Cody Pirkl

They have a full profile on Wisler, something lacking in Yamaguchi coming from overseas. They clearly feel confident that Wisler can make some changes and have a positive impact on the team. Just because there isn't competition now doesn't mean there won't be. At the very least they'll see what's available in February on the market that can be had for cheap like they did with Marwin last year. It's still only December.

Despite some people's negativity, I think the FO is still looking for impact pitching, and they're certainly looking for pitching to help this team. As you pointed out, they aren't as big on analytics in those leagues which is a big part of how our front office operates. If they looked at what numbers we had available and weren't positive he was even an upgrade over the Dobnak/Smeltzer/Thorpe group, it becomes about more than just the cheap price tag. I'd guess he wanted a guaranteed role if he came over. If we make a trade for a better starter and sign a Teheran type, it may push him out of the rotation. We just signed Romo and have some other experimental pieces in the bullpen like Wisler. I just don't think it was a good fit despite the price. A front office has to really like a guy from those leagues to bring them over given the lack of information available.

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a steal. Those are solid players involved as Ted outlines, and all of them have a legit shot at being valuable for a major league team. My point is that you think about trading for an ace and you think of giving up one of the top 2 hitters or top 3 pitchers because they're all guys where the sky is the limit since Syndergaard doesn't have a David Price contract. A lot of times for a guy like that they'd want guys that have similar upside that looks more achievable, but if they want quantity over quality (although the pieces listed are still quality) I would definitely be willing to pull the trigger.

If we can get Syndergaard for that package I take it everytime. Keeping Lewis, Kirilloff, Graterol, Balazovic, and Duran in a trade for a pitcher like Thor would be an absolute gift. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd rather base the trade around one of the top 5 and Eddie to trade off more players involved for more impact players involved.

It all comes down to whether or not they really think it pays off to keep that contract, which is 15% of their entire payroll slated for 2020, on a team that has plans to rebuild. They have a new GM as well, which means he has no reputation to tarnish by admitting that the Archer trade was terrible and flipping him for a couple prospects that could help in 2+ years when they hope to compete again. It may become a gamble for them to either trade the 31 year old coming off shoulder inflammation and a career worst year for what they can get, or hope he rebounds and flip him at the deadline or next offseason.

He is a classic guy who has under performed his peripherals for most of his career. That being said, if we can get him back into even the 4.00-4.50 ERA range and striking out 10+ per 9, he's a legitimate upper middle rotation pitcher. In terms of prospects, I'd assume the Pirates tendered him a contract for 2020 to try to get something out of him, but they can't expect much. Maybe they need middle infield depth which we're loaded with, or maybe they want a pitcher that could quickly make his way up to the majors like Griffin Jax. If we take the contract, the prospects involved should be an afterthought.

I've decided to continue exploring the trade market on the outside of the top tier today, just as I recently had with Marco Gonzales. This one in particular may take a leap of faith. I want to make a case for pulling off a trade for Chris Archer. Chris Archer's fall from relative acedom has been quick and severe. You would never guess that he was a quality starter as recently as last season by many measures. He has become the poster boy of the laughingstock trade the Pirates made in 2018 that included a return of Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows, and significant prospect capital for the Rays. To say Archer stumbled in 2019, his first full season as a Pirate would be an understatement. He had a career worst ERA supported by his peripherals, likely as a result of a career worst BB/9 (4.14) and HR/9 (1.88) His groundball rate dropped by 8% from 2018 to 2019, a terrible strategy in the season of the juice ball. Archer did not even approach 150 innings for the first time since 2013. Even his durability as a starting pitcher was nowhere to be seen despite him only being 31 years old. What could cause all of these changes for a pitcher who was rather effective for years before coming to Pittsburgh? Well the pitch mix tells an interesting story. Archer threw his slider less than he has any year since 2014 in favor of the fastball which was down a tick from 2018 to 94.2. This is a pitch that has been absolutely punished recently, producing a positive pitch vaue last in 2014. Archer has always been known for his devastating slider, and even in a 2019 season where he was tagged, it was by far his best pitch despite being thrown about 6% less. The fix I have is fairly unimaginative for Archer. After watching our coaching staff oversee so many steps forward in pitching last season, I would love to see them get a crack at Archer. Ray Searage was once known as a pitching guru and helped revive the careers of pitchers like Francisco Liriano, A.J. Burnett, as well as others. However, Searage more recently was let go from his job. We've seen Charlie Morton leave Pittsburgh and become a Cy Young candidate, Tyler Glasnow appears to have been held back in the black and gold as well. I'm not even going to get into Gerrit Cole. Archer may just not be the kind of pitcher that Ray Searage can improve. I may even argue that there's a possibility that he made him worse. 2019 was an all out aberration for Archer, who is due $20 million over the next two seasons where he will be 31 and 32 years old. This is an opportunity to buy about as low as can be. The Pirates wouldn't ask much for Archer in the way of prospects, as they look to shed payroll at the start of a lengthy rebuild. Chris Archer's collapse parallels with his move to Pittsburgh, where he was overseen by a pitching coach who has commonly been accused of being passed over by analytics and the new age of pitching. His pitch mix changed ever so slightly in a season where we saw several career worsts. Amidst all of this, he still struck out 10.75 batters per 9, showing off his skills that appear to still be there. While he may also not be the big name Twins fans are looking for, he still has considerable upside. At the very least he has proven to be durable in just about every season until he sat out the end of 2019 with shoulder inflammation. If you believe in this coaching staff as much as I do, Chris Archer should be somebody to get excited about. I think the Pirates can survive one more terrible trade.

This is a fantastic example of why we took as many shortstops in the draft which people questioned. Some people seem to think he's the heir to SS pretty soon here when he's still a really flawed hitter. Twins may have another prime example of "prospect growth isn't linear" on their hands.

I would argue that Marco Gonzales has been more valuable than Kyle Gibson in each of the last two seasons, albeit he achieves his success with a much different style. He's not an exciting name, and doesn't get his outs in an exciting way, but he's a successful pitcher who is still young. Although I wouldn't expect him to get much better, I think he's a fantastic candidate to continue his success at least. In terms of Martin Perez, I can guarantee you Marco is better than him.

I don't dislike Seager but I think there has to be two situations where trading for him makes sense. 1. The Mariners are willing to eat a not insignificant amount of that contract. There's no way Seager is worth $38 million over the next two seasons and we'd be better off spending that kind of money on a free agent/trade pitcher or signing a more impact bat like Donaldson for a bit more if we're footing the full amount. 2. His contract comes with somebody like Marco Gonzales who is a cheap, controllable pitcher who helps the Twins right now. I'm not interested in prospects coming over to soften the blow. If the front office has a number cap in mind for the 2019 payroll, I don't want that much of it inhabited by Seager's contract unless there's more MLB ready talent included.

I'm hoping for big steps forward from Cavaco and Javier this year. I think both have the tools to shoot through the farm system. I'm also interested to see if they stick at SS.

I could absolutely see the disappointment in this being the big pitching move. Gonzales seemingly lacks the floor we've seen from Gibson, but he undoubtedly lacks the ceiling. It's probably a better move for a season where we didn't have such a need for an upper tier arm, but in a vacuum I believe it would make the team better without much hit to the salary cap or minor leagues.

Today I'm not going to try to sell you guys a top of the rotation arm that we could trade for. We've seen our fair share of coverage on David Price, Yu Darvish, etc. Instead I wanted to talk about an under the radar move for a valuable pitcher. Despite the criticism among fans for this team's failure to land the big fish, it's the exact kind of move that this front office loves to make. We need arms in this rotation. Not just for Pineda's month plus absence to begin the season, but down the stretch. Enter Marco Gonzales. Marco Gonzales was acquired from the Cardinals by Seattle in 2017 and didn't have himself a banner year. The soft tossing lefty pitched to the tune of a 6.08 ERA in 40 innings combined between the two teams. However, he rebounded in 2018, throwing 166 innings with an ERA at 4.00 on the nose and peripherals that showed encouraging signs. In truly uncommon fashion in 2019, Marco Gonzales delivers the ball to the plate at just under 90 MPH, sitting at 89.3. Despite this, his sinker was his second best pitch at 3.8 pVAL. He complements this with a cutter, curveball, and his best pitch, the changeup. His 6.52 K/9 won't excite you, but his 1.02 HR/9 and near 41% groundball rate make for an excellent equalizer. In 2018 and 2019, Gonzales was worth 3.4 and 3.7 wins respectively by Fangraphs measurements. His 2019 fWAR would have slotted him in as our 3rd most valuable pitcher behind Odorizzi and Berrios, and our 7th most valuable player on the roster. He may not push everyone in this rotation down one tier like we'd dreamed of at the beginning of the offseason, but he would likely be our 3rd or 4th best pitcher and has proven over the last two years that he can chew up innings with the best in the league. On top of all of his numbers, Gonzales also is paid $1m in 2020 and is controlled for the next 3 years. Gonzales via trade may be better value than signing a Dallas Keuchel via free agency given what we've seen from the market, who actually had a worse year in 2019 despite a similar pitching style. The money could be allocated elsewhere whether it be bullpen or position help. Despite Gonzales being on top of the Mariners rotation, he should not cost a king's ransom via trade given his limited upside. We know the Mariners are in a rebuild, and they have Jerry Dipoto at the helm who would likely trade the family dog for AA arm he finds interesting. I think this addition would be unexciting for most, but extremely underrated. The Twins would have years of what appears to be an innings eater with a high floor and low ceiling, and would certainly become better as a team. Plus I would be 100% here for the angry Tommy Milone comps.

Urena really imploded last year and got moved to the bullpen. He would easily be the cheapest option from them I'd think, but you're right. Not worth Eddie Rosario even coming off a bad year.

While the Twins should absolutely be looking at deals with the Marlins, I question how viable it is. They have remarked how "incredibly high" the Twins price on Eddie Rosario is when they said the same thing about Nomar Mazara who was dealt for a high A outfielder. That just tells me that they aren't even looking for a reasonable deal, but one that is just downright lopsided for them. I doubt they're too inclined to trade any of their younger guys like Alcantra, Lopez or Yamamoto who have all had at least some success in the majors and are controlled for years. I think they're trying to follow the traditional rebuild route and trade Caleb Smith. He's 28 instead of 23/24 like the rest of the names, and is basically found money for them. He's one of the first guys to show any success in this rotation and as the longest tenured and oldest of the group, is the likeliest to be traded. Is Caleb Smith worth Eddie Rosario? We likely saw the worst case for Eddie last season where he put up a 1.2 fWAR. While he was rightfully loathed at times by Twins fans, he finished the year with decent numbers offensively even if they resulted from hitting in the middle of the order and were somewhat hollow. Caleb Smith from what I've seen is viewed pretty highly by fans, as he put up what may be his career season. A K/9 over 9 and a 4.50 ERA is a great season. His indicators say he should have been over 5 however, and it really took some regression even to get to that 4.50 considering how great he was in the first half. He also has an injury history and in game durability questions, as he rarely threw beyond 5 innings. If I'm the Twins, I'm wary of trading for a pitcher coming off a career year who was worth 1 win for our outfielder who had a career worst year worth 1.2 wins. It seems like a recipe for disaster if Eddie rebounds and Smith turns into a pumpkin. I would give up prospects outside of our top 5 or so for one of their younger guys to pair with Eddie if the front office sees potential, but otherwise I'm not looking to just dump Eddie off. What do you guys think?

It would be impossible to slot him in on that list just because he's only a rookie, but he put up .9 fWAR in 28 innings which is unsustainable but incredible. I think he's easily a 2 win pitcher if he threw an entire season's worth of innings which is great for a back end starter.

Dobnak is undeniably the Michael Pineda suspension fill in for me. His stuff is more than good enough to take the bat out of the hands of free swinging bad teams and he doesn't do a lot in the way of hurting himself. You could see what Matthew was talking about here in his start in Yankee Stadium. He lived an inch off the plate for most of a game where the Yankees seemed locked in on not swinging at anything that couldn't be hit. Dobnak was forced to throw the ball over the plate, and now his start is used by some people to say he shouldn't be trusted as a starting pitcher which I think is unfair. He should be a guy people should be excited about in 2020. Also, don't be that guy that refers to him as "the Uber driver" as an insult to his ability. That's not very nice.

I think that my argument for this is that if they have a rock solid cap of $135 million, that's pretty pathetic. The idea that they can't afford to go beyond this is absolutely ridiculous regardless of what the front office may tell you. In my opinion, there shouldn't be a salary goal below $150 million and even that would leave you money to give extensions.

I don't think we'll see the MadBum/Ryu and Donaldson signings but I think we may still see one or the other. Pitching is still the main focus at this point, but I'm very interested to see how they fill out the corner infield. Most of the first basement available are platoon guys and I'd really hope we wouldn't move Sano off third base for someone like Todd Frazier. I think maybe a more realistic idea is that they pass up MadBum and Ryu (which will cause panic) and sign something like Keuchel and Donaldson. They can still explore the trade market at this point as well as still have a few million for the bullpen. I just can't see a scenario where they push $150 million unfortunately, even though if there's ever a time to do it, it's now.

Framing is far from perfect, but Baseball Savant pegs Avila as a better framer. Castro declined a bit to the point where Garver actually rated better in 2018 by some metrics. And I 100% agree, the arm will be awesome.

Him and Castro are fairly similar on offense and his defense and on base ability look better so yes, I'd argue we got better. It's okay to enjoy these smaller moves that shore up the roster. It's a good signing.

I mean he pitched into August and had a sub 3.00 ERA in his last 12-15 starts I believe. The dog days of summer hit, Berrios was struggling, Odorizzi had a blister, and Gibson and Perez cratered. Pineda was our best pitcher for the last month or so that he pitched. Also I know I said worst case scenario, but lets be honest, the worst case scenario is not that we're going to stand pat with 3 starting pitchers. Even us negative Minnesota fans can believe there are more signings to come even if they aren't top tier pitchers.

People may not see this as a big deal but this is a fantastic signing. Avila is a similar style player to Castro but actually does a lot of things better. Castro gets a lot of credit for his defense, specifically his framing. Avila actually grades out better. He's actually in the 92nd percentile in all of baseball. That's huge not just for our young pitchers, but for the whole staff. His offensive numbers look unimpressive, but he got on base at a higher clip than Castro, which was Castro's best offensive skill. While Avila hit close to .200, his expected batting average was closer to .250. Even without tweaks, his offense could improve dramatically just as a result of better luck. This is a fantastic backup catching option and will slot in perfectly for 60-70 games next year. And it came at a price that won't affect financial flexibility in any meaningful way.

The Twins had a rotation that was in the top 1/3 of the league and that was with Gibson and Perez cratering. That actually would have been a competitive one for playoffs had Pineda not been suspended, although I know it's not the most inspiring since there isn't a true ace in there. We now have the top 3 pieces of that rotation back. I think they'll still be in on Ryu and MadBum and other lower tier guys. At this point the worst case scenario is that we have a rotation that gives us a chance to win everyday. Best case scenario is Pineda, who was our best pitcher down the stretch last year, is our number 4 or 5 and we have the arms to make some big time noise.

I think Ryu may be the better get than Bumgarner. He's older and can be had on a shorter contract and his overall performance has been better. If we can keep him healthy for 150 innings, he's our ace. I think they could sign him and Pineda back, explore the trade market, sign someone like a Homer Bailey or Wade Miley type as insurance for the innings that those two miss, and still have Dobnak, Smeltzer and Thorpe as backups. A plan like that can be put together and still leave plenty of room in the payroll to explore the positional needs we have. I don't want the Twins to panic and throw $20 million AAV for 5 years at MadBum and I don't think they will. When somebody else signs him, people are going to be pissed because we missed another target, but he's a great example of a guy that needs to come at the right price. There are so many avenue's the front office can take to successfully fill the rotation. I know why people are skeptical that they will, but they're smart enough to do it. Also for the record, I could absolutely talk myself into MadBum if we sign him. He would make us better, I just don't think it needs to be MadBum or bust.