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Wow, what a season. Although it didn’t end the way Twins Territory wanted it to, it was undoubtedly a success. As recent as the second half, this team was flirting with a .500 record, and at multiple times dipped below it. If in March I were to tell you that Byron Buxton AND Carlos Correa were below average hitters for the regular season, you would have thought it was a trainwreck. But with the emergence of players such as Royce Lewis, Edouard Julien, Matt Wallner, and even Spring Training non-roster invitee Willi Castro, it made it an enjoyable season of baseball to watch for fans. That does not even mention Ryan Jeffers breaking out, and the second half Max Kepler had, when it seemed his days of baseball in Minneapolis were over. The streak was finally broken, and now we won’t have to grimace every time somebody mentions a once-active 0-18 playoff streak dating back to 2004 (before I was even born). No matter what anyone says, it was a successful season of Twins Baseball in 2023, and I will leave it at that. With that being said, now we look forward to Twins baseball in 2024, and I decided to create a guide to help navigate the offseason. I have compiled dates, roster information, and hopefully everything you will need to get a better idea of what this offseason will bring. I hope you enjoy!
Free Agents
Sonny Gray
Kenta Maeda
Emilio Pagan
Donovan Solano
Tyler Mahle
Michael A Taylor
Joey Gallo
Dallas Keuchel
40 Man Roster (Doesn’t account for any transactions that will inevitably happen, 38 spots full)
Pitchers (21 spots)
Jorge Alcala
Jordan Balazovic
Matt Canterino
Jose De Leon
Jhoan Duran
Kody Funderburk
Brent Headrick
Ronny Henriquez
Griffin Jax
Pablo Lopez
Jovani Moran
Bailey Ober
Oliver Ortega
Chris Paddack
Joe Ryan
Cole Sands
Brock Stewart
Caleb Thielbar
Louie Varland
Josh Winder
Simeon Woods-Richardson
Hitters
Ryan Jeffers
Christian Vazquez
Carlos Correa 
Kyle Farmer
Edouard Julien
Royce Lewis
Jose Miranda
Jorge Polanco
Willi Castro
Nick Gordon
Max Kepler
Alex Kirilloff
Trevor Larnach
Jordan Luplow
Andrew Stevenson
Matt Wallner
Byron Buxton
Timeline (*Explained Below)
Oct 27-Nov 4: World Series*
5 Days After Conclusion of World Series: League Wide Free Agency Begins* (Player/Team Options Due)* (Qualifying Offer also due)*
Nov 7-9: GM Meetings*
Nov 15: Rule 5 Protection Deadline*, Qualifying Offer Decision Deadline*
Nov 17: Non-Tender Deadline*
Dec 3-6: Winter Meetings*
Dec 5: MLB Draft Lottery*
Dec 6: Rule 5 Draft*
January 2024: BBWAA Hall of Fame Announcement*
Jan 12: Arbitration Agreement Deadline*
Jan 29-Feb 16: Arbitration Hearings*
Feb 14: Pitchers and Catchers Report
Feb 23: Spring Training Game vs. Gophers
Feb 24: First Real Spring Training Game vs. Pirates
Mar 28: Opening Day @Kansas City Royals
World Series - The end of the World Series officially signifies the long offseason starting. The 2024 World Series Game 1 is scheduled for October 27, whereas Game 7 is scheduled for November 4.
Free Agency - Free Agency technically begins the day after the World Series, however, that just is when only the team they are departing from can contact their own free agents. League-wide free agency starts five days after the final game of the World Series, which could be as soon as November 5, or as late as November 9. Team and Player Options are due before league wide free agency starts.
Qualifying Offers - Qualifying Offers must be made within the 5 day window after the World Series ends. This year the qualifying offer is slated to be just over $20 Million. The only one of the 8 departing free agents from the Twins who will likely receive a QO will be Sonny Gray, and he will most likely decline by the November 15 deadline at 3:00 PM CT. It seems that Sonny Gray will sign elsewhere, which will gain the Twins a draft pick. If Sonny signs elsewhere for $50+ Million, the Twins receive a 2024 draft pick right before Competitive Balance Round A (Right after 1st round,) If less than $50 Million, it would be right after Competitive Balance Round B, which is after the 2nd round.
GM Meetings - Typically not much happens here. Just a meeting to explore possible offseason scenarios for General Managers and set framework up for the winter.
Rule 5 Protection - Teams must protect players who signed at age 18 or younger within 5 seasons and players who signed at age 19 or older within 4 seasons. Some Twins prospects who fit that bill and will at least be considered to be added are Jair Camargo, Yunior Severino, Chris Williams, Austin Martin, Dashawn Keirsey, Michael Helman, Anthony Prato, Blayne Enlow, and maybe a few more. Players who are not protected can be chosen by other organizations during the Rule 5 Draft on December 6 for a $100k fee. Players selected must be kept on MLB active roster for the whole season or the MLB IL when it opens up during spring training. Otherwise, if they are DFA’d and clear waivers they must be offered back to their original team for $50k.
Non Tender Deadline/Arbitration - Players with between 3 and 6 years of MLB service time qualify for arbitration. It is a system for players to present themselves and try to be compensated for what they believe to be fair for their play. If a team doesn’t believe that a player is worth their projected arbitration amount, they can choose not to offer them a contract, or “non-tender” them. Said player then becomes a free agent and available to sign with any team after the November 17 deadline. If the team does decide to offer the player a contract before the deadline, they agree to go through a process called arbitration. The teams and the player are free to negotiate a contract all the way until the January 12 deadline. If no agreement is reached, they have to go through the MLB to an Arbitrator. Both sides submit their desired pay figures and the arbitrator uses previous play and other information to decide which figure is more fair. The player is then paid that figure for the year and no more negotiation is had. This can hurt the relationship between the player and the organization, see Corbin Burnes and the Brewers in 2023.
Arbitration Eligible Twins (Expected $ in parentheses)
Caleb Thielbar ($3M)
Kyle Farmer ($6.6M)
Jordan Luplow ($1.6M)
Willi Castro ($3.2M)
Jorge Alcala ($1M)
Ryan Jeffers ($2.3M)
Jose De Leon ($740K)
Alex Kirilloff ($1.7M)
Nick Gordon ($1M)
Non Tender Candidates - Farmer, Luplow, Alcala, De Leon
Winter Meetings - Multiple representatives from each team/organization gather for 4 days of meetings, which is happening this year in Nashville, Tennessee. Here is moreso where trades and signings are discussed between players, teams, and agents. Just as recent as last year, the Winter Meetings have had breaking news when Aaron Judge signed his 9 year, $360 Million megadeal to stay with the Yankees. If you are hoping for breaking MLB news during this offseason, this is the week to expect it to come from.=
BBWAA Hall of Fame Announcement - Typically this is not a huge deal for Twins fans. Recently Jim Kaat and Tony Oliva were inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame, but they were through a different committee. This year is different, Minnesota Twins great Joe Mauer is going to be on the ballot for the first time. Although he may not make it in on the first try, this has been a day Minnesotans have been waiting for for a long time. Other former Twins on the ballot include Torii Hunter, and more infamously Bartolo Colon.
MLB Draft Lottery - In 2023, the Twins infamously jumped up the draft board to pick #5 during the lottery and in July selected Walker Jenkins. This year will not be quite as exciting, only teams who missed the playoffs qualify for the lottery. With the playoff run they had, the Twins will be selecting around pick #25 during the MLB Draft in July.
If you made it all the way through, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed and at least learned something. To compilate all of this data took quite a while so any feedback would be appreciated. This was the first article I’ve written in a while so it is very possible I was a bit rusty. If you have any questions leave a comment and I will try my best to clarify/answer. Happy offseason and GO TWINS!!!

I’m going to dive into blogging here and see where it goes. Sometimes, as a writer, the hardest thing is to come up with an idea that’s worth writing about and that people will actually be interested to read. I expect that to be my struggle, but I’ve got what I think will be an interesting series to kick things off, and maybe that will be the extent of my contributions. Time will tell.
 
In any case, nobody wants to read about me. You want to see what information you can glean about our Twins. Given the rampant discussions on Twitter and on various blogs regarding the state of the Twins’ pitching staff, I thought it would be interesting to do a series on the numbers underlying the starters currently projected to be in the mix for the Twins.
 
While I’m sure others will make starts this season, here are the guys I’m hoping to work my way through for this series:
Jose Berrios
Jake Odorizzi
Michael Pineda
Rich Hill
Homer Bailey
Devin Smeltzer
Lewis Thorpe
Randy Dobnak
 
By way of framing the series, I think there are pretty clearly three different groups. The known (but in some cases misunderstood) quantities, the new veterans, and the prospects.
 
When the season starts, we know Pineda and Hill will not be in the rotation, and we know Berrios, Odorizzi, and Bailey will be (barring injury, of course). That being the case, I decided to start off by diving into the three prospects (a term I’m using loosely, given the MLB experience they got last year), starting with Dobnak.
 
A common question we hear, read, and think to ourselves as we are trying to fall asleep: “Can Randy Dobnak be a key piece of a successful playoff run?” I can cut to the chase and just say the answer is yes, but if you want to know why, go ahead and keep reading the words.
 
Let’s start by looking at Dobnak’s surface-level stats:
28.1 IP – lots and lots of caveats about the small sample
7.31 K/9 – not inspiring, but we will need to take a look at his swinging strike rates
1.59 BB/9 – elite, but let’s see how often he’s really in the strike zone
1.59 ERA – wow, but a lot of this depends on the above
2.90 FIP – also wow
3.77 xFIP – still wow, but we will need to look into his batted ball tendencies because 0.32 HR/9 is the reason for the jump from his FIP to his xFIP.

Okay, so we have a few things to dive into:
Swinging Strike Rates, which are generally highly correlated to K/9
Zone Percentage, which is highly correlated to BB/9
Batted Ball Tendencies, which are going to be a bit more difficult to use to extrapolate, given the small sample.

Getting hitters to swing and miss, and throwing strikes are generally skills the pitcher possesses (or does not), while the results – K/9, BB/9, HR/9, etc. Fluctuate due to randomness, umpire tendencies, opponents’ skill, etc. (esp in small samples).
 
Here’s what we see for Dobnak on those plate discipline skills:
43.8% of his pitches were in the strike zone
12.9% of his pitches resulted in a swinging strike

Putting those numbers into context, 61 pitchers qualified for the ERA title last season, so the median pitcher would be the one whose result was 31st among qualified starters. For swinging strike, it turns out that is a couple of familiar names: Jose Berrios and Homer Bailey at 10.8 percent. Looking at zone percentage, there is a three way tie among Jeff Smardzija, Mike Soroka, and Bailey again at 42.6 percent (a bit of a preview of the Bailey post. Hmm). By now you’ve surely noticed that Dobnak’s numbers were markedly above the median.
 
In fact, his zone percentage of 43.8% would have tied him with Zach Eflin for 20th among all qualified starting pitchers, just a tick below Noah Syndergaard at 43.9 percent. His swinging strike rate of 12.9% puts him in a three way tie with Charlie Morton and Clayton Kershaw, who were tied for 14th among qualified starters. Obviously good company.
 
It gets better. If you look at qualified starters who posted at least a 12.9% swinging strike rate combined with a 43.9% zone percentage – that rare combination of being in the zone and missing bats – here is the list you get for 2019:
Gerrit Cole – 16.8%/45.2%
Max Scherzer – 16.4%/45.6%
Justin Verlander – 16.1%/45.2%
Lucas Giolito – 15%/47.2%
Yu Darvish – 13.4%/44.5%
Charlie Morton – 12.9%/45.1%

Just missed:
Clayton Kershaw
German Marquez
Lance Lynn
Noah Syndergaard
Trevor Bauer
Walker Buehler

Does this mean Dobnak is in the company of these elite aces? Of course not. What it does suggest, though, is that his success was not a fluke. He displayed an elite combination of skills in missing bats (which generates strikeouts) and living in the strike zone (which prevents walks). This suggests that he has considerable upside. He also threw essentially a major league innings load last year – compiling more than 160 innings across 4 levels from High A to the majors. This suggests he’s capable of providing the Twins with volume as well as quality, something that is not always the case for prospect pitchers.
 
There are reasons to be worried, though. The difference between Dobnak’s FIP and his xFIP was driven by an unsustainably low 5.3% HR/FB rate. The lowest HR/FB rate among qualified starters was 9.3%, and given Dobnak’s 42.5% hard hit rate, it’s safe to assume more of those fly balls will reach the seats going forward. That said, if he regresses to the mean in HR/9 and posts 150 innings with a sub-4.00 ERA, that’s obviously a serviceable starting pitcher. And, given that FIP and xFIP were driven by his 7.31 K/9, if those swinging strikes turn that into a 9.00+ K/9, he has considerable upside to deliver a lower ERA.

Byron Buxton Shoulder Injury Q&A
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Byron Buxton, as we all know, is an outstanding center fielder for our Twins. Unfortunately, he has dealt with a variety of injuries that have cost him significant time over the past few seasons. This weekend he sustained an injury to his left shoulder that was termed a ‘subluxation’ and is headed back to the IL. By the sound of things, he is likely to be away from the big club for at least a few weeks. This is a tough blow for the Twins as the Indians make a push to catch up to a team that has led the division essentially all season.
 
Medical terminology can be confusing, so I thought a post about shoulder subluxations might be of interest to TD readers. As usual- my disclaimer is that I am not a Twins team physician. I have not examined Byron nor seen any imaging of his injury. I am not speaking on behalf of the Twins. I am only hoping to familiarize TD readers with some of the concerns that may be ahead regarding injuries similar to Buxton’s.
Question 1: How does the shoulder normally work?
The shoulder is considered a ball-and-socket joint. The round ball (humeral head) sits in the socket (glenoid) similar to how a golf ball sits on a golf tee. Around the perimeter of the golf tee is a strong cartilage tissue called a labrum. The labrum surrounds the socket similar to the red gasket on a mason jar lid. Its function is to help act as a ‘bumper’ to hold the golf ball on the golf tee. It is also an attachment point for ligaments around the shoulder that also contribute to shoulder stability. The ligaments make up the ‘capsule’ of the shoulder joint. I often tell patients that the capsule is like a water balloon that surrounds the joint. The ligaments that make up the capsule form the connection between the ball and the socket.
 
Question 2: What is a shoulder subluxation?
 
The term ‘subluxation’ is typically used in situations where a joint partially (or nearly) dislocates. This is not specific to the shoulder and can happen in a number of other areas of the body as well (such as the kneecap, for example). This is distinct from a true ‘dislocation’ where the ball comes completely out of the socket and then goes back in.
 
If someone dislocates their shoulder and it stays dislocated, it is typically clear what has happened. Xrays will show the ball dislocated from the socket and the shoulder will be manipulated to ‘reduce’ the ball back to its normal position. However, in some cases cases the ball can completely dislocate and go back in on its own very quickly. In these cases, an xray would often look normal. In most cases when there is concern about an injury of this type, an MRI is ordered. This of course shows additional details of the bone and soft tissue that cannot be seen on an xray alone. Usually an MRI will allow for a pretty solid conclusion as to whether the injury that occurred was a ‘subluxation’ (less severe) or a true ‘dislocation’ (more severe).
 
There is, of course, a spectrum of damage that can occur with any injury and this is no exception. It’s possible that there was some minimal stretch to the ligaments around the shoulder and no other significant damage (best case). It’s also possible that there was more significant damage to the ligaments and potentially even a tear of the labrum (more worrisome). The MRI would typically give a good approximation of these issues. In most cases, the damage that occurs with a subluxation is less significant than that which occurs with a dislocation.
Question 3: Does it make a difference that the injury is to his left shoulder rather than his right?
 
In my opinion, absolutely. Because it is his non-throwing shoulder, the stresses placed on it are less. Even small issues with the ligaments can be problematic in the throwing shoulder- particularly someone who can approach 100mph on throws from the outfield.
 
That said, the left shoulder is Byron’s front shoulder when hitting. In most hitters it is the front shoulder that is more stressed. It is possible that Buxton’s recovery is more affected at the plate than in the field (though that’s impossible to predict with certainty, of course).
 
Question 4: Does this injury make it more likely that Byron will dislocate his shoulder in the future?
 
Possibly. As discussed above, there is a spectrum of damage that can occur with this injury. If the damage is near the minimal end, it probably doesn’t have a significant effect on his likelihood of injuring this shoulder in the future. If there is more significant structural damage, it may place him at higher risk.
 
Question 5: What is the purpose of the rehab?
 
In addition to the capsule and labrum discussed above in question 1, the muscles around the shoulder also contribute to stability. I often tell patients to imagine that there is canopy over the top of the golf ball pulling it down onto the golf tee and helping to hold it in place. This is similar to the way your rotator cuff functions. I suspect rehab for Buxton will include strengthening exercises for a number of muscles around the shoulder that contribute to stability.
 
Also, these muscles can be strained during the injury, so they can sometimes need additional time to recover along with the ligaments.
 
Question 6: Will Buxton need surgery?
 
This is essentially impossible to answer right now, likely even for the physicians and training staff involved in Byron’s care. As I sometimes tell my patients, “The crystal ball is a little murky.” Without knowing the extent of any structural issues in Byron’s shoulder, I would say that it is somewhat unlikely this will require surgery. I would expect that even if surgery is required, it would only occur after an attempt at non-surgical treatment has been unsuccessful.
 
Question 7: How long will it be before he is able to return to play?
 
This is also a difficult question to answer. The fact that the early word is that he will be out a few weeks is consistent with what I would expect from an injury like this. The rehab often takes time to regain full motion and strength. I would hope he can be back patrolling center field before the end of August, but it’s certainly possible this lingers into September. It seems unlikely that this would be a season-ending injury, but only time will tell.
 
 
Clearly this Twins team is better when Byron is on the field rather than on the IL. Let’s hope he heals quickly and can help the Twins down the stretch. GO TWINS!