Spring training hasn't even opened yet, but the Twins' starting rotation appears set.
They will probably start a former Reds righthander on Opening Day, then give the ball to an ex-Ray. Their new former Marlin figures to be on the mound after that, with another erstwhile Red behind him. And if he's healthy, their longtime Dodger should fill out the rotation.
"I feel like this is as deep a group as we've ever had," said Derek Falvey, whose opinion isn't exactly unbiased: The success or failure of these Twins starters will reflect on his skills as a barterer as much as on their ability to prevent runs.
That's because, over the past three years, Falvey, the Twins president of baseball operations, has completely overhauled the rotation, jettisoning a quintet of pitchers who started a combined 154 games for the 101-win 2019 Twins and replacing them with the proceeds of a series of aggressive swaps.
He rescued Kenta Maeda in February 2020 from a starter/reliever limbo with the Dodgers. He raided Cincinnati's rotation twice in six months last year, for Sonny Gray and Tyler Mahle. At the trade deadline in 2021, he found major league-ready Joe Ryan languishing in Tampa Bay's system. And on Friday, he made perhaps the most bold trade of his tenure, cashing in the American League batting champion, Luis Arraez, for Miami righthander Pablo Lopez and two prospects.
"We felt this was a deal that really matched a lot of things we're aspiring to do," Falvey said. "A great day for the Minnesota Twins, to add a starter of Pablo Lopez's caliber."
Whether great days are ahead will be determined on the field, not the front office, but that fivesome projects as more dynamic than that 2019 group, the most stable of Falvey's six-year tenure in charge of the Twins roster. Jose Berrios was traded away; Jake Odorizzi, Michael Pineda, Martin Perez and Kyle Gibson departed as free agents; and the Twins, with Falvey as pitching-trafficker-in-chief, embarked on a roster renovation that mostly utilized the team's in-house talent stockpile as currency, not solution.
In fact, only five pitchers drafted by current management have started a game for the Twins, and only Bailey Ober, a 12th-round pickup in 2017, seems assured of a role in 2023.
Falvey came to Minnesota with a reputation burnished by his involvement in building Cleveland's pennant-winning pitching staff, mostly from within. So is he surprised, alarmed, or discouraged that he has had to rely so heavily on trades — or free agency, with far less success — rather than the Twins' draft-and-develop philosophy?
Nope, nope and nope.
"I don't care where they come from," Falvey said. "We need really good starters and we need really good pitchers. Some of those are going to be free-agent signings, some of those are going to be trades, and some of those will also hopefully be from development. But the goal here is to continue to deepen the starting rotation and pitching staff however we can do it."
It will take years to evaluate whether the trades are a success, though if the rotation becomes a strength of the 2023 Twins, they won't care. Arraez is certainly the biggest risk they have taken, in terms of dealing away proven major league talent, but the All-Star's lack of obvious position and history of leg injuries made him a trade candidate.
Hard-throwing reliever Brusdar Graterol was a significant price for Maeda, but the Japanese import delivered a Cy Young Award runner-up performance in his pandemic-abbreviated first season with the Twins. Graterol could still make the Twins regret that deal — he has developed into one of the most effective setup relievers in the National League — but injuries have limited him to 106 innings in three seasons.
Ryan was the prize of a trade that ended Nelson Cruz's time with the Twins, but Cruz lasted only 10 weeks in Tampa Bay. The Twins packaged righthanded reliever Calvin Faucher, who made a reasonably promising debut for the Rays last season, with Cruz, but Ryan is younger and has already established himself.
In the pair of 2022 swaps with Cincinnati, the Twins dealt potential for experience. First-round pick Chase Petty was an eye-catching return for Gray, while Minnesota packaged three highly regarded prospects — lefthander Steve Hajjar and infielders Spencer Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand — for Mahle. Steer spent September in the Reds lineup, while the other two could reach the majors in the next year or two.
It's still too early to assess the Twins' success at pitching development, too. Fewer than a dozen starting pitchers drafted in the past six years have accumulated even five wins above replacement (WAR), according to Baseball Reference, and the Twins' first crop of youngsters from Falvey's tenure just began arriving at Target Field.
Ober is by far the most accomplished pitcher drafted and developed by Falvey and his staff, and with a career 3.82 ERA in 31 career starts, he figures to be the first option for any spot that opens due in the rotation.
Ober even tempts the Twins, who were forced by injury and ineffectiveness into starting 14 pitchers last season, to consider a six-man rotation. "That's something we talk about a lot," Falvey said, though he said he would prefer to stick with five.
Josh Winder, Louie Varland and Cole Sands all debuted in 2022, and all figure to contribute this summer, too.
"We definitely have some guys we've been really high on that are growing and developing," Falvey said. "I hope we have another whole group of guys that are coming. We think we have some of those prospects that are on their way. Our group is deep, and maybe as deep as I've felt it's been since I walked into a regular season."
But if it's not enough, Falvey has shown he's not afraid to harvest pitching from other teams' rosters, too.
"That's why you make a trade like [Arraez-for-Lopez], because we know pitching is really hard to acquire," he said. "It's hard to get good starting pitching. Certainly it's hard to get good young starting pitching. … We're not ruling out any avenue to find it."
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