Ex-Twins watch: Francisco Liriano

Francisco Liriano delivers a pitch in what proved to be
his final start for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

One of the many deadline deals on Monday saw Francisco Liriano shipped from Pittsburgh to Toronto -- back to the American League for the guy Minnesotans knew as "Frankie Franchise" a decade ago.

It's been a rough season for the lefty, who seemingly found a home in Pittsburgh after years on inconsistency in the AL with the Twins and (briefly) White Sox. In 2013-15, Liriano put up a 3.26 ERA for the Pirates while going a combined 35-25, and his underlying statistics said he was actually pitching to that level.

This year: 5-11, 5.46 and leading the majors in walks allowed.

The Pirates even included two of their top 10 prospects in the deal, which returned Drew Hutchison -- who, yes, won 13 games last year for the Blue Jays but had an ERA of 5.57 and had all of 12.2 major league innings this year.

All of which suggests that the Pirates didn't think they could easily fix whatever is going wrong with Liriano and wanted out of the remaining year-plus of his contract -- and that there wasn't much of a market for him.