From the moment the offseason officially started five days after the end of the World Series, the most predictable headline of the winter was “Nelson Cruz Signs One-Year Deal With the Twins.” It took three months, but last night it finally happened, with ESPN’s Jeff Passan reporting the signing and MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand adding that the deal will net Cruz $13 million.

Cruz, who turns 41 in July, is an ageless wonder, even though that number gives teams looking at eight-figure investments significant pause. Two years ago, he was a free agent after an exceptional run with the Mariners during which he put up a 147 wRC+ and averaged 41 home runs a season. He lobbied hard for a two-year deal, but most teams countered with one-year offers. It was understandable: Cruz has been defying the aging curve for years and has no value beyond the bat, so if Father Time suddenly catches up to him, he becomes a candidate for a quick release. Back in 2019, he was pushing 39 and coming off a declining season in terms of your standard triple-slash line, but the underlying metrics looked good, as his strikeout rate was actually declining, and his exit velocities were in line. Still, most models would not be especially kind to Cruz or any player entering his age-39 season. These are not the years when players start to slip a little; they’re the ones when players fall off the cliff.

Here at FanGraphs, Cruz ranked as one of the top 20 free agents on the market that winter, and I was shocked, surprised and frankly quite impressed to see that ZiPS still saw the good in the player, projecting a minor bounce-back 2019 campaign at .266/.348/.500. The Twins took the plunge by meeting Cruz halfway on his multi-year demand, paying him $14 million for the 2019 campaign with a $12 million option for the following year.

They were rewarded amply. Instead of falling of the cliff, Cruz instead rocketed higher, putting up a career-high OPS of 1.031 and making his 2020 option a no-brainer. The cliff avoided him again that season, and the production was similar.

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Casey Mize plans to be a different pitcher in 2021. Not just in terms of results — the rookie right-hander had a 6.99 ERA and a 6.47 FIP in seven starts with the Detroit Tigers last year — but also with how he employs his arsenal. Not surprisingly, data will be playing a role. Mize has a history with pitch design that dates back to his days at Auburn, and those efforts have only increased in pro ball.

I asked the first-overall pick in the 2018 draft what technology has taught him about his pitches, and how it’s shaping his efforts to improve.

“It’s pretty much a horizontal profile,” Mize responded. “We’re starting to take the four-seamer up a little bit to add a little more vertical, because it played so well last year. My splitter is super vertical, and we’re trying to really maximize that, because my slider has more of a horizontal break.”

Mize acknowledged that his two-seamer profiles as horizontal as well, getting more arm-side run than depth. It’s a pitch he’s favored, but that’s one of the changes currently in the works. The 23-year-old hurler not only plans to elevate more four-seamers, he intends to up its overall usage. His two-seamer will be used primarily “to mask the splitter,” a pitch he likes to have diving below the zone. Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody Signs an Infielder Tuesday concluded with the Twins reaching agreement with Andrelton Simmons on a one-year contract worth $10.5 million. Originally a Brave until a 2015 trade for Erick Aybar and prospects sent him to the West Coast, Simmons hit .297/.346/.356 over 30 games for the Angels in 2020. Unless something incredibly bizarre happens, he will become Minnesota’s starting shortstop, prevent a bunch of runs, and assist the Twins in their quest to win their first playoff game in forever.

Let’s start with the least fun part of this article: the grumpy caveat. Back in May of 2019, Simmons injured his left ankle trying to beat out a grounder and, after a misstep, was unable to put weight on it. It landed him on the injured list for a month, and he missed another month later in the season with an injury to the other side of the same ankle. In the first week of 2020, he did it again, spraining his ankle in a July game against the Athletics, costing him nearly half of the abbreviated 2020 season. Leg and foot injuries are no laughing matter for a middle infielder: There have been plenty of aging second basemen and shortstops who had their careers dramatically waylaid by such injuries. Jose Offerman is the first example that comes to mind; when his legs started being an issue, he went from a .391 OBP second baseman to out of baseball in a blink of an eye.

Simmons hasn’t been fully healthy in two years, and a player with his skill set is more reliant on having healthy feet and legs than a plodding slugger at first base or DH. But $10.5 million is practically peanuts, and the Angels are getting even more of a discount than the associated risk entails. Over 2017 and ’18, he hit .285/.333/.419 to go with his typical sterling defense, enough to combine for over 10 WAR. The Twins may not get that player, but they’re also not paying for that player; if you pay 2018 Andrelton Simmons on merit, $10.5 million would be long gone before you even get to the All-Star break.

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Mitch Keller has only thrown 69-and-a-third big-league innings, and he’s already had a remarkable career. The baseball gods are a big reason why. In his 2019 rookie season, the now-24-year-old Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander had a 7.13 ERA to go with a 3.19 FIP, and this past season he had a 2.91 ERA to go with a 6.75 FIP.

Hello, BABIP.

In an almost-inexplicable quirk of fate, Keller followed up a .475 BABIP — the highest one-season mark in MLB history — with a .104 BABIP in 2020. No pitcher who threw 20-or-more innings in last year’s pandemic-truncated campaign had a smaller percentage of balls put in play against him fall safely to the turf. This happened with an average exit velocity of 88.5 mph, which was higher than the 87.6 he’d allowed in 2019.

Ben Lindbergh wrote about Keller’s snake-bit season for The Ringer last spring, and the conversation they had prior to publication is what brought the data to the fore.

“I remember getting off that phone call and looking it up myself,” said Keller. “I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness. That’s crazy.’ I knew that I had a high BABIP, but I had no idea it was the highest in history. Once he told me, it wasn’t like I was coming back to the dugout thinking, ‘Man, I think I’m having some bad luck.’ It was actually on paper, as a stat. It was, ‘No, seriously. I was having bad luck.” Read the rest of this entry »

Between Jose Quintana, J.A. Happ, and Joe Biden, quite a few old lefties have found new homes lately. The news on Happ came relatively late yesterday, so if you missed the details, he’s now a Twin after agreeing to a one-year deal worth $8 million, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan and MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.

The departures of Rich Hill and Jake Odorizzi left a hole in the back of Minnesota’s rotation. Happ’s a perfectly capable fill-in, though the move does raise questions about whether the Twins are done enhancing their rotation, and whether the team is good enough to retain the AL Central crown as currently constructed.

In nine starts for the Yankees last season, Happ notched a 3.47 ERA and a 4.57 FIP. That second figure was a significant improvement over his 2019 production, as home runs were a major bugaboo for him back when we last had fans: Yankee Stadium’s cozy confines and a drag-free baseball led to a 1.90 HR/9 ratio and a FIP well over five. While his homer rate dropped a tad below 1.50 per nine in 2020, it was the .220 average batters hit on balls in play that buffed up his ERA.

In a way this marks a return to form. More than a decade ago, Happ first made his name in Philadelphia as a starter who significantly outpitched his peripherals; the gap between his ERA and FIP in Philly was so wide that when the Astros acquired him in a trade for Roy Oswalt, all we had to say about him was “while he has some value as a league minimum guy for the next couple of years, he can be replaced.”

It wasn’t exactly a straight line between then and now, but Happ again looks like a durable innings eater who can provide something approximating league average production out of the rotation. He’s 38 now, but hasn’t shown too many signs of aging. His velocity has dipped a tick over the last two years, though he’s within half a mile per hour of the gas he had in his Blue Jays days. He’s barely missed a start over the last three years and just posted the highest swing-and-miss rate of his career. Steamer, ZiPS, and intuition all have him pegged as the fourthiest No. 4 starter who ever slotted into the fourth spot of a rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Minnesota Twins. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been altered begin by telling you so. For the others, the blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside the org than within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there. Lastly, in effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both in lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

Editor’s Note: Danny De Andrade was added to this list after he agreed to a deal with the Twins on January 15.
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With the White Sox signing Liam Hendriks, the top option for teams looking to upgrade their bullpen is now off the market. Perhaps that will open up the floodgates for the other free-agent relievers, as nearly every would-be playoff squad is in the market for relief help. But whether it’s financially motivated or a matter of roster construction philosophy, there are a few contending teams who simply won’t be making a splashy addition to their bullpen. The Twins fall into that category.

In 2020, Minnesota’s bullpen was the unheralded strength of a division-winning team. The Twins’ relief corps was fifth in the majors by park- and league-adjusted FIP and ERA, and their relievers posted the majors’ third-best strikeout-to-walk ratio. But two of their best relievers from last year — Trevor May and Matt Wisler — have left via free agency. With their starting lineup and rotation mostly carrying over from last year, replacing them both should be a high priority.

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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

LaTroy Hawkins was just about as well-traveled as they come. The 6-foot-5, 220-pound righty spent 21 years in the majors, pitching for 11 different teams (not counting a return engagement in Colorado) in 44 different ballparks. Generally a setup man (though he did spend time closing), he never made an All-Star team, but he did pitch in the postseason five times with four different franchises, including a World Series with the Rockies. He stuck around long enough to become the 16th pitcher to appear in 1,000 games, and today ranks 10th all-time:

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for nine years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Minnesota Twins.

Batters

I’m surprised that the Twins haven’t come to an agreement with Nelson Cruz, who seems almost immune to the ravages of time. The Twinkies dropped from second in the AL in runs scored to 10th, but that’s not Cruz’s fault: He hit .303/.397/.595 as the DH despite turning 40 in July. Is there a better fit for him than the Twin Cities? He’s well-liked in town(s), and this is arguably the franchise that needs his services most. That confluence of events tends to result in mutually beneficial contracts.

Without Cruz, Minnesota projects as a slight underdog to the White Sox, based on current rosters. Bringing him back and letting Alex Kirilloff get the bulk of playing time in left flips that standing to slight favorites. With few players signed, there are a lot of directions to go, but 40-year-olds don’t typically command enough resources that adding Cruz would preclude other moves. There is downside — Steamer and ZiPS massively disagree on his 2021 dropoff — but if he were a guarantee, he ought to get a one-year-deal at $25 million.

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Taijuan Walker is coming off a strong 2020 season that followed a pair of lost seasons. The 28-year-old free agent fashioned a 2.70 ERA in 11 starts — five with the Seattle Mariners and six with the Toronto Blue Jays — after tossing just 14 innings in 2018-2019. We’ll hear from Walker on his return from Tommy John surgery and shoulder woes, as well as his pitch-design efforts, in the near future. Today we’ll touch on some of his career highlights. Earlier this week I asked the 2010 first-rounder for a ranking of his top performances to date.

“Numbers-wise it wasn’t my best, but I pitched a must-win game in Toronto,” recalled Walker, who was with the Mariners at the time. “This was [September 24, 2014] and while we didn’t end up winning, I feel like my fastball was the best it’s ever been. My breaking ball and my changeup probably were as well. We ended up losing 1-0, but stuff-wise I felt it was my best game.”

Out-dueled by Mark Buehrle in a contest that flew by in a crisp 1:59, Walker went eight innings and allowed four hits, one walk, and the game’s lone run. Six Blue Jays went down by way of the K.

Walker went on to cite his “two best games numbers-wise,” each of which was an 11-strikeout effort in a Mariners win. On July 31, 2015, he allowed just one hit — a solo home run by Minnesota’s Miguel Sanó — and a single free pass. On September 13, 2016, he threw a three-hit, no-walk, shutout against the Angels. Read the rest of this entry »