Minnesota Twins: 3 proposed trades to upgrade the rotation

In case you hadn’t heard, the Minnesota Twins are in need of starting pitching this offseason. If they want to be a contender in 2022, they’ll probably have to add at least two solid arms to the starting rotation. How will they go about doing this?

In a previous post, we took a look at how this might be done through free agency. There are a lot of big-name starting pitchers hitting the free agent market, but filling the holes in the starting rotation via this route alone will be difficult, even if they are able to get Michael Pineda to come back. Remember bringing in Matt Shoemaker and J.A. Happ last winter? That was a disaster.

Minnesota Twins: Trades might be a better option.

As we pointed out before, most of the biggest names are likely off the table either because they will re-sign with their current team or they will command too much money. Therefore, some mid-level additions are more likely. In the post above, we suggested Anthony DeSclafani (two years, $30 million) and Steven Matz (one year, $15 million). Both are coming off nice seasons, but both pitchers had a terrible 2020.

While those are not long-term deals, it’s still a lot of money to pay what are essentially mid-rotation starters — if indeed they are able to repeat their success of 2021 (and that’s a big if). Perhaps, instead, the Twins could investigate some trade possibilities for some starters who, though they are not guarantees to pan out either, at least won’t cost as much money. Here are three possible scenarios by which that could happen.