Who Are the Best Free Agent Starting Pitchers?

Not excited about this list - it is long, but nobody belongs in your A category.  I like your approach, but you convinced me that no one who is left is above a C.  

Pretty much agree 100% with you, Tom. Not surprising as I've pretty much been saying the same things for two months.

Tanaka probably has only 1-5 teams he would sign with and the Yankees a clear #1 choice.

Healthy and coming off solid years, I'm interested in both Richardson and Walker. Each offers up a bit of healthy "upside", especially Walker.

I think it's about 50/50-60/40 the Twins sign a FA or trade for a SP. But it has to be Paxton or Odorizzi if they go the FA route. They have the $ to afford either and both are clearly the best options available. Good news is each of them are really solid pitchers. Honestly, how can anyone feel bad about either of those guys competing for the 3/4 spot with Pineda?

I strongly believe the Twins will also be signing someone from your D and F list for around $3M-ish for depth and to compete for the 5th spot. Just not sure I can offer up a best option list. But there's going to be a lot of guys who want to play and will be looking for work in the next few weeks. Might even be some milb signings with ST invites who could surprise.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the "cheap" option was added first, much like Bailey last season.

I'm bored to tears right now waiting for things to happen, but I'm still kind of excited about the options available.

I had just posted that I thought the Twins should sign BOTH Paxton and Odorizzi to 2-year deals.

If they only signed ONE, I'd want Paxton (we need a Lefty in the rotation).

If I was going to take a flyer on a guy who could come back to former promise I think I'd go for Mike Foltynewicz.  He's still relatively young and he he could probably be had on a 2-way contract.  What does Wes Johnson think of him?  That would be my take.  If Johnson sees something he could fix Folty could pay big dividends at a low cost. 

Anyone else notice they are all 1 or 2 year deals?  I wonder how many of the remaining FA are hoping for more than a 1 to 2 year deal.  I bet many of the remaining guys have 1 year offers out there.  

I have been saying all off season, there will be very few long term deals.  Most will be 1 or 2 year deals.  This is because of COVID this coming season, still we do not know how much attendance will be there.  The other is the CBA is coming up and I expect a work stoppage, with possible major changes to CBA.  This could greatly affect what a bad contract could mean to a team.  With all the unknown it is hard to agree to long term deal. 

Looking at recent stats, I  agree w/ you pretty much, Tom. By stats I'd probably rate Richards lower & Archer higher but both have a much higher ceiling than what the stats show.  I agree that if 2020 was a normal year, Richards would've had time to stretch out & find his rhythm but that didn't happen. Also if he hadn't wasted time by    trying to work thru his injury & got the TJ surgery, , he wouldn't be labeled as injury prone. Archer had a lot of hype at TB, but still needed a lot development. TB didn't want to  wait for him to develop when they could dump him at his high demand. At PIT they have a good eye for pitchers but don't have the ability to develop them (I'm sad that the FO hasn't taken advantage of this flaw by scooping up their available pitchers). In fact they made Archer to go to his inferior pitches & did nothing for his development. Archer has a few tweaks that need to be done but is well worth the effort by Wes. His prognosis is very good just a matter of time for him get to 100%, get stretched out & work out what needs to be tweaked

I doubt that the FO will find a reasonable high/mid-rotation pitcher  on the FA so I hope they trade for one. But my 1st choice Musgrove has been taken. 

Richards & Archer are both low risk & high reward projects.