John Bonnes

Aaron sips a pink libation. John begs their listeners to take a quick survery for recruiting sponsors. Then they chat about whether Sam Deduno belong, whether the Twins can and should re-sign Scott Baker, how one characterizes the starting pitching market, Liam Hendriks first "W," the MLB television deal and what it means for the Twins payroll, the switch from Beloit to Cedar Rapids, and honors bestowed by Baseball America on some Twins prospects. Then they answer mailbag about the Minnesota Twins and compare blogging to podcasting. the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

I may have exaggerated a little. I know – shocking for a blogger. For months I’ve been saying that this free agent class of pitchers is almost historically deep. That might be a little strong, unless you think history only goes back as far as 2007. Because based on the dollars that were thrown around, 2006-2007 was an unbelievably lucrative free agent starting pitching market – for the players. It didn’t work out nearly as well for the owners. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] The top two contracts given out that year were unmitigated disasters. San Francisco is still trying to get out from under the $126M contract they gave Barry Zito while the Red Sox are finally finished with the $100+M they paid to get Daisuke Matsuzaka. Those two contracts are legendarily bad, and that’s NOT an exaggeration. But the next two were almost equally dismal. The Royals invested $55M in Gil Meche, though he saved them some of that when he voluntarily retired only four years into the deal. The next biggest deal went to Jason Schmidt, who made $47M and pitched only 43.1 innings. (Read that last sentence again.) And it didn’t stop there. The majority of the pitchers who signed for big money struggled and there were a lot of them: nine pitchers signed guaranteed deals for at least $20M. The teams may have figured out something since then. In the five years since, only eleven pitchers have reached that $20M level. No class since has had more than three pitchers reach that plateau. In fact, no class has had more than seven pitchers even get $10 million contracts. Or it could be that the pitchers since just haven’t been that good. For instance, last year was the year those seven pitchers got at least $10M. The market had three big names – CJ Wilson, Yu Darvish and Mark Buehrle. But beyond them, there wasn’t much. Hiroki Kuroda got a one-year, $11M deal from Yankees. Three others got $10+ million contracts, but they were all for multiple years, so the fifth, sixth and seventh biggest deals went to Aaron Harang ($6M/year), Chris Capuano ($5M/year) and Wei-Yin Chen ($3.8M/year). Did you just say “Who?” Exactly. If you’re looking for a thin market for starting pitching, the last five years qualify. This year is different. There are as many as 11 pitchers who could garner a $20M offer from a team. In the first draft of TwinsCentric’s Offseason GM Handbook (which you’ll be able to order soon, I promise), I count six that are virtually locks to make that money There are five more that might, and each will almost certainly get at least $10 million guaranteed. That’s deeper than any class since 2006. But it’s deeper still than that. Because after those guys there are another dozen pitchers who qualify as “innings eaters” or “intriguing gambles” which are the domains in which the Twins are most likely to dabble. Scott Baker belongs in the latter category and ranks 22nd overall on our list. By comparison, there were only 18 starting pitchers last year that signed major league contracts – and that was the most since 2006-2007. So, yes, I might have exaggerated a little in the past, so I’ll try and be a little more precise. (John Dyer-Bennett would have wanted it that way.) Right now, this year’s free agent starting pitching class looks to be the best group we have seen in at least five years. It is also flush with mid-level talent, going at least 20 to 25 players deep. And I’ll go a step further. If the Twins were trying to time find an offseason where average starting pitching would be available at a discount, they couldn’t have done a much better job. (Provided they actually spend some money.) ~~~

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Yesterday, teams looking for free agent starting pitching this offseason were dealt a minor blow by the Texas Rangers. Colby Lewis, the solid starting pitcher of the Rangers, re-signed with them at the bargain price of $2 million plus incentives. If that sounds shrewd, it’s continuing a trend. Lewis has been outpacing the relatively meager sums the Rangers have been paying him since they signed him when he returned from Japan. In the three years since, he has thrown 500 innings for them with a 3.93 ERA. He was scheduled to be a free agent in a couple of months, his chance to make really big money. That changed back in July. Lewis came out of game with pain in his forearm. A few days later he was diagnosed with a torn flexor tendon which was going to cause him to miss the rest of the season. While he should be OK to begin next season, it was unlikely any team was going to offer him the big multi-year deal his recent performance deserved. They would want a shorter, incentive-laden deal to make sure they weren’t burned. But Texas beat them to that punch, signing Lewis to a $2M deal with the chance to make $4M in incentives. The Twins could face a similar opportunity with one of their own pitchers. Scott Baker is coming back from Tommy John surgery he had in April. He might be ready for the beginning of the year, or soon thereafter, though he’ll likely face an inning limit at some point next year. This offseason, he’ll also be looking for a deal like Lewis was – short, incentive-based, and looking to rebuild interest in his considerable talent. The Twins could offer him that right now, a month before any other team can consider it. A deal similar to that signed by Lewis would keep Baker in the organization during his rehab, give the Twins some cost certainty about the price of their rotation and cross off one more spot they need to fill on the free agent market. However, a Twins-Baker contract would need one additional aspect: a team option on 2014. It could be a fairly expensive option – perhaps $8M – so both Baker and the team feel like they would reap the rewards of a successful recovery. I don’t know if either side is exploring this kind of a deal, but it makes a lot of sense to a pitcher that needs a team and a team that needs pitching.