Nick Nelson

The last two offseasons haven't featured a free agent starter remotely in Cole's class. Accounting for momentum, he might legitimately be the best free agent starting pitcher in history. I think the Twins would have to go at least $35m/yr to win a bidding war for him, yea. Darvish's checkered health history worked against him (as it should've, turns out). Who's saying that? Not me. I'm all in favor of spending aggressively in free agency. I'd be very annoyed if they didn't. Problem is that there's nothing close to a sure-thing ace on the market after Cole and Strasburg, and everyone wants those guys. Trading is frankly a more proven avenue for acquiring legitimate rotation fronters, regardless of salary. Cole and Verlander? Both acquired via trade. Ace of last year's WS champs, Sale? Acquired via trade. Take a look at the lineage of division-winning aces in the AL Central alone: Kluber, Scherzer, Shields... all acquired via trade. And how many of those guys were brought in at a time where their value was anywhere near its peak? The idea here is to look beyond what is readily evident. I dunno why you think anyone's arguing against signing good free agents. The purpose of this exercise was to think a little more creatively, that's all.

All very relevant and pertinent examples, thank you. I must say you've made me rethink my confidence in Terry Ryan's ability to uncover an overlooked talent this offseason. And how would that've worked out for them? They need to acquire good pitching, we're all agreed on that. But it can come through many different channels. Trading for a player is not mutually exclusive from signing one. The only thing I took issue with in your remarks is that financial flexibility is a farce and just a "cover for ownership." It actually does need to be a consideration when looking at lucrative long-term deals for players that are aging past their prime, which is what makes the avenue I'm suggesting here more appealing. IMO.

@markos: It certainly won't be as cheap as it once was. But the Twins have the bullets to pony up for a guy they can believe in. @diehardtwinsfan: Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of spending some money on a free agent pitcher. I just don't see Cole as especially realistic, nor do I view the avenue as being all that reliable in general. (Yu Darvish looked like a slam dunk when the Cubs signed him, but it took him much longer to get right in a Cubs uni than Odo here.) So this is mainly presented as a complementary measure to acquire potential top-end pitching. @Mike Sixel: "They have fifty million in budget. Seriously." It's not quite that simple. When you lock into a Gerrit Cole for $35M in 2024, that meaningfully affects your ability or retain core players that are getting more expensive or hitting FA at that point -- Berrios, Buxton, Sano, etc. We can't look at these kinds of things in a single-year scope. Huge long-term deals are scary; there's a reason the Twins aren't the only team moving away from them.

This is what I was driving at when closing the article with this: "The question is whether they can now level-up, expending more resources to add a player capable of even greater impact." So what I'm wondering is if the Twins can now do something more akin to Houston with Cole -- even though they bought low, the Astros did give up a legit haul to acquire him, whereas Odorizzi was just a salary dump for TB more or less. So the challenge for MIN is to target a higher-caliber arm with higher upside, who can be more quickly turned around, while not having to pay the premium of buying at their absolute peak value. That's the issue with Cole. Setting aside the unlikelihood of the Twins ponying up $250M, it's just not ideal team-building strategy for a club with finite spending resources to commit so much money to one guy for 7 years. The key is finding them before their breakout and their true prime. Archer and Gray both strike me as guys who, like Cole, could flip a switch immediately and reach that No. 1/2 status with good health and the right tweaks.

Correction: He was a completely different pitcher in July, when he dealt with a blister issue and his mechanics got slightly out of wack. His performance in August/Sept was on par with the first half. I'd actually trace his turnaround with the Twins back to midway through 2018. In August and September he allowed a .202 avg and just 3 HR. They didn't help him connect the dots instantly, it took about half a season, but since then he's been an excellent starter. No one single case is going to prove anything about pitcher development capabilities (though I'd toss the success of Pineda, Dobnak, Smeltzer, & various relievers into the pile as well). Still, I'm not sure how people can look at the overall progress of Odorizzi and not conclude that it reflects extremely well on the org.

K/9 this year: 10.1 Highest K/9 in Tampa: 9.3 (as a rookie in 2014) FIP this year: 3.36 Lowest FIP in Tampa: 3.61 Whiff rate this year: 12.7% Highest whiff rate in Tampa: 11.2% Avg FB velo this year: 92.9 MPH Highest avg FB velo in Tampa: 91.6 MPH fWAR this year: 4.3 Highest fWAR in Tampa: 2.9 The list goes on. And we also need to consider he was at his lowest point when the Twins acquired him. Nearly all of those high marks in Tampa came years before the trade. Suffice to say, if the Rays had any notion of Odorizzi turning into a pitcher of this caliber, he wouldn't have been dealt for a relative non-prospect. He has progressively turned into a top-tier pitcher in MN, largely because the team helped him maximize his arsenal and cut down drastically on HRs (which is borderline miraculous given his lofty FB rate).

Gray definitely belongs in this convo. Many of the same traits as Cole/Odo and will probably cost less than Archer to acquire.

6 of those 9 pitchers were acquired by the previous front office and are, thus, completely irrelevant. Sanchez never pitched here (and his ensuing breakout actually suggests the team was quite smart to target him) so, also irrelevant, if not contrary to your intended point. Lynn was not a player in need of "fixing." I'm not even sure why you listed him with this group. I actually didn't bury that lede. In the second paragraph, above the fold, it clearly states that the Twins did the same thing "to a lesser extent" with Odorizzi. I think it goes without saying that Odorizzi is no Cole. But both pitchers tapped new levels of performance, velo, and dominance with the new clubs. That is a noteworthy parallel. And one can argue what the Twins did was more impressive because they made an All-Star, $18M pitcher out of something much less. Cole's fWAR in 2019 was 45% higher than his highest mark with Pittsburgh. Odo's 2019 fWAR was 48% higher than his highest mark with Tampa.

Perez was an entirely different situation. That was a free agent flyer on a mediocre bottom of the rotation starter, not trading for a guy who's shown flashes of greatness and had two years of control remaining with his team. If you can find me an actual similar situation where they're come up short trying to turn around a player in this kind of scenario, I'm all ears. Yes, I'm sure it was random coincidence that he immediately unlocked his potential as soon as he arrived in Houston, much like Charlie Morton, Ryan Pressly, and others. All happenstance. Crazy! I'll just leave a few articles here... https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2019/10/15/How-Astros-analytics-transformed-ex-Pirate-Gerrit-Cole/stories/201910150105 https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Gerrit-Cole-unbeaten-since-May-transformed-by-14522509.php https://www.mlb.com/news/how-astros-analytics-improved-their-pitchers-c297698084

Fresh off a Cy Young-caliber campaign and dominant postseason run, Gerrit Cole hits the free agent market as top prize among starting pitchers. Jake Odorizzi wouldn't have been too far behind him, had he not accepted a qualifying offer from the Twins last week. While the Astros rightfully receive endless praise for their acquisition and activation of Cole, the Twins deserve more credit for doing the same thing – albeit it a lesser extent – with Odorizzi.The paths of Cole and Odorizzi have actually been pretty closely intertwined. Both were first-round draft picks out of high school in 2008 – in fact, Odorizzi went just four picks after Cole. Only difference was, Odorizzi signed with the Brewers, while Cole rebuffed the Yankees and wisely opted for college, becoming the first overall pick three years later. Odorizzi endured a hectic first few years as a pro, getting moved twice as a prospect in trades for established aces (Zack Greinke and James Shields) before landing in Tampa Bay, where he emerged as a 24-year-old rookie in 2014. During four full seasons with the Rays, Odorizzi was good, but short of great: 668 IP, 3.81 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 8.3 K/9, 3.0 BB/9. He flirted occasionally with rotation-fronting potential but was held back by a few critical flaws (proneness to home runs among them). After he put forth a career-worst season in 2017, the Rays threw their hands up, trading him to Minnesota the following spring for a middling prospect. One month and five days before Odorizzi went to the Twins, Cole had been dealt by the Pirates to Houston. The return was far more substantial, but in similar fashion, the Astros were buying low. Cole's numbers over five seasons in Pittsburgh were quite like those of Odorizzi in Tampa: 782 IP, 3.50 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 8.4 K/9, 2.3 BB/9. Take out his fantastic 2015 campaign, and Cole's tenure in Pittsburgh was almost identical to Odorizzi's in Tampa, filled with glimpses of largely unrealized potential. We all know where the story goes from there. Cole immediately turned a corner in Houston, blossoming almost instantly into an ace while unlocking new levels of velocity and performance. Odorizzi's emergence in Minnesota wasn't nearly so spectacular, but it shouldn't be overlooked, either. The Twins took a player who required only shortstop Jermaine Palacios (owner of a sub-.600 OPS since switching organizations) to acquire, and turned Odorizzi into a major asset for a needy rotation. In 2019 he was a first-time All-Star while obliterating his career highs in velocity, strikeout rate, whiff percentage, and WAR. The decision to offer a QO was a no-brainer, and his acceptance is a big positive for next year's outlook (meanwhile, the Astros are figuring out how they'll replace their departing ace). For all the hopeful talk about the Twins wooing Cole with an historic contract offer – the fanciful blueprints published here over the past week have been fun to read, – we all know that it's an unlikely path for this franchise. Derek Falvey and Thad Levine had their contracts proactively extended last week not because they can throw ungodly sums of money at the best free agent, but because they can savvily build and develop through a world-class operation (which is, consequently, now being raided by opponents). In the Offseason Handbook, Tom Froemming has an excellent piece titled "Could the Twins Find the Next Gerrit Cole"? I wouldn't bet against it. Odorizzi is no Cole. Obviously. But the Twins have proven they can execute the same formula. The question is whether they can now level-up, expending more resources to add a player capable of even greater impact. As I look around the league, there is one clear candidate who stands out to me in this mold: Chris Archer, one of four outside-the-box trade targets I profiled here. He's got some of the same ingredients as Odorizzi and Cole did: standout stuff, glimmers of greatness, two years of control remaining (via team options). Oh, and coming off a career-worst season. Could the Twins pirate the Pirates like Houston did? ~~~ Who strikes you as a similar buy-low opportunity on the trade market with untapped upside? It's a likely spot for the Twins to set their gaze. Click here to view the article

This is fair. I didn't mean to come off as condescending, but to see Twins fans deferring to the wisdom of BBWAA was astonishing to me. This is the body that awarded a Cy Young to Bartolo Colon over Johan Santana in '05. They've progressed since then, but not by a whole lot, which was a point made in the article. Where did the article advocate for giving him away, much less than for nothing?

Well said

I never said he didn't bring a lot to the table. In fact, I made sure to start off the article by pointing out that he does. You can say my opinion is subjective and immaterial, that's fine. But what I'm trying to get across here is that the Twins' front office, and others across the league, are likely to share it. Do you disagree? To invoke the reference from the article, all these things being said here about Rosario can also be said about Jose Abreu -- to a greater extent, in fact -- and there's a reason he elected not to test the open market at a seemingly prime opportunity.

How bout pointing out what you felt was so unfair of off-base in the analysis? The harshest things I said here were that he had a "complicated" and "very ordinary season." WHOA, BRING OUT THE PITCHFORKS!

Where is this "Eddie was playing hurt" narrative coming from? Honest question. I can almost guarantee that several players on the team (including Kepler) were playing through more significant health impediments for long portions of the season. My frustration with Rosario is that his plate approach has completely devolved. When at his best he had developed a semblance of patience, but it disappeared entirely over the course of this season (see Cooper's article for specifics). That seems very willful to me, like overconfidence is getting the best of him. Talk about leadership all you want but when I watched an inning where Kepler, Polanco and Cruz built a rally by grinding out tough at-bats, only to watch Rosario pop out on the first pitch at his ankles, that was frustrating. That's not leadership in any form. It's bad baseball. And it's the kind of thing that happened often.

Lol. No. Have you paid attention to MVP/Cy Young voting in the past? I can say with great confidence that BBWAA as a whole does not know baseball, or the Twins, better than a majority of writers/commenters on this site. A panel of 18 Twins Daily contributors voted independently on team MVP at the end of the season and Rosario received ONE sixth-place vote. Imma go ahead and lend a lot more credence to that than a bunch of outsiders who get googly-eyed about RBI totals. Rosario has a reputation. I get that. And it's something the Twins will have to reckon with as they attempt to reconcile the likely difference in perceived value. It's amazing to me that people can read a detailed, evidenced article like this that opens with a genuine series of compliments about the player, and reduce it to "Rosario bashing." Why are people so sensitive about him??

It is not an "opinion" to suggest that creating outs at an almost unparalleled rate on offense, and giving up outs at an almost unparalleled rate on defense, are detrimental to winning baseball games. It is statistically proven. Opinions about a player are shaped by what we see and what we remember. The big flashy highlights and bat flips tend to stick in our heads. Which was basically the point of this article.

Objective, evidenced analysis = "attacking." ok

I shouldn't be surprised anymore. I really shouldn't. Baseball's award voters have overemphasized traditional baseball-card numbers like wins and saves and RBIs as indicators of value since long before I was born. By no means should I have been shocked to see Eddie Rosario receive two eighth-place votes in the American League MVP balloting results, released on Thursday. Still, I couldn't help but be taken aback. Maybe because I view this as a harbinger of what lies ahead for Rosario and the Twins this winter.I like Eddie Rosario. I consider myself a big fan. He is talented and electric and entertainingly brash. His ability to crush pitches anywhere within reach is amazing. Rosie brings a unique element to the Twins lineup and clubhouse, without a doubt. But I'm not gonna let these things blind me to the fact that he had a down year in some very essential ways. Whenever I broach this subject, I seem to find myself accused of being a "hater," but an honest analysis cannot avoid the conclusion that Rosario was a very ordinary player in 2019. True: Rosario batted cleanup all year long for an historically powerful offense. He hit 32 homers and drove in a team-leading 109 runs. Also true: He posted a .300 on-base percentage, lower than all but seven qualified major leaguers. And depending on which metric you look at, he was either sub par defensively, or the worst left fielder in the league. His Statcast measures were generally below average. Granted, a pinch-hit walk-off home run sticks in the viewer's mind more than that steady stream of outs, which blend into the game's general rhythm over a long season. The same is true for a flashy game-ending outfield assist, in comparison with the litany of missed plays stemming from diminishing range, bad routes, and poor decisions. But the central tenets of modern baseball analysis pronounce that outs are a precious commodity. Low OBPs are suppressive, even when attached to solid power. On the flip side, giving up outs defensively is detrimental to the utmost for run prevention. In these two categories, Rosario was among the league's worst performers. And he's not trending well on either. I realize that not everyone shares my perspective here. Clearly not the MVP voters, who collectively deemed Rosario more valuable than – say – Max Kepler, who received one single ninth-place vote despite his superior OBP, SLG, and home run total. That's not even broaching the vast chasm in defensive value. Kepler ranked 11th among AL position players in fWAR; Rosario ranked 50th! I get it. This is the lagging nature of award voting, which has grown only mildly more sophisticated over the years. (To their credit, BBWAA did get it right by crowning Mike Trout.) Moving at a more advanced pace in player evaluation? MLB's front offices. The shift has been evident in recent years, with home runs and RBIs decreasingly translating into dollars on their own merit. This helps explain why Jose Abreu (who finished in between Rosario and Kepler on the MVP ballots) opted to accept a qualifying offer from the White Sox, rather than test the market following an All-Star, 123-RBI season. This brings us to the crux of the matter. Rosario is due for his second turn at arbitration this year, after earning $4.2 million in Year 1. He and his agent have grounds to request a substantial raise in 2020 – their case now bolstered by a dash of MVP recognition. The Twins will submit their own salary figure, and based on all we've just discussed, it's likely to be a good bit lower. Even at the highest extremes, these gaps are never all that significant, but then again, the Twins took Kyle Gibson (every bit the entrenched franchise stalwart Rosario is) to arbitration in 2018 over a mere $300K difference in exchanged numbers. This front office is all about setting precedent. Should the case go before a panel, it'll be interesting to see which way it goes. Arbitrators have traditionally been very... traditional in their judgments, aligning more so with the sentiments of BBWAA voters than Billy Beane. But in theory, salaries determined through this process should reflect larger trends around the league. What's 1.2 fWAR worth? Anyway, all of that is beside the point. Determining Rosario's salary is a microcosm of the larger narrative: He's two years from free agency, and coming off a complicated season. This juncture is prime for either an extension or trade, as the Twins may never have better leverage on either front. If they choose to stay on the year-to-year plan, then arbitration awaits, and whatever that entails. One way or another, we figure to learn a lot about Rosario's future in Minnesota over the next couple months. Click here to view the article

Last weekend, as University of Minnesota football coach P.J. Fleck surfed across a sea of rejoicing players in the locker room following a landmark victory, I couldn't help but think back to Rocco Baldelli addressing his Twins team (albeit in more subdued fashion) after they clinched the AL Central. The parallels between Fleck and Baldelli – millennial leaders who espouse positivity and empathy over a traditional bulldog mentality – cannot be ignored. Nor can the results their approaches have yielded. On Saturday, Fleck notched the biggest victory for a Gophers team in decades, and on Tuesday, Baldelli was named AL Manager of the Year following an inspired first year on the job.Ahead of his selection as the 14th manager in Twins history, Baldelli was described in the Tampa Bay Times as "young, bright, sharp, communicative, confident, humble, versed in analytics." All of these traits came to fruition during his award-winning debut as Minnesota's skipper. Tom Froemming wrote an article here in late May, entitled Baldelli Is More Coddling Millennial Than Field General, and I think it pretty well summarizes the 38-year-old's staunch departure from managerial norms. Baldelli is a quiet commander. Articulate and tactful, he navigates interviews in a way that mostly avoids single-out critiques. He runs his program in a very player-centric manner, sometimes bucking entrenched norms in the name of comfort and convenience for his guys. I think Dan Hayes of The Athletic has captured this best: For example, his piece explaining Baldelli's "LAF" acronym (a designation for days where players are allowed to come to the park "Late as [eff]"), and his contribution to the Offseason Handbook, where Hayes details the rest-and-recovery model that helped produce an historic year from Minnesota's catchers. In my limited interactions with Baldelli, I've been incredibly impressed. Ron Gardenhire and Paul Molitor were plenty likable, in their own ways, but the new Twins manager is connective. This story of his heartwarming encounter with a young fan at a restaurant won't surprise anyone who's spent time with Rocco. He is an authentic person – sharp and knowledgeable, yet perceptive and open-minded. These traits helped him build instant rapport within the clubhouse, despite being younger than his team MVP, and clearly Baldelli's presence was conducive to successful results. In his first year the helm, he oversaw the biggest surprise in baseball: a record-setting, 101-win team that immediately cements itself among the three or four best in franchise history. This was a slam-dunk hire by the front office, in what has now become a trend. Granted, the trend has its downsides; Jeremy Hefner has become the latest in a line of coaches targeted for poaching by other teams. But Baldelli isn't going anywhere, much to the dismay of the numerous teams now turning over managers this offseason. His return next year, alongside what figures to be a largely intact roster, provides all the more reason to be confident in a sustainable winning product. The standard for Twins managerial debuts has been set high. Tom Kelly won a World Series in 1987. Ron Gardenhire reached the ALCS in 2002. Paul Molitor guided the franchise out of four straight 90-loss seasons with a winning record in 2015. Baldelli has picked up the mantle with a worthy effort, and now has already joined that trio as recipients of a Manager of the Year award. Cheers, Rocco. We're all excited to see where you take it from here. Click here to view the article

I love this plan. Realistic yet assertive. Great work!

Dedicated bullpen games would not be a set regular occurrence, but rather a convenient option when needed. You can use them to fill in the gaps while Pineda is suspended, or to give starters extra rest during a long stretch with no off-days, or to handle the bulk of a 3-IP start from someone like Graterol (whose pitch counts I believe should be tightly managed, especially early on). Might even make sense to run an opener ahead of Graterol.