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Noah Cardenas For my life, I can’t figure out why Noah Cardenas isn’t well-regarded as a prospect. Catchers who can hit are rare; catchers who can hit and field well are unique, and Cardenas might be that kind of player. Let’s start with the bat: his .302/.407/.426 line at UCLA has translated well to a .261/.421/.413 one over his first full season in professional ball, 99 games with the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels. Despite a hitting environment that favors pitchers, Cardenas rode his excellent feel for the plate to an 18.2% walk rate, good for 3rd in the Florida League; his .421 OBP placed him 4th. Fielding is more difficult to analyze—even major league stats remain shaky these days—but Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin refer to him as a “glove-driven” catcher, and the Pac-12 honored Cardenas with an honorable mention on their All-Defensive Team in 2019. He’s a touch older than your typical A-ball player—he celebrated his 23rd birthday on September 10th—but Cardenas should remain firmly on your radar over the next few years. Cody Laweryson “Fun” is seldom a word that describes a prospect, but the word fits Cody Laweryson’s bill perfectly. A 14th-round pick out of Maine in 2019, Laweryson shocked with a monstrous 15-strikeout performance to end his time in rookie ball but entered a hiatus thanks to the canceled minor league season in 2020. His 2021 season was forgettable, but he returned with a dominating 2022 campaign. Laweryson silenced bats with a 1.62 ERA, flipping between starting and relief, striking out 30.2% of hitters while walking just 7.2%. He even stepped up his game at AA, holding a 1.06 ERA over 59 ⅔ innings in a hitter-friendly environment. Laweryson’s secret sauce is deception, a crane-like delivery with slanted arms and raised elbows that would fit perfectly next to Michael Jackson in the Thriller music video. Hitters can barely see the ball as a barrage of limbs fly toward the plate, masking Laweryson’s pitches until too late. The Twins chose not to protect Laweryson in the upcoming Rule 5 draft, opening up the chance for another team to poach him. Brent Headrick In May, Matthew Lenz told us we should start noticing Brent Headrick. He was on to something. After struggling with command in 2021, Headrick shifted into high gear in 2022, punching out batters at an elite rate—31%, to be exact—while limiting walks with Joe Musgrove-esque control. Even a promotion into a hitters' lion's den—the Texas League—couldn’t slow down Headrick’s reign; his K-BB% barely budged after joining the Wind Surge. While not a velocity expert, Headrick works with a deceptive delivery, placing pitches in their proper location before punching out the batter with a high fastball or a diving breaking ball. The Twins agree that Headrick is fascinating; the team chose to protect him in the upcoming Rule 5 draft, perhaps paving a path for the Illinois State product to pitch for the major league club in 2023. Others Prospect evaluation is far from perfect, but one can often parse through the noise, instead focusing on the statistical freak shows who have become major league stars in recent seasons. Steven Kwan rode an elite contact profile to a 4.4 fWAR season; our own Luis Arraez broke out and won a silver slugger in 2022; Cristian Javier’s absurd minor league K numbers have translated to a career 30.9% K rate in the majors. These players were dinged for other drawbacks, but their outlier abilities have carried them to major league success. Here are a few guys in the Twins organization who stick out: Jaylen Nowlin Jaylen Nowlin struck out 35.9% of hitters in 2022. His command was dreadful enough to omit from this paragraph—his walk rate could scare the less courageous among us—but that punch-out rate will keep him around, maybe translating to major league playing time. Austin Schulfer The nearly 27-year-old Austin Schulfer is knocking loud enough on the Twins’ door that the neighbors are starting to get irritated. His strikeout and walk rates moved in the wrong direction in 2022, but his groundball rate jumped from average to 58.3%, good for tops in the system amongst all pitchers with 50 innings. Only seven qualified MLB relievers could claim a better penchant for grounders in 2022. Noah Miller 19-year-olds aren’t supposed to walk 16.2% of the time in their first full season in professional baseball, especially when they play in an offensively stunted environment. Noah Miller’s extra-base authority lagged, but his feel for the zone is already elite.

Since we last checked in, the Twins have made news with a number of noteworthy moves: trading third baseman Gio Urshela, acquiring shortstop Kyle Farmer, tendering reliever Emilio Pagan. Let's take a quick look at the details behind each of these decisions, and where they leave the state of the roster as the Winter Meetings fast approach on December 4th. Twins Trade Urshela to Angels Just ahead of the arbitration contract tender deadline on November 18th, the Twins shipped one of their eligible players – the most difficult decision among them – to the Angels in exchange for minor-league pitcher Alejandro Hidalgo. A 19-year-old right-hander who hasn't yet advanced past Low-A ball, Hidalgo is a modestly intriguing young arm, but the return for Urshela was expectedly small. He's a valuable player, but at his projected arbitration cost in the $9 million range, a bit less appealing – especially for a Twins team that hopes to usher Jose Miranda in as regular third baseman next year. For the Angels, Urshela is an odd fit. Like the Twins, they seem to view him as strictly a corner infielder ... but they already have Anthony Rendon and Jared Walsh entrenched at third and first, with Shohei Ohtani typically occupying DH. It is very difficult to understand LA's motivation in making this move from the current view. Hidalgo's your usual big-stuff/bad-control lotto ticket. Certainly a preferable outcome to non-tendering Urshela for nothing in return. Pagan Is Coming Back for Another Year With Urshela shipped out, the Twins tendered contracts to all of their remaining arbitration-eligible players – including, controversially, the embattled Pagan. He'll earn a projected $3.7 million in his final year of team control, coming off a season where he earned the ire of fans with numerous lapses in crucial moments. He was the poster child for a bullpen that helped derail a promising Twins season. Now we'll see if he can become the figurehead for its triumphant turnaround. Amidst all the backlash this decision understandably provoked, I tried to explore the team's reasoning, noting that Pagan saw improved results down the stretch with a pitch mix change under pitching coaches Pete Maki and Colby Suggs. It's hard to give up on stuff of that caliber, and the upside it entails. While many fans struggle to make sense of it, Pagan does seem to be viewed much more highly in baseball circles than from the outside. Dan Hayes of The Athletic reported that the reliever "drew much more interest" than Urshela ahead of the non-tender deadline. Farmer Enters the Fold Not long after parting with some veteran depth in Urshela, the Twins quickly backfilled with the addition of Farmer, acquired from the Reds in exchange for minor-league righty Casey Legumina. This deal was, in many ways, the reverse of the Urshela trade: Farmer is a valuable enough player, but wasn't that valuable to Cincinnati at his arbitration price point, so they sent him to a team that could use the depth in exchange for a pitching flier. In this case, it's much easier to see the fit for Farmer, who could fill a number of different roles depending on what the Twins do elsewhere. For now, he's slotted in as their starting shortstop, and an adequate interim fill-in for Royce Lewis if that is the front office's leaning. In addition to his defensive flexibility, one aspect of Farmer's profile that surely attracted the Twins is his excellence against left-handed pitching. This looks like an effort to offset one of the offense's key weaknesses in 2021, when they slashed .240/.310/.391 against southpaws. Twins Showing Interest in Rodon Hayes wrote in a roster projection column over the weekend that the team has "definite interest" in Carlos Rodon, which comes as no surprise. However, Hayes adds, "his contract is likely to soar to areas it might not feel comfortable paying, perhaps as high as $160 million over five years." In a column unpacking the troubling realities of buying high on free agent pitching, I examined this very conundrum: Rodon is exactly the kind of proven ace that the Twins should be looking to land this offseason. He's a dominant force coming off an excellent season, and his addition would energize the fanbase while fortifying the rotation. But, he's also entering the market at peak value, have pressed a career-high workload upon a shoulder that has endlessly tormented him. With Rodon, you're going to be paying purely for the upside we just saw, and hoping it sustains. And the price tag will be quite high, with the free-spending Dodgers already in the mix as suitors. One Current Opening on the 40-Man Roster As a sum result of all this moving and shaking, along with the additions of prospects Edouard Julien, Brent Headrick, and Matt Canterino to protect them from the Rule 5 draft, Minnesota's 40-man roster currently stands at 39: Should the Twins need to be make room for more additions, the most vulnerable 40-man spots likely belong to Mark Contreras, Cole Sands, and Trevor Megill. Roster and Payroll Projection: v2 In looking at the projected 2023 roster in its current form, you can see how the Twins are setting a floor. They've basically got all they need to field a competent ballclub next year: a rotation with five proven big-league starters, a fairly deep bullpen with back-end power, and a credible – albeit somewhat underwhelming on whole – stable of position players. The only openings are a backup catcher and utility infielder for the bench, easily filled. That is not to say going forward with this group would be acceptable in anyone's eyes. But the point is that the Twins aren't backed into any corners, needing to allocate their funds in any specific way – just how they like it. With nearly $50 million in spending room just to get back to the 2022 payroll baseline, we'll see how opportunistic this front office can be, free from any kind of restraint. If you want to read up on all of the team's many options available at positions across the board, the Offseason Handbook is now available in full to download, with 39 pages covering the Hot Stove landscape from every angle. It's free to all Caretakers! Grab a copy and build your own 2023 blueprint.

Over the past few seasons we have heard plenty about Royce Lewis, Trevor Larnach, Jose Miranda, and Alex Kirilloff. High-round picks and gaudy draft grades, each of them has developed plenty of fanfare while producing on the farm. Kirilloff was the first of the bunch to reach the big leagues, making his debut in 2020 during the postseason when Josh Donaldson left a void in Rocco Baldelli’s lineup. In the two full seasons since, Kirilloff has done, little playing just 104 games with a career .694 OPS. Is this the season that finally sees it come together? Last year Kirilloff began the season as Minnesota’s Opening Day left fielder. Miguel Sano was still on the roster and had yet to go through his handful of completely ineffective games. Kirilloff was going to figure prominently into the plans at first base, but there was no reason to limit his athleticism until absolutely necessary. We know now that Sano didn’t last long for the Twins in 2022, and Kirilloff spent almost half of his time in the big leagues last year playing first base. Like Sano however, Kirilloff saw his production tail off in dealing with a wrist injury and it was ultimately a combination of Miranda and Luis Arraez that needed to man an abandoned position. With the hope of health in the year ahead, Minnesota is counting on Kirilloff to be who he showed he was on the farm. After a nagging wrist injury sapped Kirilloff’s power in 2021 and caused him to play just 59 games for Minnesota, he underwent offseason surgery to address the problem. The slow start in 2022 eventually led to a demotion to Triple-A St. Paul in hopes of figuring out a way to play through the injury effectively. The former first round pick noted that he had to shut down his offseason program due to discomfort, and he truly never worked his way back to 100% coming into the year. That was a gut-punch knowing what Minnesota needed from him, and led to an entirely unsurprising result when he managed just 45 games in 2022. This offseason Kirilloff will again be coming back from surgery, but this time he’s had a bone in his wrist shaved down in hopes of alleviating pain and providing a more realistic path forward. In over 316 minor league games the former top prospect posted an .895 OPS. While that doesn’t directly correlate to Major League success, the hope has always been that the true production would be somewhat similar. Kirilloff was shut down earlier in 2022 and wound up having surgery in August. With more of a runway to work himself back into baseball activities, the hope would be that Minnesota returns 100% of the player that they counted on when calling him up for the 2020 postseason. Kirilloff too has to be hoping for an ability to regain the form that saw him as the darling of so many prospect lists. A year ago the Minnesota Twins experienced some of the most substantial stays on the injured list across all of baseball. With a new head athletic trainer in the fold, there has to have been some level of communication with expected producers even in the early stages of Nick Paparesta’s time with the club. Connecting with Kirilloff and making sure the plan for the offseason is going smoothly is a must. The Twins can’t get to Spring Training and have uncertainty, and it would be catastrophic to hear initial reports of a shutdown or lack of healing come the regular season for the second year in a row. Now 25-years-old, it’s not as though Kirilloff’s injury history is a death sentence, but it’s becoming increasingly necessary to see a substantial level of performance at the highest level. The Twins are counting on him in the season ahead, and you can bet he’s itching to prove he belongs as well.

When you look at data around aging curves for major-league pitchers, it matches up to what you'd expect: as a group, they are most effective between the ages of roughly 24 to 28 before inevitably experiencing decline at varying scales. This makes sense, of course. As pitchers get older, their innings mount, their bodies wear down, and the league gets wise to all of their tricks. We see the cycle play out time and time again. Sure, there are some pitchers who manage to evade the ravages of age, but they are rare and beyond prized. For every Jacob deGrom, who keeps chugging along into his mid-30s, or even every Justin Verlander, who's on top of his game at age 40, there are many examples of fleeting greatness. Sometimes the drop-off is quite sudden. Madison Bumgarner was one of the game's greats throughout his 20s as a Giant but completely unraveled at age 30 after signing with Arizona. Hyun-Jin Ryu had a brief run of pure excellence for the Dodgers but has wilted in his mid-30s in Toronto. The Twins have been thankful to avoid free agent landmines like these – pitchers who entered the market with relatively high stocks and cashed in, only to fall victim to the curve, leaving their new clubs in a tough spot with lingering implications. (The D-backs owe Bumgarner $23 million next year coming off a 4.88 ERA; the Blue Jays owe Ryu $20 million after he posted a 5.67 ERA in 27 innings.) Slam-dunk pitchers like deGrom and Verlander do pop up in free agency, but because of their rarity they have their pick of big-market titans who can outflex the field. These guys are simply out of range for the Twins, and most other teams. The more common and accessible free agents are those like Bumgarner and Ryu types: pitchers in the early stage of the aging curve's declining trendline, looking to get paid off what they did in their prime. Robbie Ray is a perfectly good example from one year ago. He was the definition of a buy-high candidate, coming off a breakout age-29 season where he won the Cy Young while leading the league in ERA and strikeouts. The Mariners bought high with a $115 million contract that was eclipsed only Max Scherzer's $130 million deal with the Mets. During his first year in Seattle, Ray was ... meh. Certainly not a disaster, but a shining example of the dangers in overpaying for assets that are likely to depreciate quickly. Ray posted a 3.71 ERA, 4.16 FIP, and 1.8 fWAR in 189 innings. He was an average-ish mid-rotation starter making $21 million, and slated to make $44 million over the next two years. What's more, Ray's player-friendly contract includes an opt-out after 2024, meaning that if his performance continues to trend this way, Seattle will owe him another $50 million for his age 33 and 34 seasons. But if he returns to form, he can re-enter the market after two more years. Seattle's already been robbed of much of this deal's upside due to Ray's mediocre first season. The fact that Ray procured such a favorable contract coming off his only great season speaks to the leverage higher-end free agent pitchers enjoy during Hot Stove negotiations. Which brings our attention to the focus of today's discussion: Carlos Rodón. The parallels between Ray's situation last year and Rodón's this year are unmissable. Both are left-handers entering the market at age 30, coming off career seasons. Both had extremely suspect track records prior to their star turns, which came during short-term deals for that reason. The uncertainties shrouding these two players weren't of the same exact ilk – Ray's more performance-based, Rodón's more health-related – but both players carried obvious and notable risk. Last offseason, Ray wasn't the best free agent starter. Not in a class that featured future Hall of Famers like Scherzer, Verlander, and Clayton Kershaw. But he was the arguably the best starter who felt realistically available to mid-market teams like Seattle or Minnesota. And this year Rodón is in a similar position, albeit with sparser competition at the top tier. (Chris Bassitt is a far cry from Kevin Gausman.) Rodón has been one of the best starting pitchers in baseball over the past two seasons, a true ace in every sense of the word. He's been mostly healthy, with the exception of a shoulder scare in late 2021. There's much to like. But the magnitude of risk in handing out a mega-deal to Rodón weighs very heavily on a team with spending constraints (self-imposed as they might be). The shoulder woes have surfaced time and again, wiping out most of his ostensible prime years. He's coming off a career-high workload and heading into his 30s. As Twins fans know all too well, shoulder injuries are pernicious. The downside with Rodón isn't that he'll follow Ray's route and revert to middling performance levels, but that he won't be able to pitch at all. Or he'll become entangled in lengthy cycles of starts, stops, and setbacks, all while accounting for about one-fifth of the payroll year after year. That's undeniably a scary specter, and knowing what we know about the Twins front office and their particular aversion to these kinds of flexibility-inhibiting scenarios, it's easy to see why they've tended to stay away. But this offseason is different. If the Twins miss out on Carlos Correa, it almost feels like they HAVE to find a way to sign Rodón in order for the winter to be considered a resounding success, and to build widespread excitement for the 2023 product. Most other big-splash type moves that are within their range would be somewhat underwhelming as marquee headliner, at a time where they just lost a premier superstar, and had unprecedented spending power as a result. This is not just a matter of optics and PR. It's hard to imagine any singular move, outside of signing one of the top four shortstops, capable of making such a massive impact on the team's quality and upside. Adding Rodón atop the rotation would transform the outlook for that unit and the pitching staff as a whole. Coming off back-to-back Cy Young-caliber seasons, Rodón would be a worthy centerpiece of the offseason from any vantage. So how much would this gamble cost? If we suppose that Rodón is open-minded and simply looking for the best deal, it becomes a straightforward bidding war – albeit one with high stakes and some imposing competition. The left-hander is reportedly receiving early interest from the Dodgers, Mets, and Rangers, among others. The Rangers are said to be one of his most serious suitors, and they exemplify the type of uphill battle Minnesota's front office faces in this pursuit. Texas spent more than half a billion in free agency last offseason alone. With such a free-wheeling mindset, made possible by operating in a top-five market, they can more easily sink big money into shaky investments – like, say, signing Corey Seager for $32 million annually through age 37 – and worry about the repercussions later. For the Twins, it's a different ballgame. The stakes are graver, the downside greater. And depending on Rodón's personal preferences, it might take a significant outbid to woo him from more attractive destinations. It's hard to know exactly where the southpaw's contract figure might land, when you factor in all the risk and all the reward. One article in The Athletic projected five years and $160 million, which is higher than I've seen elsewhere but certainly within reason. For the Twins to make it happen, they might need to get creative with a contract framework that leans strongly in the player's favor – a Scott Boras specialty. Again, you can make a good case to say "screw it, just make the deal happen, whatever it takes." But then, I come back to this front office and what we know about them. As much as they might like Rodón and the fit, it would be very uncharacteristic to outslug a bunch of heavy-hitters in an all-out auction for a peaking asset. What seems much more likely is that they'll turn to other pitchers near the top of the remaining free agent starter pool in search of real upside without the extreme "buy-high" dynamic. One name that really stands out in this group is Nathan Eovaldi. He's got the credentials, the big stage experience, the power fastball. In 2021 he finished fourth in the Cy Young voting with 5.7 fWAR, placing him at the premier class of MLB starters. In 2022 he took a step back, with production that was more or less Robbie Ray-esque. Unlike Rodón and Ray, Eovaldi is not a buy-high target. Unfortunately for him, the right-hander's date with free agency came a year too late for that. He'll still get paid handsomely but the proposition should be much less daunting for a team like the Twins. How much less realistic upside does Eovaldi bring to the table compared to Rodón and Ray, relative to the chasmic difference in cost? If you look at 2022 in isolation, far less, but results aren't that dependably consistent from year to year. To prove that, look no further than all of the dudes we're talking about here. Signing Rodón feels, in some ways, like a move the Twins need to make, should they miss out on Correa. But turning away from the feeding frenzy and focusing on an arm like Eovaldi would be much more on-brand, while still showing a touch of boldness. He would very likely be the most expensive free agent pitcher signing in franchise history, and a plausible upgrade from Sonny Gray in the #1 rotation spot. This course would also allow the Twins to save some coin and spread more of it to other needs, while still addressing the rotation in a meaningful, emphatic way.

Minnesota has multiple items on its offseason checklist, including finding a shortstop, upgrading the offense, and adding to the bullpen. It's also the time of year when teams can approach players about long-term extensions. The Twins have kept their payroll clean for multiple years into the future, and now is the time to capitalize on the organization's flexibility. 2022 Recap: Minnesota originally signed Luis Arraez back in 2013, so the 2022 season marked his ninth season in the Twins organization. As a prospect, Arraez showed signs of the type of hitter he'd become at the big-league level. In nearly 370 minor league games, he batted over .330 and got on base over 38.5% of the time. His limited power and lack of defense skills dropped him on prospect rankings, but his hit tool has followed him throughout the organization. During the 2022 season, he played in over 125 games for the first time in his career, which helped him to qualify for many of the accolades he received at the season's conclusion. His first half was tremendous as he hit .338/.411/.445 (.856) on the way to his first All-Star Game selection. There were second-half struggles as he fought through injuries. In 60 games, his batting average dropped to .289 with a .715 OPS. Clearly, he wanted to stay on the field to fight for the batting title and kept Aaron Judge from achieving the Triple Crown. Besides his All-Star Game appearance, Arraez has been honored with multiple awards since the season concluded. He became the inaugural winner of the Silver Slugger for utility players as he beat out Shohei Ohtani for the honor. At Twins Daily, Arraez beat out Carlos Correa for the team MVP honor. He was also the only Twins player to receive votes for the AL MVP as he finished 13th overall. Current Contract: Arraez was arbitration-eligible for the first time in 2022 as he accumulated enough service time to be designated a Super-Two player. He earned $2.125 million last season, and the Twins have team control over him through the 2025 season. MLB Trade Rumors projects Arraez to make $5 million through the arbitration process this season. He's starting to get expensive, and this might be the best time for the Twins to lock him up long-term. Contract Proposal: The Twins control Arraez through his age-27 season, so the front office needs to decide what value he provides the team in his late-20s and early-30s. The 25-year-old already doesn't have a defensive home while fighting multiple injuries in his career. The Twins will have younger and cheaper options with a similar skill set when Arraez is no longer under team control. That being said, his hit tool should age well, and the Twins may want him as a veteran leader in the future. Over the last two seasons, FanGraphs says Arraez provided the Twins $38 million in value. It seems unlikely for the club to offer him an extension that pays him near the value he has provided, but the team can be creative. Minnesota bought out free agent years from Max Kepler and Jorge Polanco by providing both players with guaranteed money. Both deals look like very team-friendly deals in retrospect, and it will be interesting to see if the Twins can do something similar with Arraez. Kepler and Polanco can provide a blueprint for a deal that might work for Arraez and the Twins. Polanco was guaranteed $25.75 million with options that could make it worth $47.25 million. Kepler's contract was worth $35 million with an option that takes the total value to $44 million. Would Arraez sign a contract that pays him $50-55 million for five years? This type of contract gives the Twins some cost certainty while also allowing Arraez to get life-changing money. Do the Twins want Arraez past his age-28 season? What kind of deal can keep him in Minnesota? Leave a COMMENT and start the discussion. OTHER EXTENSION CANDIDATES - Sonny Gray