Minnesota Twins: Should the Twins bring back Michael Pineda for 2020?
The Minnesota Twins right-hander will end the 2019 season with a 60-game suspension, but could the Twins bring him back in 2020?
If the Minnesota Twins are feeling a little burned by Michael Pineda, there aren’t many people that could blame them. The right-hander has been one of the Twins’ best pitchers in 2019 and as he was starting to get better as the season rolled along, many thought the reclamation project could come full circle by starting Game 1 of the American League Divisional Series.
But just as the Twins were penciling in Pineda’s name on their postseason lineup card, the news came down that Pineda was suspended 60 games for violating Major League Baseball’s performance-enhancing drug policy. While he didn’t take a direct PED, he used a diuretic with a masking agent, which triggered the positive test.
With the Twins hanging on to a three-game lead in the American League Central, the loss of Pineda was a brutal blow for a team looking for adequate starting pitching. With his contract expiring at the end of the season, it would be a good bet that Pineda’s time in Minnesota has come to an end.
According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Phil Miller, Pineda doesn’t see it that way. In an article regarding the roughly $2.5 million in salary and bonuses he forfeited with the suspension, Pineda said that he would like to remain a Twins saying, “I have no control over that. We’ll let time decide that.”
While the Twins were snake-bitten, there’s still a chance that the Twins opt to bring the 30-year old back for another run in Minnesota, but what are the odds they make that decision?
The case to bring Pineda back
When the Twins first signed Pineda in the winter of 2017, nobody knew what to think of the first free agent move under the Derek Falvey and Thad Levine regime. On the surface, it appeared to be a typical Twins move, looking at the bottom of the barrel and paying a small price to acquire a pitcher that was just coming off of Tommy John surgery.
With the two-year deal, Pineda was going to be a project and after sitting out for most of the 2018 season, he took the mound in 2019 and rebounded after a tough April. Since May, Pineda has been the best pitcher in the Twins rotation despite a couple of trips to the injured list throwing 117 innings with a 9-3 record and 3.46 ERA.
Those numbers were what fueled speculation that Pineda could be the Game 1 starter for the Twins and should at least start the conversation about bringing him back. Coming into 2020, the only Minnesota starter on the roster is Jose Berrios and with Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson and Martin Perez all ready to hit the market, the Twins can’t replace all of them with top dollar pitchers.
In a roundabout way, Pineda’s recent misfortune may help the Twins bring him back as other teams aware of his history may not be willing to give him the bigger deal he could have demanded on the market. Then again, that risk may be too much.
The case against bringing Pineda back
Fool me once? Shame on you. Fool me twice? Find a new team. This could be the mantra that the Twins give Pineda this offseason thanks to his recent run-in with the league office. Again, Pineda was putting up terrific numbers throughout the season and his recovery from Tommy John surgery may have been paving the way for a bid to become the American League’s comeback player of the year.
Instead, it’s another chapter in a checkered past that has seen Pineda try to escape the long arm of MLB’s laws.
In April of 2014, Pineda had one of those moments, heading to the mound at Fenway Park with a foreign substance on his neck. As a member of the New York Yankees, the Red Sox quickly questioned the substance, which Pineda wound up admitting was pine tar. A ten-game suspension followed and while it is in no way connected with his most recent suspension, it adds a layer of intrigue in the decision to bring him back.
Take into account that the Twins opted not to add a starter at the trade deadline because they believed they had the horses needed to make a deep playoff run. While Berrios and Odorizzi have struggled since the All-Star break, Pineda had thrived only to have the Twins’ faith rewarded by this most recent suspension.
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Teams have forgiven players for more egregious actions, but the act of sabotaging a playoff run for something so simple could be hard for the Twins’ brain trust to forget. Pineda will be available if the Twins want to bring him back, but there may also need to be an insurance plan thanks to his past.