Who could the Minnesota Twins target for a HUGE move?

Chris Archer

It is possible that not a single player has had more trade rumor discussion about him in the last 3 years than Chris Archer has. Already on his third organization, Archer was originally a 5th round draft pick out of high school by the Cleveland Indians. He was traded in a deal for Mark DeRosa to the Cubs, who then flipped him 3 years latter in a big deal that netted the Cubs Matt Garza.

Typically one of the first things discussed about Archer is his contract. Archer is signed for two more guaranteed seasons with two more options after that, and if a team would pick up both options, he’d earn a little over $34M, which is a pretty solid price for a mid-rotation starter. Heck, in the free agent market, that’s what you’d pay for a back end starter.

However, the Twins aren’t looking for a back end starter or even a mid-rotation starter as they have those kinds of guys in house. They need a guy who can be elite and match up against another team’s ace in the postseason. Many believe that Archer is that type of guy.

It is easy to see why. Archer has struck out 29%, 27.4%, and 29.2% of hitters the last 3 seasons while having a walk rate in the 7% range all three seasons. He’s posted ERAs of 3.23, 4.02, and 4.07 the last three seasons, with a FIP of 2.90, 3.81, and 3.40, so many belive that he’s simply better than what his raw stats show.

However, this is simply not true. In listening to a number of podcasts recently, I honestly do not recall the one that mentioned it, but the comparison between Archer and Javier Vazquez is incredibly apt. Both were pitchers whose underlying numbers always indicated that their numbers should be better.

One of the things I think that you would notice if you took a look at Archer’s profile of batted ball. He doesn’t have any specific out of line numbers in ground balls, fly balls, or line drives, or even fly ball rate. However, what you see is that of all types of hits, Archer allows only 16.6% career soft contact. He has seen that number go down from his rookie year (the only season he was above 20% weak contact) down to 13.2% in 2017. He has seen his medium-strength hit rate stay fairly stable between 47-50%, but his hard hit rate has gone up every season since 2013 to 39.4% of balls hit in 2017. In total, he has allowed over 80% medium or hard hit balls in his career. For comparison, even other hard throwers don’t have similar rates. As a good comparison, Luis Severino has a similar pitch mix (with a higher velocity fastball, but still…), and his career rates are 21.2% soft contact and 50.6% medium strength. He had his breakout season this year due to his highest rate of medium strength contact, reducing his hard hit rate.

The other thing of Archer that is significantly concerning with Archer and his possibility of long-term success is his pitch selection rates. He’s not only seen his pitches go from a quality four-seam and two-seam mix of fastballs to almost exclusively four-seam fastballs (nearly none thrown in the last three seasons after throwing as much as 41% in seasons prior to that), but he’s also seen the amount he throws his slider go up drastically, from 26.9% in his rookie year to 44.4% in 2017. He’s also throwing that slider much harder, from an average of 83.8 in 2012 to 88.9 on average in 2017. Throwing harder sliders more frequently is not a good indication of future arm health.

Many have discussed how badly they want to get Archer, but for the price in prospects that he would cost and the worry that his performance and injury risk would not make him a valuable performer at all.

Yu Darvish

There are two primary free agents that would be very intriguing as frontline starters. The one of interest would be Darvish. Darvish came to the U.S. in 2012, and he’s been one of the most dominant pitchers in the league ever since, posting a strikeout rate in his major league career of just under 30% (29.7), which is typically a rate you only find among relievers.

Darvish missed chunks of 2015 and 2016 due to Tommy John surgery. He has seen his velocity return completely, and then some, and the big challenge for Darvish has been finding the feel on his pitches again, and that has come progressively through this season, and the performance he’s had in the playoffs is a good evidence of that. So far, he’s made 2 starts, throwing 11 1/3 innings, allowing 2 runs on 2 solo home runs with a 1/14 combined BB/K ratio in the playoffs.

Darvish is likely earning himself some significant money this postseason, and at just 30, he could definitely be high in demand over the offseason. It would not be surprising if he’s a $25M-30M per season pitch, and likely getting 4 years or more, so he’s almost certain to get $100M+. While I do think of the free agents available, he’s the one guy who would be “worth” that money, that’s still incredible money to sink into any pitcher.

Jake Arrieta

After Arrieta’s 2015 season, many thought that when this offseason came, he’d be lined up to be paid in the class of the absolute elite starters in the game.

While his 2016 and 2017 seasons have been quality seasons, worthy of a rotation spot on any team in baseball, they were certainly not at the level of an elite starter. He’s actually taken some significant steps back in performance from his 2014 partial season and 2015 full season. He had a 27% strikeout rate and a walk rate that was 6.7% in 2014 and 5.5% in 2015. The last two seasons have seen Arrieta post two seasons in the 23% strikeout range with a 9.6% walk rate in 2016 and 7.8% walk rate in 2017. He’s seen his BABIP against come up from .246 in 2015 to .279 in 2017.

While Arrieta still pitched at a level in 2017 that would be a quality starter for any rotation, at a mid-rotation starter level (think Ervin Santana). He will likely demand much more than that level of compensation to sign him this offseason, so it’d be wise for the Twins to just stay away.

Johnny Cueto

Often, a big contract signing will immediately show overpayment, or in some cases, the direction of the organization changes. In Cueto’s case, he’s more the latter than the former. He was signed before the 2016 season to a huge contract that still has $92M guaranteed over the nest 4 seasons and an option to make it worth as much as $109M over 5 years.

The Giants are looking to likely do some significant overhaul on their team this offseason. Most likely, ace lefty Madison Bumgarner won’t be available, and Jeff Samardzija is not going to be worth the contract he’s got (nor is he really the “big acquisition” we’re looking for in this post). That makes Cueto the most intriguing option for the Twins, even if it means that they have to eat most of the contract.

Even with his season being a bit more rough in the raw numbers with a 4.52 ERA in 2017, the underlying numbers did show a higher walk rate, but he also saw a BABIP roughly 40 points higher than his career average. The only other notable difference was a surprising added tick of velocity to his curve, but since he only throws the pitch roughly 2.5% of the time, that should not affect him going forward.

Cueto’s rough 2017 and big contract should allow for a lesser trade package than his quality stuff should require in the trade market, though the Twins would likely lessen the prospect cost of the deal by eating more of the finances. The Giants may actually prefer to take on cash to increase the prospect load they get back to help their organization’s rebuild. Cueto does have an opt-out after this season, so the team would want to ensure Cueto is certainly not opting out in the offseason. If he does, he could be a target in the previous slide at the right price.

David Price

After a half-decade as one of the elite starters in the entire league, the Boston Red Sox signed David Price to a huge contract. before the 2016 season. Price was coming off a season where he led the American League in ERA and finished second in the Cy Young award, and he was one of the big free agent prizes of that offseason.

After a rough start to 2016, Price finished the year leading the league in innings pitched. From July 1 on in the season, Price was very solid, though his won-loss was actually worse, as he posted a 3.33 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, and a 25/108 BB/K ratio over 18 starts. That had many expecting him to get back to his previously dominant self in 2017.

Instead, Price fought through injuries all season, ending the season in the bullpen for the Red Sox in the playoff as there was not time for him to return in the season to get stretched out after the time he had missed from injury.

That rough start to his huge contract could lead to a possible lighter trade price, but one consideration should be the fact that Price does have an opt-out after 2018. He very well could end up not staying around past 2018, which would have to be considered.

The other issue is that the Red Sox are not likely headed into a rebuild, and they’ll want to get one guy (at least) who is MLB ready as part of the deal, meaning the target could be top pitchers like Fernando Romero or Stephen Gonsalves, who are on the step of the majors and two of the top 5 prospects in the Twins organization.

Gerrit Cole

These pitchers are all under 30, have multiple seasons of control left, and are all guys that would be immediately pitchers at the front of the rotation for the Twins. The downside is that to acquire a pitcher like this group, you would have to trade a BIG package of players away to acquire the player.

Cole turned 27 in September and already has 5 major league seasons under his belt. He struggled through injury in 2016 and was a victim of a huge spike in home runs allowed in 2017 that skewed his ERA, but Cole has been a guy who has walked just 6.3% of hitters he’s faced and struck out 22.7% of batters faced, so he’s at roughly 3.5 strikeouts for every walk, and he gets plenty of strikeouts.

Cole has struggled with some injury stuff in two of his four full seasons in the majors, which is something to consider. He’s also under two more seasons of arbitration before he’s free agency eligible after the 2019 season, so this could be a trade for just two seasons of control as well. Still, Cole has elite talent and the Pirates could be in the process of retooling right now.

Julio Teheran

The crazy thing to consider is that when Denard Span was traded away, the Twins approached the Braves about Teheran and were rebuffed as Teheran was likely to be in the major league rotation that season. He’s not 27 until late January, and he’s got over 1,000 major league innings. If the Twins would have attempted to get Teheran last offseason, he would have been incredibly more expensive than coming off his 2017 season when he struggled, especially coming out of the gate.

While many want to call Teheran more of a mid-rotation starter, he is very much like Brad Radke or James Shields were as “ace” starters for their organizations. He’ll eat up innings, taking the ball every 5 days, and he’s going to keep his team in the game. Getting a guy like Teheran to pair with Berrios at the top of the rotation would be an excellent 1-2 punch.

Teheran has also been signed to a reasonable long-term deal by the Braves which has 2 years and $20M guaranteed left on it, but could go to 3 years and $31M with a 2020 option when Teheran will still just be 29. That would be a high quality pitcher for that level of contract.

Marcus Stroman

Like many of these pitchers, Stroman has plenty of value to his own team, and it would take a very impressive deal to pry him away from his team, with the Blue Jays likely requiring more persuasion than others to make that move.

Stroman may not be a huge guy (or even an average guy in height) at a listed 5’8″ (he’s not quite that tall in reality, but we’ll let him have it), but he’s a big game pitcher for sure. He missed most of 2015, but that was due to a knee issue, not arm issues, and he’s thrown 200 innings the last two seasons with quality performance. At 27 in May, he’s still got three more seasons of arbitration, not eligible for free agency until after 2020, which leaves plenty of control for a team to acquire, but it also means that he will likely require a huge trade package to move him.

Noah Syndergaard

Would there be a more excellent fit than “Thor” in the land of the Swedes and Norwegians? The flame throwing righty missed time in 2017 with some questionable circumstances that still haven’t seemed to be cleared up between he and the team. Syndergaard was also a big fan of pitching coach Dan Warthen, so the team letting him go cannot be good for that team/player relationship.

Syndergaard is one of the hardest throwers in the entire game, with a 97-98 MPH AVERAGE fastball! His numbers in 2015 and 2016 speak for themselves with elite strikeouts while keeping his walk rate reasonable. Over roughly 2 full seasons worth of big league time, he’s posted a career 2.89 ERA and 1.10 WHIP, which is tremendous for a guy with his velocity.

Syndergaard qualifies as a super-2 this offseason, so he is eligible for arbitration, but he will then have arbitration for 4 total seasons, not becoming a free agent until after the 2021 season. He would cost a fortune, but if there’s even a chance to make the acquisition, you have to make a serious effort.

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Danny Duffy

The final two players are both in division pitchers, which could cost the Twins more than an average team to acquire them, but they are both talented enough that it is worth the extra cost in trade to acquire either.

Duffy will turn 29 in December, and he has 7 seasons in the majors, but because he spent a lot of that time working between the bullpen and rotation to establish himself, he has thrown just ~770 innings in the majors, so his arm is not that taxed. He did have a clean up procedure in his elbow this offseason, but that was to remove scar tissue and typical surgery scar tissue breakup in the elbow after having Tommy John previously.

Duffy has really turned into one of the toughest lefties to face on a nightly basis in the last few years. His ERA hasn’t been tremendous, but putting up tremendous strikeout rates, keeping walk rates reasonable, and doing it all from the left side makes him incredibly valuable.

Duffy is signed to a very reasonable contract that has 4 seasons and $60 million left before it runs out after the 2021 season. The reasonable cost and division foe could mean a bigger cost, but should certainly be considered.

Next: Twins top 100 prospects complete list

Michael Fulmer

No doubt that the Detroit Tigers are rebuilding. Their July and August was a seeming rotating door of long-time veteran players going out the door. One guy they held onto was Fulmer, and now if they intend to consider offers on Fulmer this offseason, that may end up being a mistake.

Fulmer won the rookie of the year award in the AL in 2016, and he was having a tremendous season in 2017 until his elbow began barking. He ended up shutting things down ahead of September, and in early September, he had nerve reassignment surgery this offseason, moving the nerve in his elbow, requiring a 3-4 month recovery.

That could mean that the price on Fulmer is lower, or it just could mean that the market won’t be as heavy on Fulmer as it was in the summer, but with the Tigers being in division, and Fulmer being their possible biggest chip as far as acquiring prospects, it may not be any cheaper this offseason than in season, but if the Twins were confident in the medicals, it’d make sense to make the call.