit a mistake: rather than double-down and continue playing a player obviously not as good as the one they expected, the team dealt López not even a year after acquiring him. This is no promise that a player like Joey Gallo will follow suit, but if I'm him, I'm less certain about my spot on the team going forward. 

Floro is only a rental, being a free agent at year’s end, while López is under team control for another year. There remains a chance that López figures it out in Miami, but that shouldn’t cause Twins fans to lose sleep: he probably wasn’t going to do that here. This is an atypical deal, involving no prospects, only two relievers with unattractive ERAs; the Twins probably did about as well as they could do, but this isn’t the impact deal that will define the team, and there’s a real chance this acquisition is washed over by the sands of time, with only immaculate grid weirdos remembering each player and whom they played for.