Tom Froemming

Yeah, but which of those postseason teams built up their bullpen via free agency? Ask the Rockies how overspending on a bullpen worked out. Biggest AAV deals to RPs last offseason Wade Davis COL 4.12 ERA 65.1 IP Greg Holland STL 7.92 ERA in 25 IP (released) Brandon Morrow CHC 1.47 ERA in 30.2 IP Bryan Shaw COL 5.93 ERA in 54.2 IP Tommy Hunter PHI 3.80 ERA in 64 IP Jake McGee COL 6.49 ERA in 51.1 IP Juan Nicasio SEA 6.00 ERA in 42 IP Addison Reed MIN 4.50 ERA in 56 IP Ick. The only one of those guys who pitched well was Morrow, and even he missed a big chunk of the season.

Jeff Passan of ESPN reports that the Twins are indeed finalizing a deal with Parker, saying it's a one-year deal worth slightly more than $3 million. The Twins certainly have the extra money to spend, but I'll happily take Parker on this deal over Herrera on the deal he got from the White Sox (two-years, $18 mil guaranteed).

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported on Twitter that right-handed relief pitcher Blake Parker is expected to sign soon and that the landing spot is believed to be the Twins. Parker, 33, was non-tendered by the Angels earlier this offseason. He pitched to a 2.90 ERA, 1.03 WHIP and saved 22 games for the Angels the past two seasons.UPDATE: Jeff Passan of ESPN confirmed the Twins are indeed finalizing a deal with Parker. His sources say it's a one-year deal worth slightly more than $3 million. Here's what I wrote about Parker in the non-tender tracker we ran here at Twins Daily on Nov. 30: Blake Parker will be non-tendered by the Angels, according to Mark Feinsand. This is the most surprising one so far in my book. Parker has pitched to a 2.90 ERA in 138 appearances over the past two seasons with the Angels, racking up 22 saves in the process. He also has an impressive 1.03 WHIP and 4.46 K:BB ratio over that same stretch (10.5 K/9, 2.4 BB/9). Parker, 33, was projected to make a modest $3.1 million. And I added this in my recap of the day's activity: Final Thoughts Some of these guys could make a lot of sense for the Twins. Blake Parker is a guy who jumps out in particular, mainly because I think bullpen help is probably the biggest need right now. At least in my eyes, Parker stacks up favorably when you compare him to some of the other relief pitchers available on the market. That's especially true if we look back at 2017-18 numbers combined. Past two seasons Blake Parker 2.90 ERA, 3.55 FIP, 1.03 WHIP, 22.8 K-BB% Adam Ottavino 3.50 ERA, 3.72 FIP, 1.25 WHIP, 18.1 K-BB% Cody Allen 3.82 ERA, 3.87 FIP, 1.26 WHIP, 20.7 K-BB% Kelvin Herrera 3.47 ERA, 4.15 FIP, 1.28 WHIP, 14.5 K-BB% *Moments after the Parker news broke Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the White Sox signed Herrera to a two-year, $18 million deal with a vesting third-year option. To be fair, there's a good reason why I zoomed out to the past two seasons. Parker is coming off a much less impressive season than he posted in 2017. Two seasons ago his FIP was 2.71, last year it was 4.40. According to Baseball Savant, Parker relies on his four seamer 58 percent of the time while mixing in a splitter 31.1 percent of the time and his curve at 10.9 percent. All three of those offerings took a dip in velocity from 2017 to last season, with the four-seam fastball going from 93.5 mph in 2017 to 92.1 last year. So there are certainly some things to like about Parker and some to be concerned about, as you would expect from a player who was recently non-tendered. Again, it's important to point out that at this time the signing has not been confirmed, but it would be surprising to see someone like Ken Rosenthal to connect a player to a team without having a strong inclination that things were fairly settled. Something to keep in mind is the Twins' 40-man roster is currently full, so they'll need to DFA another player to make room for Parker. Last week the Twins designated Aaron Slegers to make room for Nelson Cruz. 4:23 Update: Jeff Passan is reporting that the deal is close and believed to be worth slightly more than $3 million. Click here to view the article

I put a bit more air between your paragraphs to make this a little easier on the eyes, hope you don't mind. My enthusiasm for 2019 keeps teetering between "I wish they would go for it, the division is there for the taking" and "my God there are some terrible AL teams, at least the Twins have some hope." It could be better, but it could be a LOT worse.

Yes please! That's an .894 OPS. Do you know the last time a Twins hitter had an OPS that high in 400+ PAs? It was Joe Mauer's MVP season in 2009.

As a way to both look back at a great minor league season and celebrate the release of the 2019 Twins Prospect Handbook, I’m shining the spotlight on a few players in the system. Next up is Lewis Thorpe. The 2019 Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook is available in paperback for $17.99 or as an eBook for $12.99.In the first installment of this series, we took a look at right-handed pitcher Jhoan Duran and I shared some video of a brilliant start he made for Cedar Rapids. More recently, I took a look at Alex Kirilloff, an excellent hitter who is also a better athlete than he often gets credit for. Let's shine the spotlight on the Thorpedo. Thorpe had a huge 2018 season. He was placed on the 40-man roster, made his Triple-A debut and was named the Jim Rantz Twins Minor League Pitcher of the Year. Speaking of that Triple-A debut, let's take take a look back at that outing. How about that for an arrival? Thorpe threw 71 of his 100 pitches for strikes, getting 22 swinging strikes. He struck out nine batters without issuing a single walk. Thorpe made three more appearances with Rochester prior to the end of the season and finished with a 3.32 ERA, 1.20 WHIP and 10.8 K/9 in 21 2/3 innings with the Red Wings. Thorpe is just one of more than 160 players featured in the Prospect Handbook.We had a ton of fun putting the book together and we’re really excited for people to read it. Recognizing these minor league players for their efforts and ability is a big motivating factor in the project, so we would love for you to pick up a copy. Click here for more information on the 2019 Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook Click here to view the article

That seems like an awfully aggressive ranking on Jake Cave.

I think the only thing that's going to slow Kirilloff down is the fact that there doesn't appear to be a pressing need on the big club right now. I could see him potentially being ready as early as this June if the Twins really wanted him up, but they don't appear to have any incentive to be that aggressive. I think that performance in the FSL is really what sent him rocketing up the national lists. He had the third-best OPS of any FSL hitter with at least 250 PAs. Very impressive. Still, I don't think it would hurt him any to begin the year back with the Miracle.

As a way to both look back at a great minor league season and celebrate the release of the 2019 Twins Prospect Handbook, I’m shining the spotlight on a few players in the system. Next up is Alex Kirilloff. The 2019 Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook is available in paperback for $17.99 or as an eBook for $12.99.In the first installment of this series, we took a look at right-handed pitcher Jhoan Duran and I shared some video of a brilliant start he made for Cedar Rapids. Kirilloff is much more of a known prospect across Twins Territory, but I dug up some video that I think shines some new light on his ability. Alex Kirilloff is a hitter. The guy literally grew up in a batting cage. Check out his spray chart and some of his impressive opposite-field home runs in the video below, but also take note of his athleticism. I compared his speed on the bases to a couple of current Twins corner outfielders. There you have it, I wouldn't go so far as to call Kirilloff a five-tool player, but he's definitely an even better athlete than I realized. I knew he was an excellent hitter, but his raw power also impressed me in 2018. He led all of the minor leagues in extra-base hits last season with 71 (44 doubles, seven triples and 20 home runs). Kirilloff is just one of more than 160 players featured in the Prospect Handbook.We had a ton of fun putting the book together and we’re really excited for people to read it. Recognizing these minor league players for their efforts and ability is a big motivating factor in the project, so we would love for you to pick up a copy. Click here for more information on the 2019 Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook Click here to view the article

His name is said in the video a couple times, probably the clearest right at about the 7:00 mark, but if I was to try and type it out phonetically I guess it'd be something like Jo-ahn Dur-ahn. How about Jhoan "Hungry Wolf" Duran? That's a pretty badass nickname.

Thanks for bringing this up. Another huge selling point to this year's Prospect Handbook is that it includes an accurate height and weight on each player. What's listed on those MiLB or B-Ref profiles is comically outdated, sometimes multiple years old. I wouldn't be surprised if that 175 listing is from when he originally signed back in 2015. For example, Brusdar Graterol is still listed as 6-1, 180 on those sites. No way, the guy looks like a linebacker now.

As a way to both look back at a great minor league season and celebrate the release of the 2019 Twins Prospect Handbook, I’m going to be putting together a series of features that should help bring some of the prospects to life. First up is a new name to the system, Jhoan Duran. The 2019 Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook is available in paperback for $17.99 or as an eBook for $12.99.In last year’s Prospect Spotlight Series, I took a deeper statistical look into a handful of guys I was higher on than most. Here are links to those articles if you’re interested in looking back: Travis Blankenhorn, Ben Rortvedt, Lachlan Wells, Tom Hackimer and Zander Wiel. Instead of focusing on “my guys” this year, I’m going to pass along some of the really fun stuff I saw in 2018 from Twins prospects. So this will be sort of a show-and-tell version of the Prospect Spotlight Series. First up on the list is Jhoan Duran. We’re going to look back at his impressive performance for the Cedar Rapids Kernels on Aug. 24. I apologize for the lo-fi, bootleg video quality, it was the best I could do. Wow. I don’t envy those hitters. Duran pitched 6 2/3 innings of one-hit ball and racked up 10 strikeouts in that start. Of his 97 pitches, 62 went for strikes (63.9%) and he induced an impressive 19 swinging strikes (19.6%). That was certainly a performance that gets you dreaming of Duran someday dealing on the Target Field mound. When the Twins acquired Duran, he had a 4.73 ERA and 1.50 WHIP in 15 starts. I'll admit, that didn't exactly capture my imagination. Throw in the fact that he was acquired in the deal that sent away Eduardo Escobar, a guy who had been among my favorite Twins for years, and I was struggling to get very excited at the time. I'm not sure if the Twins tweaked anything or if the trade was just a wake-up call, but Duran looked like a new man after joining the Twins. In his six regular season starts with Cedar Rapids, Duran posted a 2.00 ERA, 0.81 WHIP and 4.40 K:BB ratio. He added six innings of one run ball and 10 more strikeouts in his lone postseason start for the Kernels. The funny thing about Duran is that, among the Prospect Handbook contributors, I actually have him ranked the lowest. That’s more of an indication of how tight everything gets after the top three than how I feel specifically about Duran. I think Royce Lewis, Alex Kirilloff and Brusdar Graterol are clearly in a top tier, but then there are another 10-15 guys who are all basically in the same tier. Where exactly did everybody have him ranked? You’ll have to buy the book to find out We had a ton of fun putting the Prospect Handbook together and we’re really excited for people to read it. Recognizing these minor league players for their efforts and ability is a big motivating factor in the project, so we would love for you to pick up a copy. Duran is just one of more than 160 players featured in the book. He’s quickly becoming a notable name, but as fun as prospect lists are, guys emerge from relative obscurity to reach the major leagues on a regular basis. Andrew Vasquez was a 32nd-round pick who never garnered prospect list love, but he earned his way all the way to the Major Leagues last season, becoming the first member of the Twins’ 2015 Draft class to arrive in Minnesota. Who’s going to be the next homegrown Twins talent to emerge? That’s a great question. The only thing I can say for certain is he’s somewhere in the pages of this year's handbook. Click here for more information on the 2019 Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook. Click here to view the article

I'd say Denny Hocking should be next, but Mauer getting 7 retired works as a two birds, one stone situation

Good stuff here, I hadn't really considered this. One thing I'd like to add on Gibby is he became the team's union rep after Dozier was traded. He's a leader in that clubhouse. I have to imagine other players take note of how guys like that are treated, and continuity among your clubhouse leaders could have some value. How much does that actually matter? I don't know, tough to say, but I do think it is something to consider. With no Joe, no Dozier, no Escobar and an entirely new coaching staff, there's a lot of relationship building to do. Maybe Gibson can be of value in that area.

Just something I found interesting about these 2018 stat lines: Player A 3.74 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 6.7 K/9, 2.6 BB/9, 3.69 FIP, 3.87 DRA Player B 3.76 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 8.2 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 3.54 FIP, 3.48 DRA Player C 2.01 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 7.4 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 3.47 FIP, 3.74 DRA Player D 3.62 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 8.2 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, 4.13 FIP, 4.21 DRA A = Dallas Keuchel B = Trevor Cahill C = Clay Buchholz D = Kyle Gibson There's a big difference in innings, as Keuchel (204 2/3) and Gibson (196 2/3) got a lot more work than Cahill (110) and Buchholz (98 1/3), but still.

David Schoenfield of ESPN put together a nice breakdown of who’s left on the starting pitching market. He noted that the Twins may gamble on Clay Buchholz and/or Drew Pomeranz. I wrote about Pomeranz in my search for the next Nathan Eovaldi here at Twins Daily a couple weeks ago, but what about Buchholz? Continue reading for more info on Buchholz plus a number of other news & notes items in this edition of the Rundown.Clay Buchholz had a nice 2.01 ERA, 1.04 WHIP and 3.68 K:BB ratio for the Diamondbacks last year. That's pretty awesome, right? This issue is he pitched just 98 1/3 innings in 2018. In fact, Buchholz only logged 7 1/3 innings the prior year, 139 1/3 in 2016 and 113 1/3 in 2015. So this is not a guy you’d want to bank on for innings. Still, Buchholz has a 3.69 ERA and 3.86 FIP over the previous four seasons. That puts him 36th in ERA among the 137 pitchers who've thrown 350 innings over the past four years, right between Ervin Santana (3.68 ERA) and Lance Lynn (3.70 ERA). In that same sample, Buchholz has the lowest HR:FB ratio (9.2%) of any pitcher. Buchholz missed nearly all of the 2017 season due to a partial tear of his right flexor in his forearm. Arizona was forced to shut him down in mid September this year due to a strained flexor, so that's a pretty big red flag for the 34-year-old. I would certainly prefer Drew Pomeranz, who only is 30, left-handed and has been more durable, but Buchholz is another interesting buy-low, bounce back option if the Twins are inclined to go that route. Betsy Helfand of the Pioneer Press reported that the Twins planned on being creative with their pitching staff again in 2019. Derek Falvey is quoted in the piece as saying “I think we are seeing across baseball a clear trend toward utilizing guys in a different way out of a bullpen. Some are clearly backend guys, some are short-stint types and there is this multi-inning role, whatever you call it. That could be really valuable to us.” Also included in that piece is some more steam on Fernando Romero potentially joining the bullpen. Romero had a respectable Major League debut last season, pitching to a 4.69 ERA in 55 2/3 innings with the Twins, but he did get knocked around a little. He averaged 9.7 H/9 and his WHIP was 1.42. Romero made his final nine appearances of the season with Rochester, posting a 4.76 ERA with an uncharacteristically low 6.0 K/9 rate over that span. It’s fair to note that along with his MLB debut, Romero also made his Triple-A debut in 2018, so something of an adjustment period was probably to be expected. Hitters at those levels make a pitcher work much harder. They don’t chase bad pitches like hitters in the lower levels. Romero’s never been much of an innings eater over his career, so that could also factor in when considering his future role. In his Winter Meetings wrap-up, MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park noted that the Twins are still in search of pitching. Included in that piece is this quote from Thad Levine: "We're trying to make sound business decisions, and there's a lot of supply out there. There's a lot of players on the marketplace still. So we've got a lot of options we can continue to pursue." Craig Edwards of FanGraphs observed that last year’s reliever market seems to have carried over. Jeurys Familia signed with the Mets for three years and $30 million while the Dodgers signed Joe Kelly to a three-year, $25 million deal. As Edwards notes, that continues the trend of relievers fetching multi-year deals between $7 and $10 million per season. The Twins waited out the market last year, landing Addison Reed on a two-year deal worth $16.5 million on Jan. 15. Reed had a mysterious dip in velocity that coincided by a streak of poor performances, but I’m not so sure there’s any lessons to be learned from that signing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have extended multiple two-year offers to relievers and are just waiting for those guys to come down from seeking a third year. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic asked “where are the Twins?” in a recent column for The Athletic. He doesn’t offer up an answer to that question, but Rosenthal did call the Twins “a team to watch in the days and weeks ahead.” Unlike the Twins, Cleveland was active at the Winter Meetings. But were they buyers or sellers? It’s kinda hard to say. The Indians traded Yonder Alonso to the White Sox for minor league pitcher Alex Call and then were involved in a complicated three-way trade with the Rays and (who else?) Mariners. Cleveland gave up Edwin Encarnacion, Yandy Diaz and Cole Sulser to acquire Carlos Santana and Jake Bauers. There was also a lot of chatter around possible Cory Kluber and Trevor Bauer trades, but those two are still with the Indians, at least for now. Speaking of the White Sox, they're meeting with Manny Machado today, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today. They may have gained an advantage in acquiring Alonso from Cleveland. He's Machado's brother-in-law File this one under better late than never: A commemorative home plate has been installed at U.S. Bank Stadium in celebration of the Twins’ glory days at the Metrodome. It’s located approximately where the dish was in the old dome, which is great because that also means it’s on the main concourse of the new stadium, accessible to all fans. Will Leitch took a look at every team’s current, active franchise icon for MLB.com. The Twins? Jose Berrios. Man, that seems weird. Click here to view the article

Seth has a different set of standards on who qualifies for the handbook. Basically, anybody who's been around enough to reach minor league free agency (seven seasons on the farm) doesn't get included. So that's guys like Astudillo, Michael Reed, Wynston Sawyer and Ryne Harper. I'm sure there's a few more I'm forgetting.

The Rule 5 Draft is weird. Bad systems are loaded with older minor leaguers who are eligible. Two of those guys taken from San Francisco's system were 28-years-old and the other one they just signed as a minor league free agent in November. Keep in mind that it's not like the Tyler Jays and Jake Reeds of the world were available in the minor league phase of the draft. There's something like an additional 35 players who get protected in that phase, I'm sure Jay and Reed were among them for the Twins (though the lists are not made public).

I'm actually rooting for somebody to take Jake Reed. He deserves a shot.

But when are you ever going to pinch hit Tyler Austin and then leave him in the game? Are you letting him play right field in a close game? I'm not. The only other option would be a double switch to put him at first, meaning you lose both the guy you're pinch hitting for plus whoever is playing 1B from the game. There'd be no reason to do that.