With Spring Training getting starting this week, that means updates are rolling in on various players and their health, or lack thereof, as well as details on teams and their plans for the season ahead. Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey provided a couple of updates to reporters, including Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com (Twitter links).
“No setbacks, no concern,” Falvey said of first baseman/outfielder Alex Kirilloff. “AK has been in a great spot. Our strength guys said [the wrist is] probably in as good of a spot as they’ve seen him coming into camp, where he’s at. The early returns on swinging are very positive.”
The health of Kirilloff’s right wrist has been an ongoing concern for the past couple of years, seemingly preventing him from reaching his potential. Ranked as one of the top prospects in the game as he was coming up through the minors, he has thus far hit .251/.295/.398 for a wRC+ of 91 in the majors. That’s come in 387 plate appearances over the past two seasons, each of which ended in wrist surgery for Kirilloff.
The club has plenty of outfielders but it seems Kirilloff has a path to regular playing time at first base. The Twins declined an option on Miguel Sanó and traded Luis Arraez to the Marlins, in addition to trading Gio Urshela to the Angels in order to have José Miranda take over at third base. Those moves have left Kirilloff atop the depth chart at the cold corner and the club will be hoping that better health can help him produce at a level more like his minor league work. Since reaching Double-A in 2019, he’s hit .305/.378/.484 at the top two levels of the minor leagues for a wRC+ of 143.
Turning to the pitching staff, the club had some success turning a starter into a reliever last year with Griffin Jax. He had mostly started coming into last year but worked exclusively in relief in 2022. He ended up posting a 3.36 ERA over 65 appearances with a 26.9% strikeout rate, 6.9% walk rate and 47.3% ground ball rate. However, no such plans are currently in place for other members of the staff right now, with Falvey stating that pitchers like Josh Winder and Cole Sands will be built up as starters this spring.
The Twins seem to have a strong rotation on paper, with Pablo López, Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan, Kenta Maeda and Tyler Mahle likely taking the top five spots, with Chris Paddack potentially returning from Tommy John surgery and joining them at some point as well. That will leave pitchers like Sands, Winder, Bailey Ober and others likely squeezed down to Triple-A. Though that’s plenty of arms in theory, most of them have injury concerns. Maeda missed all of 2022 while recovery from an internal brace procedure and each of Gray, Ryan and Mahle dealt with various injuries that kept them below 150 innings on the year. López got to 180 frames last year but he’s been hampered by his health in the past, never previously reaching 115 innings in a major league season.
With all of those question marks, it makes sense that the club would want to maintain some starting depth as they plan out the season ahead, especially after those injuries seemed to play a role in the club fading in the second half last year. Winder posted a 4.70 ERA in his first 67 MLB innings last year but with a subpar 16.4% strikeout rate. Sands, meanwhile, had a 5.87 ERA in his debut last year but in a smaller sample of 30 2/3 innings. Since they both have options, they can head to Triple-A and wait for their next opportunity to arise.
Turning to the bigger picture, Dan Hayes of The Athletic recently spoke to Joe Pohlad, who is taking on a more meaningful role with the club these days. It was reported in November that club chairman Jim Pohlad would be ceding responsibilities to his nephew Joe going forward. Some have wondered if that switch would lead to changes in the ways the team is run, with the younger Pohlad perhaps giving a small bit of insight into that. “I think that there are a number of factors that you need to consider,” Pohlad said in response to a question about the club’s payroll getting into the $180-200MM range. “I don’t think something like that is ever out of the question. I really don’t.”
The Twins have yet to get near that level of spending, with their franchise high payroll being last year’s $134MM figure, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. It seems likely that they will set a new record this year, with Roster Resource currently pegging their spending at $154MM. That’s a nice jump but it would still require another one to get into that proposed range. Despite generally being in the middle of the pack in terms of spending, the club has made some surprising splashes of late, including giving a huge extension to Byron Buxton and twice being the surprising victors of the Carlos Correa free agent frenzy. Though it doesn’t seem like there are any imminent plans to hit the gas pedal and really ramp up spending, it appears that there’s at least some hope for more aggression going forward.
Make or break year for AK, he hasn’t shown much.
A large amount of his ABs came while trying to play through his wrist injuries and the numbers were horrific but when healthy his exit velocity was among the best. Small sample size for sure but the wrist problems hurt his stats
AK-47. Cause that’s about how many games he gets in per season
you beat me to it
I mean..it’s not Kirilloff’s been terrible..Hell..I wouldn’t be surprised to see him go .260/20/80 with a full season..but he’s gotta learn more patience at the plate..
Yes, he does. But I also wonder how difficult it must be to try and suddenly stop your swing when you have wrist problems.
Local kid (Pittsburgh) who I hope lights it up for the Twins this year
First time in a long while that the Twins appear to have the SP necessary to do anything in the post season. Lots of injury concerns though. If things are going well enough a mid season splashy trade for an ace type pitcher (e.g. Castillo, not Mahle) could help make them a serious contender.
I’m curious to see if the Twins pitching philosophy has changed for their starting pitchers being they don’t plan on stashing one in the bullpen as long relief to start the season. Either SPs have to really make it work to get through the order twice in five to six innings or us Twins fans will be subjected to even more bullpen overusage (e.g. Pagán handing over a W to the opponent over and over again).
Quality start means nothing to Twins skipper. Rocco is clueless as to how to manage pitchers.
It’s not a Rocco thing. It’s a Falvey/Levine thing with all their data analysis and such. I think Rocco is okay with data, but I feel he’s more “old school” than what he shows.
You’re both ignorant. This is not some Rocco or FO thing. This is happening all over MLB. The Twins are not unusual. No team had it’s starters average making it out of the 6th all year. Teams are not letting starters go through the lineup a third time unless they’re a top-end starter. It’s not unusual the Twins would be slightly below average considering that they had Bundy and Archer and rookies starting 134 games last year.
I suspect that this year the Twins’ starters will go longer. The ignorant masses will claim that the Twins learned their lesson and went back to old school. That will not be accurate. They have better starters this year, those starters will go later in the game as a result. Correlation is not causation.
ok
Let’s call it how it is…Rocco was pulling pitchers early maybe a little too frequently. It’s happening around the league. I get it.
It made me sick to my stomach when he’d pull a guy pitching a great game, then watch us give up 3 runs to lose.
Unless all the up and coming bats (AK, Larnach, Miranda, Gordon) all break out this season simultaneously, they will still need one significant proven hitter and one Yankee-killer caliber starter/ace to make it thru a playoff series. Seems like mid-season they could add up two top tier players and get there, depending on who has flopped or gotten hurt. Next chance they have at a proven ace, Twins need to seize it. Bat is less critical to be super high level.
Could that bat be Miranda? Buxton? Kepler? Gallo? Polanco? Could that Yankee killer be Mahle? Lopez? It might be all of them, or it could be none of them.
I for one, am interested at how this team comes together., I can somewhat see what they are trying to accomplish – so this could be fantastic or it could be a disaster and a bunch of players traded at the deadline.
Hopefully the new athletic trainer can help the team avoid injuries. That guy might be the key player this season. Injuries have plagued the Twins for years.
The Twins main goal should be to win a playoff game..then start thinking about more. Baby steps.
You know, you can start a sentence with the word “meanwhile.” Your colleague Anthony learned, why can’t you?
Why on earth does this matter?
Clear and concise writing always matters. Interrupting the sentence when it’s not necessary makes things more foggy.
One shouldn’t be required to use grammatically perfect language while commenting on a sport that includes spitting and groin adjustments.
So you think sportswriting should have lower standards of quality? What an insult to the good people who do it for a living, whose content you read for free.
You could maybe learn to read before you write. Note my suggestion refers to “commenting”. I don’t believe that the comments are from writers doing it for a living. Time to adjust your nutcup.
I thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the efforts of the MLBTR writers providing great material for us to analyze and discuss. The quality they display in their work constantly demonstrates their professionalism. My point is that a BA degree in English is not required to respond.
To be fair, politics involves spitting and groin adjustments and we expect those writers to use proper grammar.
It is TOO bad the “Candidates” they Write about, often BUTCHER the “language”. UNFAIR!! Best to “stick” with Baseball.
The writers are also commenting on baseball. Just not in a comment section. It’s reasonable to interpret the sentence in the way CptJack did. You don’t need to stoop so low by insulting him. Weakens your already fragile point.
Admittedly it can be sometimes difficult to distinguish between trolling, good natured ribbing amongst friends, or serious dialogue. Certainly in those cases clearer writing from commenters could minimize the confusion.
Circling to baseball subject matter at hand: Twins seem to be very confident about a strong AK return from the wrist injury. Here’s hoping that happens.
It really transforms the lineup if he does. Buxton, Polanco, Correa, Kirilloff, Miranda is a solid middle of the lineup.
Agreed! And don’t sleep on what may come from the catching slot. I think last year’s poor production was an outlier. Jeffers was hurt, and there was not much behind him to pick up the slack. Vasquez is going to help a lot more this season than Sanchez.