The Minnesota Twins will be looking at a few free agents this offseason from their roster. Who will they bring back?
While the Minnesota Twins traded away a couple of their prime free agents after the season when they moved Jaime Garcia and Brandon Kintzler at the trade deadline, they do still have some decisions to make.
The one option consideration that the Twins will have is an emotional one for sure. Long-time Twin, former Gopher, Stillwater native, Perkins has a long history in the Minnesota area, so just cutting ties is tough to consider.
After having a pretty intense surgical procedure on his shoulder in 2016, Perkins fought back to make it back to the majors this season. His results were not at all what he would have liked, however, as he posted a 9.53 ERA and 2.29 WHIP and 5/2 BB/K over 5 2/3 IP over 8 appearances.
Previous to 2016, Perkins had one of the best runs of a closer in team history, making three straight All Star games from 2013-2015, and collecting 102 saves in those three seasons.
Perkins had a very emotional send-off in the game September 30th against the Tigers, collecting the last out for the Twins and asking for the ball on his way off the field. That would seem to indicate that Glen knows he’s at the end of the road as far as his career goes. The Twins will most likely buy out his option for 2018 at a cost of $700K, but don’t be surprised if he ends up resurfacing in the organization.
In the summer of 2016, the Twins had a look ahead as Terry Ryan left the General Manager’s chair. One of the ways they did that was to rid themselves of the longer obligation of Ricky Nolasco, whose option would have turned into a player option with 400 innings pitched combined in 2016 and 2017 combined. (Nolasco finished just ~20 innings short after a rough performance year in 2017 caused him to get pulled early.)
Coming back to the Twins was the certainty of salary freedom in 2018 in Hector Santiago, along with the presence of a lefty in the rotation. The 29 year-old struggled in his time with the Twins in 2016, posting a 5.58 ERA, but there was hope that Santiago could be a positive piece of the 2017 rotation after a very strong showing in the World Baseball Classic this spring.
Santiago did come out firing, and after his first four starts of the year, he’d thrown 24 2/3 innings with a 2.19 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, and keeping his walks under control with a 4/17 BB/K ratio as a quality mid-rotation piece in the rotation. However, the control wavered, though he was able to still find success. After his start on May 9th, Santiago had made 7 starts on the season, throwing 42 1/3 innings, with a 2.76 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, and a 16/31 BB/K ratio.
From there, the control collapsed, and it seemed Santiago was grooving pitches to attempt to compensate. He had allowed 3 home runs in his first 7 starts, and he allowed 3 in his next start against the Indians on May 14th, and he only had one appearance the rest of the season without a home run allowed the rest of the season, finishing with 15 home runs allowed.
Santiago came in to throw the 15th inning of the Twins’ 15-inning marathon with the Tampa Bay Rays on May 28th two days after going 5 1/3 innings and 101 pitches against the Rays. He then got beat up for 3 home runs against the Astros in his next start and from that point only was able to make three more starts, spending the rest of the season on the disabled list, with what was originally tabbed as back pain. It’s since come out that Santiago could be dealing with the new plague of pitchers, Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.
Santiago will become a free agent this offseason, and the Twins will be letting him walk in almost near-certainty.
“Big Sexy” had entered the season needing just a repeat of his last few seasons with the New York Mets in order to become the winningest pitcher of Dominican descent. Needing 11 wins to pass Juan Marichal entering the season, Colon did not quite make the mark, and he will now be in limbo as far as whether he’ll be able to reach that mark by finding a team in 2018 to give him the requisite starts to make the final 4 victories he still needs.
Colon wasn’t originally even a thought for the Minnesota Twins in 2017, but when Hector Santiago struggled starting in mid-May and injury struck down other members of the rotation, the Twins were willing to take a flyer on Colon when he cleared waivers after going 2-8 with an 8.14 ERA over 63 innings with the Atlanta Braves.
Signed to a minor league deal, Colon was able to be a positive influence in Rochester on a number of the Twins young pitchers and players before showing he was ready for a major league call. His first start was a fill-in against the powerful Yankee lineup, and he kept the ball in the yard, going 4 innings, allowing 4 runs on 8 hits, but not walking anyone and striking out 3 Yankee hitters. That earned him more starts, and after his first 5 starts with the Twins, Colon had throwin 31 1/3 innings with a 4.02 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, and a 3/16 BB/K ratio. Not numbers that would blow you away, but giving a team struggling to get consistent performances out of the bullpen at the time a break by going deep into games each time out.
However, it was not going to continue that way through the entire season. After a solid start on September 5th against the Rays, Colon went through a 4 start stretch where he only was able to throw 12 innings, allowing 18 runs. He did finish the season with an impressive performance against the Tigers in the season finale, with a very nice send off that ended with Colon embracing former Cleveland Indians teammate Omar Vizquel, now the first base coach with the Tigers.
Colon will not be back with the Twins, but he has indicated that he would like to return for one more season at 44 years old, most likely focusing on the Dominican wins record.
When the Minnesota Twins traded away closer (and impending free agent) Brandon Kintzler, many were worried that the Twins would not have any reliever that would be able to provide that level of experience or production at closer.
Instead, moving Kintzler may have been the best thing for forcing better bullpen management upon manager Paul Molitor. He began spreading out the important innings to a host of different relievers in the bullpen, but though 5 pitchers recorded saves after Kintzler left, Belisle was the man most frequently with the ball in the 9th.
Coming into August when he took the role, Belisle had a 4.64 ERA and had seemingly been an ineffective reliever on the season. However, if you look deeper into his season, Belisle had made 44 appearances by the end of July for the Twins, and in 36 of them, he allowed no earned runs at all, and in 4 more, he allowed just one run. So his big ERA was really the result of 4 of his 44 appearances on the season.
From August to the end of the season, he had just one more game allowing more than a single run, and that was when he allowed 2 runs against Detroit on August 12th. So in 62 games on the season, he allowed more than one earned run just 5 times, but he posted a 4.03 ERA on the season, really a lot more solid season than the raw ERA number would show.
Belisle is not a heavy strikeout guy, but he uses a hard sinker to generate weak contact out of the bullpen. He’s going to be 38 mid-way through 2018, and he’s not an elite velocity reliever, but if the price was right, I could see the Twins possibly bringing Belisle back as a familiar veteran with the young arms that will likely comprise most of the 2018 Minnesota Twins bullpen. He made $2.05M this season, and if he was available for under $4M, that’d likely be a quality number to bring him back.
Gee was a late developer, reaching the majors at 24 years old with the Mets in 2010, in spite of being a pick out of college in 2007. Gee then went about providing a very solid back end starter to the Mets over the next four seasons before being “pushed” out of the role by the influx of young power arms into the Mets rotation.
Going elsewhere for Gee has not been a great experience, pitching for one season with the Royals in 2016 to a 4.68 ERA and 1.46 WHIP over 125 innings as a swing man, making 33 appearances, 14 of them starts, with a 37/89 BB/K ratio.
Gee is not a guy with an overpowering fastball, but in a swing man role, he’s a quality pitcher that can offer multiple innings in the bullpen. The Twins got just that out of Gee after they signed him once he was released by the Texas Rangers in June. The Twins signed him four days later, and after some time in Rochester, Gee came up to the Twins in early August.
As the Twins surged toward the playoffs, Gee was a vital piece of the pitching staff, making 14 appearances, starting 3 of them, picking up a save and winning 3 games. He threw 36 1/3 innings with a 3.22 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, and a 9/31 BB/K ratio.
Gee will be an interesting case. As a free agent, he’ll be making likely little money, as he was non-tendered rather than pay him in arbitration last season in his last season of arbitration. It’d be likely that he’ll draw a salary of at least $2-3M, but how much more than that his market will go will determine the Twins’ interest in bringing him back, most likely.
