Twins named potential landing spot for two top free agent pitchers

While the MLB season ended in September, the Minnesota Twins’ season was over long before that. The team zombie struggled over the course of the season, missing the playoffs after having a nearly 90 percent chance of making it, and being among the best teams in the American League.

All of that unraveled as a team held together by duct tape and gum faced the intense heat of a playoff race. The Twins weren’t a bad team over the summer, but injuries and poor play made the owners’ lack of investment in the roster even worse.

Maybe that will change this year.

The Twins are a historically frugal franchise, but they’ve been owned by the same family for four decades, and that’s about to change. The Pohlads put the Twins up for sale this fall, and while a buyer doesn’t appear to have been found yet, the hope is that it’s someone who actually cares enough to invest meaningfully in the team.

A change in ownership isn’t expected until sometime after the offseason unless things move incredibly quickly, but perhaps the Pohlads are more motivated to spend money knowing they won’t have to pay for the money in the future have to pay off.

If that happens, some of the early offseason predictions for the Twins could actually come true.

Twins are listed as potential landing spots for Yusei Kikuchi and Luis Severino

Bleacher Report looked at the top 10 pitchers headed to free agency, but apparently didn’t see how little the Twins are actually spending. Minnesota is listed as a potential landing spot for two top prospects: Houston’s Yusei Kikuchi and New York’s Luis Severino.

This isn’t the first time Minnesota has been linked to Kikuchi in some way. He was reportedly a trade deadline target before the Astros blew Toronto away with a huge offer. The Twins did well not to overpay to win, but their team paid the price for not having a front-line starter later in the season when the rotation collapsed.

If the Twins had acquired Kikuchi, their season might have been different.

Severino was on the radar as a potential free agent target last offseason, but we all know how that went. He signed a $13 million contract with the Mets, becoming one of a few mid-budget pitchers priced outside Minnesota’s frugal range.

That’s what it ultimately comes down to. Just like last year, Severino and Kikuchi make a lot of sense for a team that wants to spend $13 million on a starter and be competitive. Nothing the Pohlads have done suggests they are even remotely interested, and fans are preparing to once again watch the team make pennies instead of meaningfully adding to the roster.

While no one is expecting much in the way of free agency transactions this offseason, starting pitching is an area where the Twins may be able to get away with getting lean. The Twins have tremendous pitching depth, as shown by the performances of David Festa and Zebby Matthews last season. Marco Raya simmers beneath the surface, as do Andrew Morris and Cory Lewis.

It’s not a wise decision to give up and assume that young pitchers will make up for the shortfall, but it’s a strategy the Twins have been using for a long time. There’s a simple argument for spending some money now to match Kikuchi’s 5-1 record and 2.70 ERA or Severino’s 1.214 WHIP over 182 innings, but that’s exactly what a serious team would do.

There’s a chance that Minnesota will take action in a way they touted last year but never followed through on, but we’ve all been fooled before.

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