Mike Pelfrey has a lot of making up to do in order to earn the $18.66 million the Minnesota Twins have paid him these last three years, but he's finally starting to pay off. Pelfrey made roughly $150,000 per inning the last two seasons, but this season he's All-Star trade bait.

This blog was originally published at Go Gonzo Journal.

Pelfrey has made a solid case to make the American League All-Star pitching rotation. He's 5-2 with a 2.28 ERA, 1.224 WHIP, 178 ERA+, and 2.6 WAR. He's fourth in the American League in ERA and fourth in WAR. He hasn't been worth more than one win above the replacement player since 2010, when he went 15-9, tossed 204 innings with an ERA of 3.66 and ERA+ of 107. He's putting up better numbers than when he was 26!

The most valuable thing about Pelfrey is that he's cheap – maybe if you're not a Twins fan and are familiar with his past two seasons – but teams like the Houston Astros, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, New York Yankees, and maybe even the Mets and Cubs, will happily offer a quality prospect and pay Pelfrey $3.5 million to take them to the Playoffs and go away at the end of the year. I'd love to get some bullpen arms – close to MLB-ready pitchers who throw gas.

This is why I hope the Twins are sellers at the MLB Trade Deadline. We have starting pitching depth for the first time in a while, and Pelfrey should be made available. He won't be back, so why not get something for the guy who has cost the franchise a pretty penny recovering from injury the past two years. But if the Twins are in it, and Pelfrey continues to look like an All-Star, I don't see Terry Ryan dropping the dead weight that has been Mike Pelfrey – especially if he's still our best pitcher after Ervin Santana returns from his suspension.

----

@GoGonzoJournal is a free, literary journal featuring the rants of sports fans, educational essays, book and movie reviews, and news coverage written in the Gonzo style of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. They also host @****DickandBert – a live, explicit Minnesota sports podcast on Mixlr and iTunes.