The Twins were eliminated from the playoffs earlier today, notes Jon Heyman of CBS Sports (video). Heyman looked at possible offseason plans for the club. The lineup is youthful and includes top prospects Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, and former top prospect Aaron Hicks. Eddie Rosario also had a strong season, and Max Kepler is waiting in the wings for an opportunity. The future may be bright, but experience is an issue. Minnesota may benefit from to re-signing Torii Hunter (more on that in a moment), but may need to look at him as a fourth outfielder.
Here’s more from Minnesota:
- Heyman also highlights the pitching staff as an area that needs improvement. The club will lose Mike Pelfrey to free agency, and he had a deceptively decent season. They’ll hope to get full, healthy seasons out of Ricky Nolasco and Ervin Santana next year. Another veteran in the Pelfrey mold could make sense. Personally, I wouldn’t be shocked to see them compete for a second tier starter like Mike Leake. The club could look at themselves as the 2016 version of the Cubs. The bullpen also needs work. Glen Perkins is a fine anchor, but he’s missed time at the end of the last two seasons with a neck issue.
- Hunter remains undecided about retiring, he tells reporters including Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com (via Twitter). “This possibly could be my last game. And there’s a really good chance.” Betsy Halfand of MLB.com has more detail. Hunter says he would have announced his retirement months ago if the Twins had suffered through another futile. However, the possibility that they could return to the postseason next year has delayed his decision. He’ll likely wait until after the college football season (both of his sons play) before making an announcement.
- Hunter does say he’s not interested in a part time role, “Eighty one games? I’m not coming back for that.” If the Twins want to re-sign him, they may need to get creative with some of their younger players. The 40-year-old is coming off his first below average offensive campaign since 2003. He did manage to hit 22 home runs over 563 plate appearances. An unusually low .257 BABIP looks like the culprit behind his poor average and on base percentage.
- Reliever Neal Cotts “would love” to return to the Twins next season, writes Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press. Cotts, 35, signed a one-year, $3MM contract with the Brewers last offseason. The Twins acquired him in mid-August. With Minnesota, he posted a decent 3.95 ERA with 5.93 K/9, and 2.63 BB/9 in 13 and 2/3 innings. Presumably, he would require a similar commitment to re-sign for 2016.
Not surprising Heyman and others throwing out useless fodder on non large market teams like the twins. The last thing the Twins need this offseason is more starting pitching, especially on the Pelfrey level. Barring injury, locks for rotation already include Santana, Hughes, Gibson. Nolasco and Milone are still under team control. Duffey and his curveball certainly look ready for the majors. Stud prospect J.O. Berrios has little left to prove in the minors. If they can find room on the 40 man Darnell and Dean are certainly candidates for 5th man. Will Alex Meyer be given another shot at starting? So yea… Starting pitching depth is last of concerns unless the Twins get crazy and sign or trade for an Ace pitcher.
And I forgot Trevor May too. Leaving him in the bullpen likely limits his potential.
May might (May may?) ultimately end up in the bullpen, but he has too many good pitches to just leave him there. He didn’t even get bumped to the pen for being that bad, they just bulked out the rotation with people that had to be there — same reason Milone spent a month in AAA.
I don’t know about resigning Torii. He’s great for the clubhouse, I just don’t think there’s a lot of space on the roster for him. In the outfield, the Twins have Hicks, Rosario, Buxton, Kepler, Arcia, and that’s just the guys on the 40-man. If he’s going to DH, he’d take time away from Sano, Vargas, whoever else.
Going after another mid-tier starter doesn’t make much sense for the Twins. They already have Santana, Hughes, Nolasco, Gibson along with Duffey, May, Berrios and perhaps Meyer. If anything they should try open up space in the rotation, but with Nolasco being untouchable, in a bad way, that move would be to the bullpen.
The Twins do generally need some better starting pitching, but for where the team’s at right now, I don’t think this is the offseason to pursue it, especially with such a logjam of mediocrity. The Twins rotation is far from being great, but this year it was good enough that it wasn’t the biggest problem the team had by far.
The Twins pitching (both starting and relief) needs to improve, that is without dispute, they just are not going to get much of an improvement in FA. Improvement will come internally by playing young arms like Berrios, Duffey and May. Their rotation was better than in previous years but was still a major weak spot.
The improvement will have to come either from within or through trades. FA isn’t really the answer for any of the Twins weaknesses right now.
As far as SP goes, seeing how the new blood you mentioned pans out is really the only sound thing to do, especially with all the dinero tied up in Nolasco right now.
I could see them shopping Plouffe to both clear some PA opportunities for Sano and bring in some mid-grade talent. It’s just hard to come up with any big offseason transactions I’d like to see. For every weak spot there was a bright spot with some of the young guys.
For me the most immediate issue is the bullpen, where there’s not a lot of bright spots. Fien was about the only guy that was reliable all year, and Jepsen was a good pickup. Perkins obviously will be back but he’s kind of worrying with health issues and reverting to some of the old Glen that almost got sent off to oblivion circa 2010.
the only thing the twins need to go out and get is maybe a catcher and a left handed reliever. cause u look in the minor leagues u have guys like Melotakis, Chargois, and Jones all power relievers who have to be put on the 40 man roster this off-season and cant forget about power arm meyer and starters like rogers, duffey, and berrios. i guess u can they can see what offering a arcia, plouffe, and walker could bring you in the starting pitching market
I could see a Plouffe trade with some excess young OF talent added in.