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Pretty good balance with Kepler, Arraez, Rosario all left handed. Polanco has more power left handed. Back ups are Avila, Cave left handed and Adrianza, Gonzales switch hitters. IMHO roster well balanced.

I am absolutely giddy about this so called "problem".

I really hope Jake Reed finally gets a shot at some point this year.

I don't consider guys with a career OPS in the mid 800s versus right handed pitching a problem. That's still really good production and coupled with the left handed bats (and switch hitters) the Twins offense will be very dangerous no matter who is on the mound.

They used to have a right-handedness deficiency with mostly lefties in the lineup, but that's no longer the case. They're extremely well balanced now.

I think if Gordon hadn't started the season on the IL, he likely would have been the one called up instead of Arraez.

This is the best offer listed in this article so far. But tbh if Berrios were an FA this off season you couldn't sniff him for this price. Wheeler got 5/118. This is the kind of deal Berrios would get as an FA. Easily. Granted he's not going to get 24 mil per season for the next 3 arb campaigns. But on the other hand he's not going to sign away his first 2 prime FA seasons away cheaply either. That's what's being suggested when people throw out 5/60 contracts. Should he continue to progress as he has every season in his career thus far he should make around 30mil plus through the arb process. He then becomes an FA a year younger then Wheeler was when he hit the open market. IF Berrios stays healthy he has some huge paydays ahead of him.

Of course we should be worried about them. I think a lot of fans are getting a little haughty. Our rotation could be terrible. We’re a season ending injury from Berrios/Odorizzi away from being in big trouble. There’s not guarantee Pineda is the guy we saw last year. Same with Bailey. Hill may never get healthy. On the offensive side, age could catch up with Cruz. Sano and Buxton could continue to struggle with injuries. Garver and Arraez could easily come back down to earth. There are so many variables with this club, it is not a hot take to say we could finish behind the Sox. Last year’s success was beyond a best case scenario. The odds of that happening two years in row are probably slim. The same “best case scenario” that happened for us last year could easily happen for the Sox. They have some legitimate talent beyond their off season acquisitions primed for superstardom (Giolito, Moncada, Anderson, Kopech, Jimenez, even Rodon could be very good). Add those potential breakouts to Grandal, Encarnacion, Abbreu, McCann, Mazara, etc. and things could get scary. I think many Twins fans could be thinking of the Sox the same way Indians fans were thinking of the Twins this time last year.

Over the weekend the Minnesota Twins inked Jhoulys Chacin to a minor league deal that’s worth roughly $1.5 million if he makes the big-league club. With the non-roster invitees yet to be unveiled, and some chatter going around, he’s probably not the last arm to be brought in. Although the rotation didn’t experience a big jolt, Rocco Baldelli’s club is going to have some interesting options. A week ago, the assumed Opening Day rotation would have been Jose Berrios, Jake Odorizzi, Homer Bailey, Randy Dobnak, and Lewis Thorpe. With every new arm brought in, the thought is that the shift takes place from the bottom up. Now obviously a minor league deal is not guaranteed, and the reality is results must match some level of expectation during Spring Training. Assuming that happens though, Minnesota is putting themselves in a nice spot. Chacin was downright terrible in 2019. Pitching for the Brewers and Red Sox, he posted a 6.01 ERA 5.88 FIP and walked four per nine while allowing 2.2 HR/9. A slider first pitcher that was very good in 2018 however, there’s a lot to like here. Jhoulys is an 11-year veteran with a career 4.03 ERA and three sub 4.00 ERA seasons from 2015-2018. It’s a decent gamble that he could have a better 2020 than Bailey, who is on a guaranteed contract from the Twins. In 2019 Minnesota needed to get starts from just 10 different pitchers, and five guys made all but 16 of the initial trips to the mound. That’s extraordinary, reflective of strong performance, and more importantly indicative of superior health and good fortune. Rather than banking on that taking place again, Wes Johnson has been given an arsenal to utilize going forward. Randy Dobnak posted a 1.59 ERA and 2.90 FIP in his debut season en route to a Postseason start. Lewis Thorpe is a former top prospect that looks the part of a breakout arm. Devin Smeltzer has become somewhat of an afterthought despite being a key acquisition from the Dodgers and having a strong rookie season of his own. That’s all before we even touch on Jhoan Duran or Jordan Balazovic. Then you add in the Michael Pineda will be back after suspension and Rich Hill will be healthy down the stretch, it’s safe to see Minnesota is overflowing with arms. We don’t yet know what level all the options will perform at, but the Twins have both opportunity and the mounts to feed in the year ahead. Plugging in the right guys in the most opportune situations will be the task of Johnson and Baldelli. There’s probably opportunity to flip an asset or two, and there’s definitely a level of insurance built into the roster construction here. I have no idea which Chacin shows up in 2020, but it appears Johnson is intrigued enough to work on getting the 2018 guy to take the mound. If you throw Taijuan Walker or someone else into the mix as well, the rotation that didn’t get its impact arm has an inside track at being both very good as well as very well supplemented. Who makes starts when should be up in the air for the next month or so, but give it to Derek Falvey and Thad Levine, they’ve done work stocking the cupboard with plenty of ammunition. For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

Marco Gonzalez just signed a new 4-year deal today with the Mariners so he’s likely off the trade market.

After looking through the 40 man roster and the non-roster invitees I can tell the bullpen battle in camp is going to be really interesting this spring. And after seeing Nick Anderson turn into a relief ace last season, I’m really hoping we at least get a glimpse of what Jake Reed can do in the big league level before shipping him off to another team. I mean, imagine if we never made the Pressly and Anderson trades...

This is like reading the Martin Perez thread from ~1 year ago all over again. Nooo! Eeew! There is no downside to this signing. Not even $7 million like last time.

I've got my money on Jack Reinheimer to make the club. Because, well...The Sire Of Fort Myers!

IMO Chacin is the most likely to make it. There will be room on the 40 man for a starting pitcher and we are short on arms to start the year. Unless he looks horrible or the Twins find someone better I think he takes that last spot. Outside chance to make it for me would be Thielbar and Hardy. They are both Lefty arms with bounce back potential. Personally I think they only make it to the 40 man if there are injuries but they have a shot if they pitch well this spring. Everyone else seems like a long shot to me.

I would trade Berrios straight up for either Clevinger or Syndergaard.

Great signing, bring in a vet to add to the competition. Like others have said, I actually have faith in this FO/Baldelli that the rightful starter will win the competition.

I still like Nick Gordon. If he hadn't gotten hurt, he would have already made his debut for the Twins and I think his hit tool plays at the MLB level. He may not be able to stick at SS and have to move to 2B, which will limit him with this organization unless Arraez gets hurt or has a massive sophomore slump (I expect some regression, especially on the slugging, but Arraez can flat out hit the baseball) but that doesn't mean he's not still a valuable player. I think he's going to hit like crazy at Rochester to start the season and teams are going to try and pry him loose from the Twins. I've always liked Rortvedt, even though I know Jeffers has passed him on the prospect rankings. But he's a nice catcher and makes me feel a lot better about our position depth. I still think there's a real chance we see him in MLB before Jeffers, though I acknowledge Jeffers has a superior hit tool that makes him a better overall prospect. Keep in mind, Rortvedt is a year younger, though, and reportedly a better receiver back there.

well, their best two hitting prospects both swing from the left side, so if this actually emerges as an issue there may be some in-house options to adjust the formula. I'm not too concerned about it, because while Cruz & Donaldson do have a noticeable splits, they still hit righties very well. Garver & Sano have smaller splits and again, both still hit righties well. This isn't like Kepler having a career OPS of .680 against lefties and needing to protect people.

Remember this year relievers have to face 3 batters or until the end of the inning. So you cannot run into a bullpen in a big situation (like bases loaded and 0 outs) where the oppenent could play matchups with a superior pen. Twins have a nice problem to have.

I despise him simply for his home run trot. Put your dumb arm down and run like a normal human being. I get there is some personal reason he does it, something about honoring his dad or something? It still looks dumb.

If the biggest issue we have is that our batters are worse against righties than lefties, and that the "worse" is still coming in at a 800+ ops I'll take it everyday of the week and twice on Sunday

Agree that roster is well balanced and mentioned that in my piece. When your four best batters are right handed and you're relying on all-world offense with no real pitching additions made, things like a platoon split changing your offense from elite to very good could make the difference.

Too late. I've already mailed the absolutely nothing. I admit that I don't know your address so I had to guess. When you consider all the possible addresses in the world... The odds of you getting absolutely nothing is astronomical.

Lewis? There aren't any Lewis's in the Honorable Mentions. Royce Lewis didn't have surgery. Lewis Thorpe has been back from surgery 2-3 years.

He is not going to take any of these lower deals. No way. I would go for this, right now: 2020 = 7 2021 = 16 2022 = 16 2023 = 16 2024 = 14 (option), 5 (buyout) 5 years/60 guaranteed

We got Donaldson, but let's hope the Whities don't bring back Joey Bats!!

Um,....yes. It's baseball, you should worry about everyone not named the Royals or Tigers.

I would go a little higher then Seth's estimate maybe Arb1 = 4.3 million Arb 2 = 9 million Arb 3 = 13 million FA 1 = 17.5 million So a 4 year 45 - 46 million with 5th year option of 17 million with 4 - 5 million buyout. It's a little on the high side but the numbers are where they need to be for an extension.

Throwing numbers out doesn't make much sense without throwing some context to it... 2020 - Arb 1 - $4M 2021 - Arb 2 - $8M 2022 - Arb 3 - $10M 2023 - FA1 - $15M So, I think those are realistic numbers if he stays about the same as he's been, which is an All Star. So that's 4 years, $37 million. Obviously there is a hope that he would keep getting better, and if so, he could earn a little more than that going year-to-year and becoming a free agent after 2022. The Twins take the risk of this deal. So the Twins should be in that range. Then the question is when Berrios wants to be a free agent. If he signed the above 4-year deal, he'd be a free agent at 30. Would he want to be a free agent pitcher later than that? A 5th year option would probably need to be in that $18-20 million range with a $3-5 million buyout. So now we're looking at 4 years, $40 million with an option... in this case, if the option is picked up, it would be 5 years, $55 million. Once they reach an agreement on that, they can get creative and front-end load it or whatever.

If he were declared a free agent right now? You are light on the number of years and on the average per season. The high bidder would offer something in Gerrit Cole territory, considering that Jose is younger and has been healthy. $300M for total contract value, surely. The lower numbers we are discussing here are because of the lack of negotiating leverage he currently has. It's hard to express just how much impact the CBA has on player prices. / edit - ninja'd by the above post!

Chris Camp from Mayo Clinic (along with a number of others) put together an outstanding review of baseball injuries (MLB and MiLB) from 2011-2016 here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0363546518765158 (full text only available with subscription- sorry) Gastrocnemius strain was the 19th most common injury, resulting in a mean of 11.6 days missed (median 4 days). There were 419 recorded injuries during this time. None required surgery. Only 1.4% (6) were repeat injuries. From this data, I think it’s reasonable to suggest that the likelihood of repeat injury is low. FWIW, hamstring injury was the most common injury during this time frame (3,337 injuries) with a re-injury rate of 2.6%. No one can predict the future, obviously. But I believe this injury is likely to be among those with the lowest recurrence likelihood. I was not aware of the ‘rupture’ report as noted above by another post- though a gastroc strain and a gastroc rupture are similar entities (with rupture obviously being a more severe variation). I don’t know of any data specifically regarding reinjury risk for gastroc ‘rupture’. Let’s hope none of it becomes important, and JD anchors the middle of the lineup for like 150 games. Here's a link to the page for gastroc strains that I put in my gallery: http://twinsdaily.com/gallery/image/2694-gastroc-strains/

5 years for 75 mill would be worth it .. That's probably what he would get paid if he was a free agent this year. But the only reason I would pay it is because our starting pitching staff is our achilles heel right now.

There is NO RISK associated with this move. If he doesn't revert to form in spring training he's gone. This is like throwing as many starting pitchers up against to wall to see what sticks ..

I see this as a really solid move. While my preference is that Thorpe, Dobnak, Smeltzer hold down the last two slots in the rotation to start the season the simple fact is that pitchers get hurt. This gives them some insurance, as well as giving Wes an opportunity to show us what he can do.

It's super low-risk, so I think it's fine. I have more confidence in this administration (including Baldelli, not just Falvey/Levine) that guys won't get jobs on scholarship and a promising rookie won't get buried for a veteran simply because they're a veteran. If Chacin shows that he has something left and makes a bounceback from an awful 2019, he could make the rotation at least until Pineda returns. Maybe he provides some insurance if Pineda needs more time to get ready (what if he picks up a small injury when ramping up at the end of his suspension?). Or maybe he bring nothing to the table and gets cut. This is a no-risk insurance policy as long as he's treated that way and not as someone who gets a pass over performance. Again, I don't think this administration will choose veterans over young guys simply because they're veterans. If that was the case, Blake Parker would have stuck in the bullpen last year, instead of getting kicked to the curb. (and it's not like Parker was awful...he just wasn't a plus pitcher and they had better options. This is a guy who started out great in Mar/Apr, mediocre in May, bad in June, mediocre in July, and then the Twins decided they were moving on) They could have said, "Hey, we're paying this guy like $2M, let's keep trying to get our money's worth" but they didn't. They could have said, "hey, he's a veteran, he'll bounce back, let's give him more time" and they didn't. That sort of response makes me feel better about this sort of lottery-ticket veteran signing.

One thing I have really wondered about in regard to the modern day athlete, baseball and Donaldson included, in regard to muscle injuries, is the use of yoga and/or Pilates. While weight training and aerobics are important for general strength and conditioning, I have often wondered if athletic training still remains behind the times in regard to these activities to focus on core strength and flexibility.

This article gets ahead of itself quite a bit, IMO... Chacin won't even see the 40-man until/unless a fairly significant string of events unfolds. Barring a spring-training disaster, one or two of the young arms already on the 40-man will get the opportunities to start the season. If they fail as a group, and/or there are other injuries...and Chacin is good at Rochester....then maybe. It's just insurance...supplementary insurance even...the kind you buy when you already have insurance, but don't love it.

I have no opinion except that, years ago, when Chacin was first in the majors, a friend of mine named his fantasy team "When Jhoulys Expect It." For this reason alone, I'm in favor of this signing.

At least one of the next four seasons will be mostly lost to injury or injuries. That’s part of signing a long term contract with an older player who missed much of a recent season.

Two comments: One: using the total OPS+ instead of ranking each position improves the accuracy of this analysis, and I think including stadium and cheating factors would move this total this even more in the Twins' favor. Two: I will henceforth refer to the Houston MLB team using this name.

Factor in balance and speed, I'd put the Twins about 12.

Total OPS+ for these lineups: Twins: 1174 Yankees: 1012 Asterisks: 1169 Case closed. No Twin under 100.

Considering it’s been proven the Astros have cheated, and the Yankees have been implicated, I’ll take the Twins lineup once things get cleaned up. Yes, the cheating made a difference. If you don’t think so, I don’t know what to tell. Would Altuve stink without cheating? Of course not. But, claiming he would still be as good is just a terrible take. Of course they were wearing buzzers (if you believe Altuve’s “shy” narrative about the his jersey, may the Lord help you out in the real world). The Astros have to be considered a sham until they can show otherwise. Also, it’s really hard for me take the Yankees seriously when they play in that joke of a ballpark. Put Aaron Judge in Target Field and he probably has 10 fewer home runs (a lot of his HRs would get eaten up by that scoreboard in right center). Gleyber Torres is a total fraud and cheater like Altuve, and I’m positive that it’ll come out at some point. Stanton, Judge, and LeMaheiu are legitimate hitters, but that ball park helps them and nobody else in that lineup scares me a whole lot when they’re not cheating. Level the playing field and the Twins have the best lineup in baseball. I’d stack Garver, Cruz, Donaldson, and Sano against anyone in the planet. What’s also lost on some is that the Twins still have room to grow. Buxton could break out offensively. Rosario could go back to his 2017 form. Miguel Sano could rake for the entire season, instead of half. Garver could get more PAs. These other lineups, I feel, have sort of “peaked.” I think the Twins lineup has plenty of room to improve.

Could just imagine if Sanó heard a trash can banging and laying off breaking balls low and away and forcing only fastballs to be thrown to him what the comparison would have been between him and Bregman (prior to moving to first this year)...

... wait for it... ... "yes."

New Ulm says they already have Terry Steinbach Strasse, danke.

Bringer of Rain? Let it Sanó!!

I like Rosie on this team. He provides other benefits besides his numbers. No question his defense is not elite, but saying that Kiriloff is better defensively or faster is flat out not true. Kiriloff is slow and not good in left, which is why he played a lot of first base last season. Trevor Larnach's swing actually reminds me a lot of Rosie, but Larnach is more selective at the plate and takes walks. Larnach is also average to above average in right field. Cave and Rosario have very similar trade value to another team because Cave is younger, cheaper and has more years of control, plus he can play center in a pinch. If a team is asking about Rosario, I would ask them if they want Cave instead. Pick one.

"Jake Cave" and "capable placeholder" are words that should not ever be placed in the same sentence, unless the words "is not and will never be a" are placed between them.

I could see Johnson falling a bit, it's an incredibly stacked WR class this year, both in quality and depth. A bit of unlucky timing for him.