Tom Froemming

We all have our favorites on this year’s starting pitching market, the guys we most want to see in a Minnesota Twins uniform, but who is the most likely pitcher they’ll actually target and sign. That’s almost impossible to predict at this point, it’s not even technically the offseason yet, but let’s give it a shot anyway. Before we get into the name I landed on, let’s go over the main criteria I considered and go over some of the stats. I felt Michael Pineda would be too obvious of an answer to this question, so I excluded him from consideration (though I do use him as a comp later on in this article). Experience This typically goes hand-in-hand with free agents, though there are some guys on the market who haven’t turned 30 yet. The Twins should be looking to improve the rotation via trades, but I believe they’ll also prioritize adding an experienced arm. Bailey Ober and Joe Ryan emerged as encouraging pieces to the rotation last season, but they could use someone to set an example and take some of the pressure off of them. Distinction Speaking of Ober and Ryan, it would be nice to add a pitcher whose game plan is unique to what those two do so well. Both Twins rookies showed a penchant for working up in the zone with their four-seam fastballs. While that’s an effective plan of attack for many MLB hurlers, and there’s probably room for at least one more like them in this rotation, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Twins target a different look. A pitcher who primarily attacks the bottom of the zone with sinkers and gets more ground balls could be a nice change of pace, but swinging strikes and strikeouts should still be a priority. Health The Twins are going to need innings, but it’s not like there are a bunch of workhorses out there on the market. Some of the guys who did shoulder a significant workload this season are getting up there in age, which makes you wonder if they’re even good bets to eat innings. Given the uncertainty in the rotation, the Twins need to get somebody they know is entering the offseason healthy. That actually slims things down a decent amount. There are some intriguing pitchers who were out all last season (including Justin Verlander and James Paxton) or who ended 2021 on the Injured List (including Dylan Bundy and Danny Duffy). There’s likely to be a good investment to be made among those recovering pitchers but I don’t think the Twins will want to count on a rehab going as planned. Performance This might seem like an obvious one, but the Twins are going to want to add at least one starting pitcher who pitched well in 2021. I still think it’d be a good idea for them to also try to uncover someone who underperformed and hope to get them on track — just look at how well that worked with Robbie Ray and Carlos Rodón last year — but there should be at least one addition who isn’t viewed as a project. This also narrows things down quite a bit. The tricky part here is I don’t expect the Twins to be shopping at the top of the market. Beyond Max Scherzer, Kevin Gausman, Marcus Stroman, Ray and Rodón there aren’t a ton of free agents who pitched really well in 2021. Player X Before I reveal the name of the pitcher I landed on, let’s take a look at his numbers when compared to some names that will be familiar to Twins fans and some other free agents. This particular pitcher had a 2021 season that was much better than he’d pitched in recent years, so I felt it was more representative to use numbers from the past two seasons. Name IP ERA FIP SIERA K% BB% SwStr% GB% HR/FB Kenta Maeda 173 3.90 3.67 3.59 27.5% 6.0% 14.9% 42.1% 15.7% Jose Berrios 255 3.64 3.62 3.83 25.9% 6.7% 10.3% 42.2% 12.7% Marcus Stroman 179 3.02 3.49 3.95 21.6% 6.0% 11.6% 50.8% 12.8% Player X 145.2 3.95 3.62 4.12 22.0% 8.2% 10.7% 53.8% 13.4% Zack Greinke 238 4.12 4.18 4.30 19.3% 4.6% 9.6% 43.5% 15.2% Michael Pineda 136 3.57 3.82 4.35 19.9% 4.9% 11.3% 39.5% 10.6% Anthony DeSclafani 201.1 3.84 4.03 4.36 21.2% 7.0% 10.8% 43.2% 12.3% Stats courtesy of FanGraphs. Here’s a link to some more information on SIERA if you’re unfamiliar with that stat. So over the past two seasons, Player X has ... A FIP equal to that of José Berríos with an even better swinging strike rate. A strikeout rate better than Marcus Stroman and Anthony DeSclafani. Better numbers than Zack Greinke in all of these categories except innings and walk rate. The best ground-ball rate of this bunch. Again, keep in mind this particular player had a much more impressive 2021 performance than 2020. One last thing I want to display before the big reveal is how Player X’s Baseball Savant sliders compare to José Berríos. OK, ready? ... Player X is Alex Cobb. Going back to the original criteria I mentioned, Cobb is a 34-year-old veteran with nine years of service time, primarily works with a sinker and split-change down in the zone, had a couple of IL stints last year but finished the season healthy and is coming off a great 2021 in which he ranked in the top-12 among all pitchers in FIP, GB% and Barrel% (minimum 90 innings). His 9.5 K/9 and 24.9 K% were both career highs. I’d prefer a pitcher who has a more encouraging overall track record of health, but again, it’s not like there are a lot of workhorses out there these days. It’s kinda slim pickings on the starting pitching market. Jon Gray has been an early favorite of mine, but I’m starting to feel like there’s a very good chance he returns to the Colorado Rockies one way or another. They’ve had concrete extension talks with him and are considering making him a qualifying offer. Cobb just completed the final season of a four-year, $57 million deal in which he signed with the Baltimore Orioles but finished with the Los Angeles Angels. It’s going to be very difficult to predict how the market unfolds this offseason, but Cobb will definitely fall somewhere in a price range the Twins find palatable. This name would not have inspired me much, but after taking some of these numbers into consideration, I do actually think this would be a solid signing for the Twins. Cobb seemed to be revitalized in part due to the reunion with Joe Maddon, whom he was successful under in Tampa Bay. That organization is where Rocco Baldelli was groomed, of course, so perhaps Minnesota would also be an attractive destination for Cobb. So that’s the starting pitcher I’m guessing is most likely to be targeted by the Twins. What do you think about Cobb and who are some other targets you envision for the Twins this winter? View full article

Thing is Atlanta didn't blow up the future at all. Here are the guys they gave up. For Rosario: Pablo Sandoval, who was immediately released by Cleveland. For Soler: Kasey Kalich, a reliever in High-A. Not among the top-30 Royals prospects per MLB Pipeline. For Duval: Alex Jackson, a 25-year-old catcher who has hit .132/.243/.225 (.488 OPS) in 61 MLB games. For Pederson: Bryce Ball, a High-A first baseman who hit .206/.351/.387 (.738 OPS) this year. He is not listed among the Cubs' top-30 prospects on MLB Pipeline, though he was No. 19 on Atlanta's 2020 list. Atlanta really didn't do any damage to its future by making those trades. They mainly provided salary relief to the teams they dealt with.

The Atlanta Braves were buyers even though they had a 51-54 record and were five games back at the trade deadline. They entered Sunday one win away from becoming World Series champions. Hopefully, the Minnesota Twins front office is paying attention. What’s striking about Atlanta’s July makeover is they didn’t even go big. Their front office made several key improvements to the outfield, but taking on salary meant they didn’t have to give up much to make those upgrades. It’s pretty incredible what can be done if a team’s willing to invest. Not even go for broke, simply try. We don’t have to look back far to find a Twins team that’s comparable to this year’s Atlanta club. Back in 2017, the first year of Derek Falvey & Co.’s tenure, the Twins had one of the strangest deadlines in recent memory. They decided to go for it, then changed their minds. The Twins traded for Jaime Garcia on July 24, when they were 49-49, three games back in the division. They traded Garcia away on July 30, when they were 50-53, seven games back in the division. All-Star closer Brandon Kintzler was also dealt away on the 31st, leaving Matt Belisle to close out games. The 2017 club responded to that slight sell-off by going 20-10 in August. Back then, there was still an opportunity to make trades during August via waivers. There were some valuable pieces moved that month, but none of them to the Twins. Entering play on Aug. 31, 2017, the Twins still trailed Cleveland by seven games but were only a game back of the Yankees for the top wild card spot. Is it crazy to think a couple of improvements and a show of good faith by the front office may have resulted in the Twins catching the Yankees and having home-field advantage in that Wild Card Game? Maybe that wouldn’t have mattered and the Yankees were going to overcome the Twins no matter where the game was played, but I can’t help but wonder ... It’s hard for me to ignore the fact that Ervin Santana, who started that Wild Card Game, posted a 4.16 career ERA at Target Field and a 6.50 ERA at Yankee Stadium. José Berríos, who also ended up pitching in that 2017 Wild Card Game, has an even more extreme split, with a 3.61 ERA in Minnesota and a 6.43 mark at Yankee Stadium. At the very least, having that game played in Minnesota certainly couldn’t have hurt. The 2017 Twins were the first team in MLB history to make the postseason a year after losing 100 games, so it would be unfair to look back at that season as a failure. A missed opportunity? I think that’s fair. Even if the Twins had beaten the Yankees, they still would have had to overcome Cleveland and Houston, both of whom won more than 100 games that year. Seems far-fetched, but it’s also about as unlikely as this 2021 Atlanta team beating the 95-win Milwaukee Brewers and 106-win Los Angeles Dodgers. Highly unlikely, but not impossible. This 2021 Atlanta team shows that every front office in the league should be obligated to improve their club if they’re near .500 and have any shot of a postseason berth. A lot can happen over the final two months of the regular season. The New York Mets taking a nosedive definitely helped Atlanta’s ascension, but they definitely don’t get as far as they have without Eddie Rosario, Adam Duvall, Jorge Soler and Joc Pederson. Nobody saw this coming, postseason baseball is unpredictable and a hot team can punch above its weight on paper in a series. Give your team a chance and you never know what might happen. With 20/20 hindsight, the other issue with the 2017 decisions by the Twins front office is they hurt the club in both the short and long run. Huascar Ynoa was traded away and none of the prospects added in the second Garcia swap (Zack Littell and Dietrich Enns) or the Kintzler deal (Tyler Watson) made a big long-term impact with the Twins. It’s all water under the bridge at this point, of course, but here’s hoping this Twins front office learned its lessons and is paying attention to what Atlanta has accomplished this October. View full article

Here are the 10 longest home runs hit by the Minnesota Twins in 2021. Players featured include Byron Buxton, Nelson Cruz, Brent Rooker, Trevor Larnach and Miguel Sanó. View full video

The Minnesota Twins front office will be tasked with building up a club that can climb out of the basement and hope to contend once again in 2022. Here's a look at how I could see them approaching the winter if there's a $10 million reduction in payroll. View full video

Minnesota Twins top prospects at the end of 2021/entering the 2022 season. There is a new name atop this list for me, as Royce Lewis has been knocked out of my top spot for the first time since he was drafted. Who bumped him? Trade deadline acquisition Austin Martin? Breakout minor league star Jose Miranda? Check out the list and let me know who your favorite prospects are. View full video

The Minnesota Twins have a number of players eligible for arbitration this offseason, here's a rundown of my thoughts on each of them. Players include Byron Buxton, Taylor Rogers, Tyler Duffey, John Gant, Mitch Garver, Caleb Thielbar, Rob Refsnyder, Jake Cave, Danny Coulombe, Willians Astudillo, Juan Minaya and Luis Arraez. Who are the non-tender candidates? View full video

The Giants and Red Sox are two of the most successful franchises in baseball over the past 20 years but fell on hard times the previous couple of years. They’re back atop the league again, and they’re proving these three things are unnecessary ... Before we get into those three items, here’s a video that takes a bit of a deeper look at where the Giants and Red Sox were the past couple years and how they re-emerged after quiet offseasons. You Don’t Need A Rebuild All that recent success makes it easy to forget neither the Giants or Red Sox made the postseason the past two years (four years for the Giants). That’s especially noteworthy since 16 teams qualified for the playoffs in last year’s shortened season. With aging rosters and former stars on bloated contracts, both orgs were in the type of position where rebuilding had to have been considered. Yes, Boston traded away Mookie Betts prior to last season, but they never turned it into a full-on tear down, throw in the towel type situation. Meanwhile, several of the league’s bottom teams repeat their place in the standings year after year. Some organizations like the Houston Astros have made rebuilds work in the not-so-distant past, but they are looking more like the exception than the rule. Re-tooling can work. You Don’t Need A Flashy Offseason The Twins spent more on free agents this past offseason than both the Giants and Red Sox. The Twins shelled out $41.75 million while the Giants spent $41.35 million and the Red Sox were at $38.95 million. On the flip side, those teams actually acquired a greater number of players (10 signed for the Giants and eight for Boston), choosing to spread the wealth more than the Twins (six players). Meanwhile, the top two spending teams last winter (the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies) and three of the top-five spenders (adding the New York Mets) all missed the playoffs. And if there’s any team that “won” the 2020-21 offseason it was the San Diego Padres. That’s where their winning streak ended. The offseason most definitely matters — the 2021 Twins are as much proof of that as any team — but big splashes and flashy signings (or lack thereof) still don’t guarantee anything. You Don’t Need A Lavish Bullpen There are some expensive, big-name bullpens among this year’s playoff participants but Boston and San Francisco are not among them. The Red Sox have a couple of highly-paid members of their bullpen, but Garrett Richards isn’t there by design (he was signed as a starter) and Adam Ottavino was acquired as a salary dump. It’s not as if either of those guys is exactly a difference-maker, either. In fact, the Red Sox bullpen leader in WAR was Garrett Whitlock, their Rule 5 pick. They had eight different pitchers record saves in the second half alone, including former Twins great Hansel Robles. The Giants have done even more with a great deal less invested. They signed Jake McGee to a modest two-year, $7 million deal, just $2 million of which was paid this season. Oh, and he was their highest-paid reliever. McGee ended up as one of only nine pitchers to save 30 games this season. San Francisco had a handful of underpaid studs in their pen including Tyler Rogers, Jarlin Garcia, Jose Alvarez, Zack Littell (ouch) and Dominic Leone. When McGee went down, however, it was rookie Camilo Doval who stepped up and was the National League reliever of the month for September. He had a 4.99 ERA and a 7.0 BB/9 in 28 games at Triple-A this season! Sometimes a reliever just happens. That’s exactly the kind of thing the Twins need next year. The Giants ranked sixth in bullpen WAR (per FanGraphs) and the Red Sox were ninth, a spot ahead of the Mets, who ended the year with four of the top-20 paid relievers in baseball (Jeurys Familia, Brad Hand, Trevor May and Edwin Diaz). The Mets also only won four more games than the Twins this year. The Twins have a long way to go from 89 losses back to contention, but they don’t need to tear it down, have an extravagant offseason or spend big on risky bullpen arms to do so. The Giants and Red Sox are proof of that. View full article

The Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants are two of the five teams still alive in the MLB postseason. They were both also outspent by the Minnesota Twins in free agency this past offseason. Here's a look back on the journey the Red Sox and Giants made back to the top of the baseball world despite not having flashy offseasons. Could the Twins replicate that success in 2022? View full video

Not sure how this suggests velocity *only* makes pitchers good or great. I don't think it should be controversial to say you don't want to rank near the absolute bottom in velo, or really any kind of pitching metric, right? Also, simply "the Twins need better pitchers" would have made for a pretty short and boring article, don'tchathink?

I'd think you'd have a difficult time finding any MLB pitching statistics that have r values in excess of .7, but I've never tried to figure that out. I was thinking maybe K-BB%, but K-BB% to fWAR was .524 over that three-year stretch (though it was also -.525 to ERA, much better than those velo numbers).

I mentioned that toward the end of the article, but here are the numbers 2019-21 sorted by 95+ mph %. Of course there are some exceptions, but generally it's a lot of green at the top and a lot of red at the bottom. Team 95+% vFA (pi) ERA FIP xFIP WAR CHW 24.9 94.8 4.22 4.13 4.17 41.2 NYM 22.7 94.9 4.24 4.32 4.33 46.7 CIN 19.3 94.3 4.08 4.22 4.15 46.1 NYY 19 93.9 3.18 3.66 3.84 61.1 COL 18.9 94.3 5.27 4.90 4.66 22.7 BOS 18.4 93.5 3.99 4.05 4.04 45.2 TBR 18.3 94.1 3.66 3.76 3.93 50.3 SDP 18 94.4 4.24 4.23 4.11 45.9 LAD 18 93.4 4.43 4.54 4.68 23.1 HOU 15.2 94.1 4.29 4.15 4.15 36 ATL 15 94.2 4.66 4.28 4.30 35.5 PHI 14.9 93.1 3.96 4.19 4.51 41.6 STL 14 93.7 4.11 4.27 4.32 32.5 KCR 14 93.3 4.91 4.79 4.72 21.9 TEX 13.8 93.8 3.81 4.09 4.03 47.4 MIL 13 93.7 4.57 4.51 4.24 32.5 CLE 12.7 93.6 3.91 4.33 4.51 30.6 PIT 12.3 93.6 4.83 4.62 4.71 24.4 WSN 12.2 93.3 4.40 4.54 4.51 27.7 MIA 11.6 93.4 4.63 4.58 4.48 31 TOR 10.5 93.6 4.96 4.81 4.74 21.3 DET 10.4 93.5 5.07 4.77 4.70 16.3 SFG 9.6 92.7 5.57 5.24 5.00 21.3 OAK 9.5 93.5 3.94 4.13 4.19 42.3 LAA 9.4 92.7 4.71 4.67 4.73 23.1 CHC 9.1 93.2 3.94 4.11 4.32 33.9 SEA 9 92.7 4.41 4.50 4.31 28.7 BAL 8.2 93.1 4.93 4.63 4.55 28.1 MIN 7.1 92.5 4.36 4.25 4.33 41.6 ARI 6.3 92.5 4.71 4.69 4.67 18.7

That's true, but the Twins also had one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball last year. Doesn't seem like a great model to continue to strive for.

I would say the most-used pitch type matters, yes. Was that at Brooks? Baseball Savant had the Rays at 55.3% fastballs and the Twins at 53.1%.

Derek Falvey and Thad Levine took over a Minnesota Twins team that averaged 92.5 mph on four-seam fastballs. In their fifth year at the helm of the organization, the pitching staff averaged … 92.2 mph on four-seam fastballs. What gives? Before we dig into some of the numbers, here’s a quick video on a handful of harder-throwing starting pitchers who could be value targets for the Twins this offseason: Here is a team-by-team breakdown sorted by average four-seam fastball velocity. It’s color coded, so green is good and red is bad. The information below was gathered from FanGraphs. Team vFA ERA FIP xFIP WAR CHW 95.5 3.73 3.74 3.85 27.1 NYY 94.9 3.76 3.90 4.00 22.3 BOS 94.8 4.27 3.95 4.07 19.2 NYM 94.5 3.90 4.04 3.99 16.4 COL 94.5 4.83 4.47 4.38 13.4 SDP 94.4 4.10 4.18 4.08 12.8 CIN 94.3 4.41 4.34 4.18 16.2 ATL 94.3 3.89 4.08 4.09 15.9 LAD 94.1 3.03 3.54 3.75 26.9 TBR 94.1 3.67 3.79 3.97 18.7 PHI 94.1 4.39 4.15 4.02 17.9 DET 94.1 4.32 4.60 4.65 10.2 KCR 94.0 4.65 4.39 4.52 12.5 CLE 93.9 4.34 4.43 4.27 10.2 MIA 93.8 3.96 4.01 4.21 15.1 SFG 93.7 3.25 3.55 3.87 21.9 TEX 93.6 4.80 4.76 4.57 4.5 TOR 93.5 3.91 4.18 4.06 14.6 STL 93.4 4.00 4.30 4.66 12.1 PIT 93.4 5.08 4.74 4.70 5.0 WSN 93.3 4.82 4.87 4.53 6.5 MIL 93.2 3.50 3.72 3.75 23.5 HOU 93.2 3.78 4.12 4.12 16.9 OAK 93.2 4.02 4.10 4.35 15.1 SEA 93.2 4.30 4.26 4.47 14.3 CHC 93.0 4.88 4.88 4.43 4.9 LAA 92.9 4.68 4.25 4.26 15.4 BAL 92.9 5.85 5.15 4.91 7.9 MIN 92.2 4.83 4.66 4.44 8.2 ARI 92.2 5.15 4.88 4.85 4.0 As you can see, there’s a fairly strong correlation between teams that throw harder and success. Not only are the Twins near the bottom, there’s also a significant gap between them and the Orioles. That 0.7 mph gap is the same as what separates the fourth-place team from the 15th. Let’s switch things up a bit and look at pitches in excess of 95.0 mph instead of average fastball velocity. The information below was gathered from Baseball Savant. The color-coded column is percent of pitches thrown at least 95.0 mph. CWS 27.9 6626 23713 NYY 21.5 5112 23761 BOS 20.8 5033 24193 MIL 20.7 4966 23967 NYM 21.4 4799 22405 PHI 20.0 4745 23739 MIA 20.5 4704 22990 COL 20.0 4603 22960 DET 18.1 4339 23914 CIN 17.6 4316 24548 ATL 18.5 4294 23228 LAD 18.3 4187 22927 TB 17.4 4027 23169 KC 16.5 4017 24307 TOR 16.6 3911 23549 SD 14.0 3386 24196 OAK 14.4 3325 23102 STL 14.1 3299 23419 WSH 13.2 3125 23732 SEA 13.0 3111 23859 CLE 13.0 3057 23459 BAL 10.6 2598 24474 SF 10.4 2386 22859 HOU 9.9 2368 23917 CHC 9.4 2238 23877 PIT 9.3 2225 24045 TEX 8.3 1967 23586 LAA 7.6 1847 24415 MIN 6.4 1516 23714 ARI 5.0 1188 23827 Being 29th is bad enough, but even if the Twins were to double the number of pitches that were 95+ mph they’d still only rank 22nd. The Kansas City Royals threw 2,501 more pitches 95+ mph than the Twins — or 15 more per game played — and they barely rank in the top half of the league themselves. Do the Twins have an aversion to high-velocity pitchers? That seems like a crazy question to ask, but let’s take a look at some former Twins prospects who were shipped out in trades. 2021 % of Pitches 95.0+ mph 66.0 Brusdar Graterol 44.2 Luis Gil 38.4 Huascar Ynoa 15.1 MLB Average 6.4 Minnesota Twins Graterol (Kenta Maeda trade), Gil (Jake Cave trade) and Ynoa (Jaime Garcia trade) all have well above average velo, all were traded away. They also just lost Edwar Colina and his triple-digit heat to waivers. Are the Twins actively avoiding high-octane pitchers? At the very least it sure doesn't feel like they’re making them a priority. This seems like a great time to revisit the Twins carpool commercial from 2007 featuring Johan Santana and Joe Nathan. That’s how you win Cy Youngs, baby! While this ia a velocity-obsessed article, pitching in the big leagues is obviously about more than just throwing hard. It sure does seem to help, though. While the lack of velo is nothing new for the Twins, to be fair, it didn’t prevent them from having successful pitching staffs the previous couple years. Here’s a look at some the numbers throughout the Falvey-era: Minnesota Twins Four-Seam Fastball Velo 2021: 29th, 92.2 mph (26th in ERA) 2020: 30th, 92.0 mph (4th in ERA) 2019: 24th, 93.0 mph (9th in ERA) 2018: 21st, 92.7 mph (22nd in ERA) 2017: 30th, 92.4 mph (19th in ERA) Still, any pitcher who tells you he wouldn’t like to throw harder is either a liar or in denial. View full article