Lance Lynn

Latest On Twins’ Interest In Starting Pitching Market

By Tim Dierkes | August 31, 2020 at 9:00am CDT

The Twins are “working aggressively to trade for a starter today,” tweets Jon Morosi of MLB Network. Morosi reiterates their interest in the Angels’ Dylan Bundy and the Rangers’ Lance Lynn, which he has previously reported. Darren Wolfson of KSTP has a different take, noting the Twins’ existing rotation depth and tendency to “call every team to get a gauge on price points.”

The Twins have been working with Kenta Maeda, Jose Berrios, Rich Hill, and Randy Dobnak in the rotation, and they’ll add Michael Pineda tomorrow as his suspension concludes. Jake Odorizzi is working his way back from an abdominal bruise, while Homer Bailey’s biceps tendinitis makes him more of a question mark. Wolfson’s point: this is not a team in desperate need of starting pitching.

Lynn, 33, figures to be one of the day’s hottest commodities. The 12-21 Rangers are one of perhaps seven obvious sellers, and Lynn has been excellent since signing a three-year deal with Texas in December 2018. He’s owed about $1.5MM for the remainder of the season, plus an affordable $8MM salary for 2021. The Angels are in a similar spot with Bundy, a 27-year-old for whom things seem to be clicking after seven starts.

It’s worth noting that Lynn made 20 starts for the Twins in 2018 before being traded to the Yankees, at which point his resurgence began. After that season, the Twins hired Wes Johnson as their pitching coach. It’s not clear how the organization’s familiarity with Lynn affects their interest. If the Twins do push for a starter today, their efforts will likely be muddied by the division-rival White Sox, who have also been connected to both Lynn and Bundy.

A’s, Twins, Padres, Blue Jays Interested In Lance Lynn

By George Miller | August 30, 2020 at 4:55pm CDT

4:55PM: The Athletics are “potentially” also interested in Lynn, Morosi notes in an on-air report (Twitter link).

TODAY, 11:30AM: The Twins are also in on Lynn, hears Jon Morosi of MLB Network (via Twitter). Morosi adds that Lynn is “increasingly likely” to be moved before tomorrow’s deadline.

AUGUST 29: Count the Padres and Blue Jays among the teams to have expressed interest in Rangers starter Lance Lynn, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. With the White Sox also cited as a suitor for Lynn earlier today, the Rangers appear to have a robust market forming for their top starter, for whom they’re said to be “entertaining offers,” though that’s no guarantee that they’re determined to deal Lynn prior to Monday’s trading deadline.

Beyond the three teams named above, it seems likely that almost every pitching-needy team will inquire about Lynn, who is coveted not only because of his elite production, but because he’s not just a rental: the 33-year-old will remain under contract through next season, when he’ll be paid $8MM—by no means a steep cost for a pitcher of his caliber. Those factors could make Lynn a hotly contested name during what might otherwise be a quiet trade season.

We’ll have to see just how much the Rangers are willing to part with Lynn, but there’s no doubt they’ll command a pretty high asking price for their top arm. Still, if there are teams who can meet such an asking price, San Diego, Chicago, and Toronto are among them. All three of those teams have substantial prospect capital to pry Lynn from Texas, assuming they’re .

And one might think of that trio in similar terms: all three teams are finally seeing on-field results following years of speculative “potential.” They rely on a core of young, blossoming position players but largely lack veteran pitchers to match. As those clubs look to enter win-now mode (perhaps the Blue Jays to a lesser degree than the White Sox or Padres), Lynn would be a sensible addition to any pitching staff.

Braves Acquire Tommy Milone

By Anthony Franco | August 30, 2020 at 10:51am CDT

10:51 am: The deal is official. Atlanta designated first baseman Matt Adams for assignment to clear roster space for Milone, who is in fact set to start tonight’s game for the Braves.

8:26 am: The Braves are nearing a deal to acquire left-hander Tommy Milone from the Orioles, reports Mark Bowman of MLB.com (Twitter link). Atlanta will send two prospects, neither of whom is in the Braves’ 60-man player pool, to Baltimore, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post (via Twitter). Because they are outside the player pool, those prospects will be included as players to be named later. Presumably, we won’t know their identities until after the end of the season.

Milone, 33, was surprisingly named Baltimore’s Opening Day starter after latching on with the organization on a minor-league deal over the offseason. That start didn’t go as planned, but he’s quietly performed well in his five starts since. Overall, Milone has a 3.99 ERA in 29.1 innings this season.

The soft-tossing Milone has always been a control artist, and that’s continued in 2020. More importantly, he’s struck out a career-best 24% of hitters in the early going on the back of a career-high 12.5% swinging strike rate. The Braves will place a low-cost bet Milone can mostly maintain that uptick in swing-and-miss while working in his customary 86-87 MPH velocity range. His $1MM base salary was prorated to a little over $370K, of which about $173K remains. Milone will be a free agent at season’s end.

It still seems there’s room for the Braves to explore further rotation acquisitions. Max Fried has been exceptional so far, but the rest of the rotation has been shaky. Despite those starting pitching woes, the Braves are off to an 18-14 start and two games ahead of the pack in the NL East. However, they’re not expected to be involved in the pursuit of Rangers ace Lance Lynn, hears Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter link).

At 14-18, the Orioles are technically still on the periphery of the AL wild card race. Serviceable start notwithstanding, this was always expected to be a rebuilding year for Baltimore, so it’s hardly surprising to see them flip present assets for future value. Prospects Keegan Akin and Dean Kremer are already on the 40-man roster and are speculative candidates to replace Milone in the starting rotation.

White Sox Interested In Lance Lynn, Robbie Ray, Dylan Bundy

By Mark Polishuk | August 29, 2020 at 11:11am CDT

11:11AM: The White Sox also have interest in Angels righty Dylan Bundy, Morosi tweets.

10:24AM: The White Sox are looking into the starting pitching market, with MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reporting that Rangers ace Lance Lynn is under consideration, while MLB Network’s Jon Heyman adds that Diamondbacks left-hander Robbie Ray has also been discussed (both links to Twitter).

As MLBTR’s Steve Adams and Connor Byrne recently put it, “Lynn is arguably the most coveted arm on the trade market.” The right-hander has a 1.59 ERA, 9.9 K/9, and 3.57 K/BB rate through 45 1/3 innings this season, and while advanced metrics hint at some inevitable ERA regression, those same numbers suggest Lynn is pitching at roughly the same level as he did in 2019, when he finished fifth in AL Cy Young Award voting.

Beyond only his performance this season, Lynn is under contract for an $8MM salary in 2021, which stands as a more than reasonable price if he keeps pitching this well. As big a trade chip as Lynn is, however, his pluses also make him a valuable asset to the Rangers, who are at least open to hearing offers for Lynn but maybe not likely to actually move him unless another team steps up with a big trade package.

It’s probably safe to assume that Ray is much more available, though the southpaw’s value has dramatically dropped off in the wake of a brutal start to the 2020 season. Control issues and the home run ball have plagued Ray, who has a 7.84 ERA and 31 walks over 31 innings, despite a 12.5 K/9. Despite Ray’s struggles, he has drawn interest from the Astros and other teams, with some clubs reportedly interested in deploying Ray as a reliever.

The White Sox have gotten very good results from Lucas Giolito, Dylan Cease, and Dallas Keuchel this season, but much less from a fourth/fifth starter mix that includes Gio Gonzalez, Reynaldo Lopez, and the injured Carlos Rodon. The league-wide perception, as least according to rival executives speaking with MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand, is that the Pale Hose will land a starter prior to Monday’s trade deadline. The bullpen has been a strength overall, though it is short on left-handed pitchers (such as Ray) since Aaron Bummer is still on the injured list.

Acquiring Ray would be a pure short-term rental move, since he is a free agent after the year. Prying Lynn away from Texas would cost the Sox quite a bit more in prospect capital, though it’s worth noting that the White Sox and Rangers have been rather frequent trading partners since Rick Hahn became Chicago’s general manager. The White Sox are firmly in the playoff race this year and plan to be contenders for the foreseeable future, so Lynn is the type of pitcher that would also boost their chances of winning in 2021.

Rangers Reportedly “Entertaining” Offers For Lance Lynn

By Connor Byrne | August 25, 2020 at 4:31pm CDT

The Rangers began 2020 with playoff aspirations, but almost halfway through the campaign, it appears they’ll fall short of their goal. Texas will enter Tuesday’s action a dismal 11-17, 3 1/2 games out of wild-card position and well on its way to a fourth straight season without a playoff berth. Consequently, the Rangers could end up as sellers prior to the Aug. 31 trade deadline. If that’s the case, they may have one of the game’s most appealing trade chips in right-hander Lance Lynn. Although he still has another year of control left after this one, the Rangers are at least “entertaining” offers for Lynn, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic writes (subscription link).

Of course, just because the Rangers are willing to listen to teams’ proposals for Lynn doesn’t mean they’re ready to move him. However, there’s a case the Rangers should sell high on Lynn, a former Cardinal, Twin and Yankee who has been brilliant in Texas.

Since signing a three-year, $30MM contract with the Rangers before 2019, Lynn has pitched to a 3.30 ERA/3.17 FIP over 253 2/3 innings. Lynn was an American League Cy Young contender during his first season in Texas, and it appears he’ll be in the thick of the race this year. Through a major league-leading 45 1/3 innings in 2020, Lynn has recorded a 1.59 ERA/3.35 FIP with 9.93 K/9 and 2.78 BB/9.

With only a few weeks left in the regular season, teams may be loath to surrender significant value for most players available around the deadline, as the majority are pending free agents who aren’t vying for major awards. But Lynn’s a Cy Young hopeful who would be able to help a team this year and next, when he’ll be due an affordable $8MM salary, so the Rangers should be in position to land a quality haul for the 33-year-old if they do part with him in the next several days.

Quick Hits: Trade Deadline, Boras, Lynn, Smith, Padres, Burger

By Mark Polishuk | August 15, 2020 at 10:30pm CDT

There’s no doubt the 2020 trade deadline will be the most unusual in baseball history, and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (subscription required) looks at some of the many unique aspects of the lead-up to August 31. Everything about how teams evaluate their own rosters, decide on being buyers or sellers, scout other teams’ talent, and potentially spend to acquire that talent will be in flux, plus there are some factors unique to the threat of COVID-19.

For instance, there might have to be some back-channel negotiations with trade candidates to ensure that a player wouldn’t opt out of the season rather than be dealt to an undesirable location. Just the idea of changing locations whatsoever also carries issues, as Rosenthal notes that intake testing could delay a new acquisition’s arrival to his new team by a few days (no small amount of time in a shortened season), and there is inherent risk in travel and in introducing the health x-factor of an unfamiliar player into a new clubhouse.

In regards to the latter concern, agent Scott Boras contacted Rosenthal with the following message (Twitter link): “So that deadline deals are not impacted by COVID, I am letting all owners know if any of our players are traded and asked to leave their existing teams’ protocols, we have arranged a private jet protocol to allow players to be safely transported (between clubs).”

The Rangers’ New-Look Rotation Has Big-Time Upside

By George Miller | May 23, 2020 at 4:47pm CDT

Historically, pitching has not been a strength of the Texas Rangers. The franchise has consistently found itself sorely lacking true aces; outside of Nolan Ryan, there aren’t really any iconic pitchers that come to mind when you think of the Rangers. Kenny Rogers, anyone?

That trend held true once again last year, with the Rangers posting an overall 5.09 ERA that ranked seventh-worst in baseball. That said, Lance Lynn and Mike Minor anchored the top of the rotation admirably, each garnering Cy Young consideration and holding the staff intact during the hot Texas summer.

But when the 2020 season boots up, Lynn and Minor will have some help, and starting pitching may indeed be a strength for this year’s iteration of the team. GM Jon Daniels and company made a concerted effort in the winter to acquire starting pitchers—and they did so at relatively little cost, meaning that a bit of short-term ambition likely won’t impeach on the franchise’s future plans.

Corey Kluber is the big-name addition, and the two-time Cy Young winner should do plenty to bolster the Rangers’ staff. Even so, the team didn’t mortgage the future to bring him aboard: Kluber is only guaranteed a contract for this year, with a vesting option that could keep him in Texas through 2021. Coming off a season in which he could pitch in just seven games, he was acquired in exchange for Delino DeShields and Emmanuel Clase, a move that was widely praised at the time and looks even worse for Cleveland in light of Clase’s PED suspension.

But the smaller-scale signings of Kyle Gibson and Jordan Lyles, while not deserving of the same attention as the acquisition of a decade-defining pitcher like Kluber, could together have just as great an impact on the Rangers’ success as Kluber. In the offseason, Lyles signed on with a two-year, $16MM deal, while Gibson earned himself a three-year contract worth $28MM. Together, they’ll make $19MM in 2020, just a hair more than Kluber’s salary.

Lyles has been around forever, it seems, breaking in as a young arm with the Astros and Rockies, but it took until his age-28 season for him to put it all together as a starter. After a slow start with the Pirates earned him a trade to Milwaukee, he put up career-best numbers, striking out 146 batters in 141 innings, an unprecedented rate for Lyles.

How come? The simple version is that Lyles began relying less and less on his sinker, a staple in his repertoire throughout the early stages of his career. His sinker usage dropped to a minuscule 1.7% last year while he threw four-seam fastballs 50.2% of the time, more than he ever had before. The curveball also became a more important weapon in his pitch mix.

That isn’t too unlike the formula that Lance Lynn rode to his career-best 2019 season. Just like Lyles, Lynn’s sinker usage hit a career low last year, replaced almost entirely by four-seam fastballs—largely in the upper part of the strike zone. This isn’t unique to the Rangers—the Astros’ unparalleled pitching brilliance hinges on this philosophy—and it’s a trend that has redefined the way we look at pitching in MLB.

It’s an approach that worked for the Rangers last year, Lynn’s first in Texas, and perhaps Daniels is confident that his staff can use it to produce similar results with Lyles and Gibson this year. Sure enough, the sinker has been Gibson’s most-used pitch through his first five years as a big-leaguer. Sound familiar? Granted, Gibson’s four-seamer hasn’t been a great pitch for him, but throwing fewer sinkers could in turn lead to a jump in his slider usage, a high-spin pitch that may be a hidden gem.

Still, pitching at the MLB level is not as simple as flipping a switch and saying, “sinker bad, four-seam good.” That approach can’t be uniformly applied to every pitcher in baseball with the same results; there’s a reason careers have been forged around the sinker. And yet, the proliferation of the high fastball in MLB lends credence to its value, and the Rangers may have pursued the likes of Gibson and Lyles with that style in mind.

But that’s only half the battle; the burden then falls on the coaching staff and players themselves to accept and implement adjustments. It’s why we still play the games when there’s such a wealth of knowledge out there. So we’ll anxiously await the 2020 season to see whether the on-field results look as good as the ideas that underpin them.

Rangers Notes: Rendon Offer, Lyles

By TC Zencka | December 14, 2019 at 10:19am CDT

The Rangers were in on free agent Anthony Rendon to the tune of $32MM per year for six years, per MLB Network Insider Jon Heyman. The total 6-year, $192MM package landed a year and $53MM short of the winning bid. Heyman points out that the lack of an income tax in Texas put the dollar value of the Rangers’ offer more-or-less in-line with the contract Rendon ultimately signed. The extra year made the difference for both player and team in this case. Rendon will turn 37-years-old in June of his seventh contract year with the Angels.

Though they’ve yet to land a big bat (and reportedly will not push to sign Josh Donaldson), the Rangers have made strides to improve their rotation with the additions of Kyle Gibson and Jordan Lyles. While reliable rotation arms don’t equate to a star signing like Rendon, for the Rangers, they are critical additions. Of course, part of this gambit assumes Lyles pitches more like he did in Milwaukee (2.45 ERA) and less like he did in Pittsburgh (5.36 ERA).

The sky is the ceiling when pitchers switch teams nowadays, however, as the reworking of arsenals and usage patterns has rapidly become the norm. For Lyles, much of the improvement his experienced in Milwaukee can be attributed to moving from a sinker to a four-seamer and swapping out a slider for a curveball, per Evan Grant of the Dallas News. The Rangers also see Lyles as a sort of developmental descendent of Lance Lynn, who made a similar switch to a four-seamer in Texas. The Rangers believe Lynn will be a positive influence for Lyles as he tries to perform with more consistency.

For his part, Lyles credits the urgency of a playoff push and his chemistry with catcher Yasmani Grandal as a driving factor of his late-season success. The Rangers’ catching situation is far from settled, with Jeff Mathis the closest defensive equivalent to Grandal in terms of pedigree. It will be an uphill battle for the Rangers’ to put themselves in the playoff race, though Gibson and Lyles raising the floor of the rotation goes a long way to fixing the issues of 2019. Still, the Astros, A’s, and Angels are all pushing for contention, while the Mariners are gearing up for a push in 2021.

Winter Meetings Preview: Rangers, Rockies

By TC Zencka | December 7, 2019 at 10:56am CDT

In advance of the winter meetings, let’s take a moment to quickly preview a couple teams out west…

The Texas Rangers have their sights laser-focused on Anthony Rendon, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. Recent additions have more-or-less locked their rotation class, with Kolby Allard, Joe Palumbo and Brock Burke looking like the 5 through 7 options behind Lance Lynn, Mike Minor, Kyle Gibson and Jordan Lyles. Should prices drop on starters like Dallas Keuchel or Hyun-Jin Ryu, the Rangers could add further pitching in the right deal and potentially explore flipping Lynn or Minor, tweets Grant, though that’s less a strategy and more of the “open to anything” ethos employed by most front offices. Otherwise, the group of internal candidates, if expanded, would include Taylor Hearn and Tyler Phillips, plus any vets they are able to grab on minor league deals in the mold of Edinson Volquez (though Volquez himself is more likely ticketed for the pen if he makes the team). The Rangers reportedly offered Zack Wheeler a $100MM contract before he signed with Philadelphia, so the pursestrings have been loosed. For now, however, they’re stuck in traffic waiting to see if the “Adrian Beltre treatment” can sell Rendon on playing the latter half of his career in Arlington.
The Colorado Rockies need for starting pitching is clear, but they are highly unlikely to walk away from the winter meetings with a new arm atop their rotation, per Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. Irrespective of the financial crunch – which is significant and detailed in MLBTR’s Offseason Outlook – the history of Coors Field continues to scare away free agent pitchers. Not to mention, the haunted past of big-ticket hurlers signed by past regimes in Colorado is no less an impediment to building through free agency. Denny Neagle, Mike Hampton, and Darryl Kile can all profess their tale of woe, but Kile’s case is particularly damning given the success he enjoyed in St. Louis once freed from Coors. Speculatively speaking, the Rockies aversion/inability to add frontline pitching via free agency could be a factor in their bearish resistance to trading Jon Gray. If internal development is the only path to roster improvement, trading a talent like Gray would be an even greater white-flag move than under most circumstances.

Jon Daniels On Availability Of Mike Minor, Lance Lynn

By Jeff Todd | July 25, 2019 at 6:38am CDT

We’re clearly past wondering whether the Rangers will enter the deadline in position to pursue a 2019 postseason spot, with the club collapsing out of range of plausible contention. But that doesn’t mean it’s obvious how the organization will handle trade talks in the coming days.

Rangers president of baseball operations Jon Daniels will have to decide whether to pursue trades involving several players who could be of future use in Texas. Outfielder Nomar Mazara has popped up on the rumor mill, as has reliever Jose Leclerc. It’s interesting to wonder about those talented younger players, neither of whom has performed to expectations this year, but they aren’t the club’s most intriguing deadline candidates. That status belongs instead to veteran starters Mike Minor and Lance Lynn.

Appearing on 105.3 The Fan’s Ben and Skin Show (transcript via the Dallas Morning News), Daniels discussed a variety of topics of hot-stove interest. But his comments on Minor and Lynn are most noteworthy given the still-uncertain status of this summer’s starting pitching market.

Daniels made clear that the Texas club values these pitchers “at a very high level.” He provided support for that position by observing: “You’ve got guys that are performing at a high level, that are filling a need that we need now and we’re going to need going forward. We need more pitching, not less ultimately.”

There’s plenty of truth in that statement, even if the Rangers have to listen to offers. (Daniels has already said they will.) This is a club that’s opening a new ballpark next year — “ultimately people come to see the team on the field,” Daniels noted while discussing the impact of the stadium — and has elected not to launch a full-throated rebuild. While the 2019 Opening Day payroll sat lower than at any point since 2011, it still checked in at levels that would cause some small-market clubs heart palpitations ($118MM).

The Texas club is obviously interested in putting a good product on the field year after year. And there’s no doubting the roster’s dire need for starting pitching. Parting with good starting pitching (with future contract control) would open a hole that’ll need to be filled somehow.

True, the Rangers can go out looking for the next versions of Minor and Lynn. They’ll probably do so regardless. But it’s awfully tough to assume that they’ll have near as much success with their next buy-low, three-year contract as they have with their prior two. Minor ($28MM) and Lynn ($30MM) inked near-identical deals in successive winters, with the Rangers luring both with longer deals than many anticipated while promising limited average annual salaries. They’ve each been among the game’s most productive starters this year.

It’s certainly plenty appealing to hang onto these hurlers and continue to hope they provide good value over the remaining years on their contracts. (With one season remaining for Minor and two for Lynn, speculation has mostly focused on the former, though that doesn’t necessarily reflect the preferences of interested teams.) On the other hand, both are over thirty years of age with somewhat worrying injury histories. And market circumstances could align to create rather significant interest, particularly if other quality starters end up carrying audacious price tags.

Given the competing considerations, Daniels says, the Rangers won’t be moving off of their own lofty valuations on these hurlers. If the club ends up dealing one or both, he suggests, we’ll know why as soon as the swap is reported: “If we ultimately get to a place where we’re going to consider moving any of our big-league pitchers, it’s going to be because it clearly makes sense to do so. I think the return will speak for itself.”

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