Free agency is upon us, and while the baseball world waits to see where Juan Soto will sign other moves are starting to get made. Soto is the load bearing free agent that will bring the rest of the house down in terms of player movement after he signs, as teams like the Yankees and Mets are waiting on other moves to see where the dust settles with this year's big free agent fish.
The Mets have already started making moves, trading for Jose Siri and signing pitcher Frankie Montas, the latter potentially having an impact on the Minnesota Twins.
With Montas now in New York's rotation, that likely means that free agent Jose Quintana won't be back. How do the Twins factor into that, you might be asking?
Bleacher Report projected what every team's starting rotation might look like next season, including any additions that might be made. For the Twins the new name to circle is Quintana, who is no stranger to being in the AL Central.
Will the Twins actually spend some money and sign Jose Quintana?
Quintana rose to power with the Chicago White Sox before being traded to the North Side and the Cubs. Since then he's been a little all over the place in terms of his reliability, but he turned in a fine season last year after posting a 3.75 ERA and 2.5 WAR in 170.1 innings of work.
That innings workload is exactly what the Twins need, and is something they failed to make up by patch-working internal options together to try and replace Sonny Gray. Nobody is expecting Quintana to come in and be a Cy Young runner-up, but Minnesota is still looking to fill the gap left by Gray in the production department which is what a move like this might do.
Last year Quintana struck out 135 batters and had an opponent batting average of .237, which is the lowest of his career when pitching more than 100 innings. That's an instant boost to the Twins' rotation, and he fits right into the slot Chris Paddack would normally occupy.
Of course, every piece of speculation that comes from the outside seems to miss a major factor that makes a move like this unlikely. Quintana's market value is around $8.3 million, which is affordable to most teams but a pipe dream for the Twins, a franchise that is allergic to spending money.
It makes sense for Minnesota to expand the payroll a little bit to fit someone like Quintana on the books and into the rotation, but the Twins have never been accused of being serious about winning. Instead the team will likely lean on David Festa and Zebby Matthews to continue developing baptism-by-fire style, or run things back with Paddack and hope for the best.
Trading Paddack and freeing up some money could make room for Quintana both on the roster and the payroll, but that's also expecting way more from the Twins than we should. It's a move that makes sense on paper, but one that most fans will be stunned to actually see happen based on how things have gone recently.
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