Retaining Odorizzi

Jake Odorizzi on Thursday accepted the Twins qualifying offer and took himself off the free agent market this winter. He gets a one-year contract for $17.8 million.

Few players have accepted a QO, but presumably Odorizzi and his agency shared my reading of the market -- and/or my sense of risk adversion. They took the bird in hand and will go after the one in the bush next winter.

These are key factors informing Odorizzi's decision:

• Odorizzi, while coming off the best season of his career, was not close to the best starter on the market. That would be Garrett Cole, with Stephen Strasburg right behind. Odorizzi was perhaps the fourth-best free-agent starter.
• The draft-pick penalty for signing a QO-tagged free agent is stiff enough that a lot of teams simply rule it out. In each of the last two winters, a couple such pitchers have gotten burned, finding no significant interest in a multi-year deal. Think Lance Lynn two winters back; he landed with the Twins late in spring training and had a miserable 2018 season.
• The Twins cannot make another qualifying offer to Ordorizzi after the 2020 season, and the crop of free-agent starters will be considerably more shallow next winter.

The worst case scenario for Odorizzi is that something happens this year that wrecks his future value. He elbow pops in September, say. In which case, hey, he got $17.8 million, and that's not a bad consolation prize.

The best case scenario is that he has at least as good a 2020 season as he did a 2019. In which case he's better positioned for a big multi-year contract than he was this year.

I don't know that the Twins brain trust is celebrating Odorizzi's return. They may have preferred that he depart; that way, if they sign a qualifying-offer free agent, they get a draft pick back, which partially makes up for the pick they lose. But they too have the bird in hand. My guess is that Odorizzi's return makes the pursuit of Cole or Strasburg less likely, not that landing either was anything resembling a certainty.

So two pieces of the Twins projected 2020 rotation are known, Jose Berrios and Odorizzi. Pencil in lightly a rookie-to-be-determined at the tail end of the rotation. That leaves two slots -- the ones occupied in 2019 by Kyle Gibson and Michael Pineda -- to fill.

Roster moves

The Twins made a number of notable moves Monday. One made official what was already known, some were expected and none was truly startling.

The biggest news involved the starting rotation.

The Twins declined their option on Martin Perez, making the veteran lefty a free agent. I thought they might opt to keep him around as an innings eater at the back of the rotation, but they will go in a different direction.

They made a qualifying offer to Jake Odorizzi but not to Kyle Gibson or Michael Pineda. This presents a significant obstacle to Odorizzi on the free-agent market. I rather suspect he'll wind up taking the QO, which is a one-year deal for something around $17.8 million, and know that he'll be unrestricted after the 2020 season.

If he does take the offer, that's two rotation slots filled, three to go. He has until next Monday to decide.

Odorizzi is an effective but limited starter. He's not an innings-eating horse. In 2019, as an all-star having his best season to date, he didn't reach the 162 innings required to qualify for the ERA title. Perez, while far less effective, threw more innings. So I was mildly surprised that the front office made the QO.

It's not surprising that Gibson and Pineda didn't get QOs. Gibson's health issues and Pineda's lingering suspension were good reasons not to go there. I can imagine the Twins bringing one of them back, but not both. 

Also on the pitching line, the Twins parted ways with Kohl Stewart and Stephen Gonsalves, a pair of prominent draft picks who never quite forced their way into the Twins plans. They were taken out of high school in 2013, Stewart in the first round (fourth overall) and Gonsalves in the fourth, but they've been leapfrogged by other prospects.

Gonsalves, who had injury issues and seldom pitched in 2019, was claimed off waivers by the New York Mets, and Stewart opted for free agency after the Twins outrighted him.

The Twins also officially exercised their 2020 option on Nelson Cruz. One can debate the wisdom of any of the other moves and non-moves of Monday, but not this one.

Getting outs

A few observations, and maybe some conclusions, about pitching ....

1. Michael Pineda can be really tough to watch. That was certainly the case Tuesday night when he gave up three runs in the first inning while working at a glacial pace. Given the time zone difference on a Tuesday night, I would imagine that there are a lot of the Twins fans surprised this morning to find the Twins won.

1A. Pineda's final line -- three runs allowed in six innings -- supports my Monday print column conclusion earlier this month: He may not be a Cy Young contender, but there are a lot of teams that would love to have a fifth starter like him.

2. Were either Bert Blyleven or Jack Morris doing this road trip on FSN, they would be doing conniption fits. On Monday Jake Odorizzi threw five shutout innings and was relieved without facing a batter in the sixth; he told reporters that he encouraged manager Rocco Baldelli to pull him. The Twins bullpen allowed one run in four innings and the Twins won 3-1, although Odorizzi didn't get credit for the win.

On Tuesday the Angels' Trevor Cahill threw five scoreless innings, then gave up a leadoff double to Max Kepler.  Brad Ausmus pulled him, and the Twins quickly went double-homer to tie the game off his successor.

We've all heard Blyleven and Morris say the manager would have had to fight them to pull them from a shutout. But Odorizzi and Cahill are veteran starters with well-established histories as five-and-fly gues. They aren't 200-inning machines, as Blyleven and Morris were decades ago. 

Baldelli and Ausmus handled them properly. The difference is that Baldelli's bullpen got the job done on Monday (and Tuesday); Ausmus' did not.

3. Part of the bullpen meltdown for the Angels was Luke Bard. Bard was drafted and signed by the Twins out the the same draft in which they landed Byron Buxton and Jose Berrios; he was prominent in a group of college closers the Twins drafted that year (2012), many of whom the Twins sought to make starters.

Most of them washed out, although the Twins still have Tyler Duffey. Bard spent a lot of his time in the Twins system on the shelf, and even when healthy they showed little real interest in pushing him to the majors. The Angels took him in the Rule 5 draft last year and carried him for part of the season before returning him to the Twins; then they signed him as a minor league free agent.

He was hardly great Tuesday night -- four runs, all earned, in one inning -- and was charged with the loss. The Angels' defense did him no favors, but that was only part of the problem.

I would like him to make the Twins regret not giving him a major league opportunity. I doubt he will.

Contemplating Jake Odorizzi

Jake Odorizzi on Monday pitched the best game of his major league career to date.

That's a  subjective opinion, based on reasonably objective criteria and a little intuition. Some decades ago Bill James devised a metric he dubbed game score, to which the specifics can be found here.

Odorizzi's game score Monday was 79. He's had one better score, an 84, which also came against the Houston Astros -- but in 2014, when the Astros were bad. (Houston's DH that day was Jason Castro, and the cleanup hitter, Jon Singleton, was hitting .203.)

Whether or not Odorizzi has ever pitched better, he needed to be that good Monday, because today's Astros are a very good collection of hitters and the Twins got only one run themselves off Justin Verlander.

Part of my Monday morning post concerned Cleveland starter Carlos Carrasco's meltdown the previous night against the same Houston Astros lineup that Odorizzi dominated. Carrasco held Houston to one hit through six but couldn't get out of the seventh -- third time though the order. Odorizzi did get through the third time Monday night, and Rocco Baldelli pulled him before he had to try a fourth time.

Odorizzi's pitch count was still rather low (86), but that decision was driven by batters faced, not pitches.

Fortunately for my sensibilities, neither Bert Blyleven nor Jack Morris was in the TV booth. Justin Morneau was, and he understands the third-time-though-the-order concept.

Morneau surmised that this was a tough decision for Baldelli. I don't know that it was. He had a rested back of the bullpen, and he knows how his bosses expect him to handle Odorizzi. Had it been a 5-0 game rather than 1-0, maybe he lets Odorizzi keep going. But a one-run lead against this potent lineup, with Odorizzi's established history -- not a chance.

Baldelli had already gotten more out of his starter than he had a right to expect.

Babe Ruth's dead. Throw strikes.

Big picture: The Twins just finished a seven-game road trip that included five games without the DH (and without Nelson Cruz in the lineup) and emerged with a winning record. That's acceptable.

Big picture: They had a two-game series in New York facing Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard and emerged with a split. That's acceptable.

Small picture: Wednesday's loss feels inexcusable because the pitchers -- specifically starter Jake Odorizzi, rookie Andrew Vasquez and Trevor Hildenberger -- took the Twins out of it through their inability to throw strikes.

The bulk of the Twitter scorn seemed aimed at Vasquez, who was called up earlier Wednesday to replace Chase De Jong. (Once again proving that I don't understand the current front office, the Twins shipped De Jong back to Triple A after his Tuesday appearance.) Vasquez wasn't good, certainly (13 pitches for the lefty, just two strikes).

But the real villain was Odorizzi, who started the walk parade and concluded his outing by walking Syndergaard, the opposing pitcher.

Back in my youth, I read something that categorized a bases-loaded walk as a mental mistake on the basis that a major league pitcher should always be able to throw a strike. I've come to realize that that is not necessarily the case -- Jim Palmer has spent about three decades bragging that he never allowed a grand slam but conceding that he did issue some bases-loaded walks -- but walking the opposing pitcher, at least if it's not Shohei Ohtani, probably is a mental error.

My hope for Odorizzi -- who is a significant part of the Twins plans for the season -- and Vasquez -- who isn't -- is that this fiasco doesn't get into their heads. My fear, particularly with Odorizzi, is that it already has. He walked three of the seven men he faced in his previous start, he walked three in a row to finish this one, he tried mightily to throw a wild pitch and was saved on that by some sloppy baserunning by the Mets.

A case of Steve Blass Disease would be a big problem in the big picture.

Contemplating Jake Odorizzi

Jake Odorizzi came five outs shy of a no-hitter Wednesday night, and we can expect Dick Bremer to make a big deal in coming days about the fact that this performance came against the Yankees.

Setting aside the mystery of why the Yankees have so dominated the Twins for so long, let's get this straight: The Yankees hit a lot of home runs (they lead the American League in that department), they draw a lot of walks (they lead in that department) and they score a lot of runs (they're second in that department, to the Red Sox). They aren't a great team at hitting for average, and that makes them somewhat vulnerable to being no-hit.

They didn't get no-hit, of course. They got one hit, a double that not only broke up the no-hitter but plated a run and drove Odorizzi from the game with a season-high (and career-high matching) 120 pitches.

Bert Blyleven wasn't doing this game, but I'm sure his reaction to Odorizzi throwing 120 pitches is a sarcastic: And his arm didn't fall off. But the last time (only) time Odorizzi threw 120 pitches -- June 3, 2016 for Tampa Bay against the Twins -- he followed that performance with a month in which his ERA rose by a run. I expect he will have rough outings the rest of the way.

Odorizzi made it clear after the game that, had his no-hitter remained intact, he expected to be allowed to pursue it. And given that the Twins aren't going to be in the playoffs and have plenty of starting options for what remains of the season, I'm fine with giving him the chance to make a little history.

2018 has been the worst, at least at a quick reading of his stat lines, of Odorizzi's five seasons in a major league rotation -- highest ERA, worst winning percentage, second-worst walk rate, second worst walk/strikeout ratio. He started on Opening Day, but that was a fluky miscast born of Ervin Santana's injury and the desire to set up Jose Berrios to pitch in the Puerto Rico series. Odorizzi has, in truth, been basically what we should have expected: A middle-to-back-of-the-rotation arm who has made 30 starts. Those don't grow on trees.

Odorizzi has another year left on his contract. A month ago I figured that the Twins might do well to clear him out to make room in the rotation for a younger arm with more upside. After watching Kohl Stewart and Stephen Gonsalves splutter, I'm less inclined to argue for pushing him aside.

The Twins figure to go into the offseason with a rotation foundation of Berrios, Kyle Gibson (also with one more year of control) and Odorizzi. That leaves two slots to fill, either internally or from the outside. They might improve the team by trading Odorizzi, but that would be because of what they get in return, not through the process of addition by subtraction.

Yu don't say

The Twins traded this year for veteran starter Jack Odorizzi ($6.3 million this year, arbitation eligible next year, free agent after that) and signed, during spring training, veteran starter Lance Lynn ($12 million, traded last month the the Yankees).

These moves didn't work as well as the Twins expected and hoped. It could have been worse.

The Twins wanted to spend that money on Yu Darvish. He signed instead with the Chicago Cubs -- six years, $126 million.

In year one of that contract, Darvish went 1-3, 4.95 in eight starts, and those numbers won't change. The Cubs announced Tuesday that he has a stress reaction in his elbow and is done for the season.

Odorizzi and Lynn at least were able to take the ball and make their starts.

Notes from the weekend

I'm not a neurologist who has examined Joe Mauer. Even if I were a neurologist who has examined Joe Mauer, I doubt I would have a definitive opinion on what the return of "concussion-like symptoms" means for his future.

But clearly this is not a positive development for him, or for the team. He left Friday's game early and went on the disabled list Saturday. (Technical note: He went on the 10-day DL, and I wonder if they abolished the seven-day concussion DL when the 10-day DL came into being.) All we know for sure is he won't play for more than a week.

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The Twins finally played a clean game Sunday. And they won. What a novelty.

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I am amused by the reaction to Tampa Bay's newest pitching innovation: The one-inning starter.

The Ray's rotation had left-hander Ryan Yarbourgh scheduled for Saturday's game at Anaheim, but manager Kevin Cash announced earlier in the week that he would open the game with veteran reliever Sergio Romo, who once closed for a team that won the World Series and had never started a game in his career. The rationale: The Angels don't have a left-handed bat in the top half of their lineup, so the right-handed Romo can deal with the Mike Trouts and Justin Uptons in the first inning and Yarbourgh can have a slightly easier time of it when he came in in the second.

I heard somebody, I'm not sure who, on MLB Radio ranting about this. What sabermetrics, what analytics, tell you that a guy who's never started in his life is a better matchup?

Hey, it's one inning of pitching. One inning at a time is what Romo has done in the majors for 11 years. First inning, sixth inning, ninth inning -- it's all short stints for him.

He struck out the side in the first. Yarbourgh entered to start the second inning and went 6.1 innings, his longest outing of the season. (And got the W.)

And on Sunday, Romo started again. This time Cash stretched him out to 1.1 innings. The Angels won Sunday -- it was Shohei Ohtani's day to pitch, after all -- but Romo gave them another shutout inning at the start of the game.

After which Angels infielder Zach Cozart complained that using Romo this way was "bad for baseball." Seriously.

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Cozart's may not have been the single silliest utterance of the weekend, however. I bow in this regard to the Dutch Master of old-school, Bert Blyleven, who complained mightly during Sunday's telecast about the pulling of Jake Odorizzi in the sixth inning. At one point he declared that Odorizzi is like Justin Verlander and capable of going 120 pitches.

What Odorizzi has in common with Verlander is that they're right-handed and have spent their entire major league careers in the American League. Verlander has 10 seasons with more innings than Odorizzi's career high. Odorizzi has thrown 120 pitches (his career high) exactly once, in 2016.

Odorizzi is a good major league starter. He's not Verlander. It insults the listeners' intelligence to pretend they are equivalent pitchers. We were all better off when Blyleven was on his extended break from the booth.

Hello, Odorizzi

The Twins on Saturday traded for Jake Odorizzi, an established right-handed starter, from Tampa Bay.

A bit less than a month ago I tried to imagine what Odorizzi would cost the Twins. I would have massively overpaid. So I have to like this trade for the Twins.

The Twins get two years of Odorizzi for a Class A shortstop, Jeramine Palacios. Palacios had a big first half at Cedar Rapids and was markedly less productive at the plate after moving up to Fort Myers. Fort Myers is a more difficult environment for hitters than CR, but not enough to account for the dropoff. 

Palacios was the fourth-rated shortstop prospect in the Twins organization (behind Royce Lewis, Nick Gordon and Wander Javier), so the Twins were dealing from depth here. I don't have an objective reason to believe this, but I actually think Palacios has a better shot at being a regular major league infielder than Gordon does.

So, the Twins rotation now has Jose Berrios,Odorizzi and Kyle Gibson as locks, Ervin Santana recovering from his finger surgery and returning probably in May, and one or one-and-half open slots to open the season, with Aldaberto Mejia and Anibel Sanchez probably the front runners for those places.

That's not a top-shelf rotation. But it's better than the rotation the Twins used most of last season.