3 Twins players we’ll be glad are gone in 2024 and 2 we wish stayed
Dallas Keuchel
It's been nearly a decade since Keuchel's incredible Cy Young-winning 2019 campaign, when he threw 232 innings with three complete games and two shutouts. He kept being great-to-brilliant until 2021, his second year with the White Sox, when everything took a downturn that led to a nosedive. In 2022, he only pitched 32 innings before being DFA'ed, so Chicago had to eat the $18.5 million they still owed him. He quickly signed a minor league deal with the Diamondbacks, threw 18 2/3 innings in the majors, then was DFA'ed. He then signed a minor-league deal with the Rangers, threw 10 innings, then was DFA'ed again.
He went unsigned in 2023 until June, when the Twins picked him up on a minor-league deal and he was brought up to the majors after Joe Ryan went down with injury. He pitched 37 2/3 innings and displayed a flash of that old brilliance in a 6 1/3 inning perfect outing against the Pirates, but he quickly went back to his old, not-so-brilliant ways in seven more appearances.
Keuchel became a free agent again at the end of 2023 and remains unsigned, as of this writing. He's 36 but has yet to announce retirement; if he does come back to baseball, it'll likely be another minor league deal that will hopefully send him far away from the Twins.
Emilio Pagán
Pagán came over to the Twins in 2022, in a trade with Chris Paddack that sent Taylor Rogers and Brent Rooker to San Diego, and he ended up pitching 63 innings in that first year for a 4.43 ERA. He looked better on paper in 2023, when he pitched 69 1/3 innings for a 2.99 ERA, but by June he was already leading the league in relief appearances that lowered a team's win probability by at least 50%, leading to renewed calls for a swift DFA.
However, he finished out the year with the Twins and left in free agency at the end of the year, signing with the Reds on a one-year, $8 million deal with a player option for 2025. The Twins made up for the loss by trading for a few more arms, including Steven Okert and Justin Topa. Cincinnati went on an early offseason signing blitz of available pitchers, but the Twins shouldn't be disappointed that he was gone so quickly.