The Minnesota Twins have reportedly acquired right-handed starter Jake Odorizzi from the Tampa Bay Rays, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.
The Rays did also consummate a trade for Angels first baseman C.J. Cron earlier in the day on Saturday. The Rays also designated 2017 All-Star Corey Dickerson for assignment as well, which was a puzzling move when considering how good he was on the whole, and that they had just agreed to terms on a one-year deal worth just less than $6 million.
The Twins confirmed the trade not long after reports came out.
According to Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports, the return is Jermaine Palacios, a 21-year-old infielder who spent last year between Low-A Cedar Rapids and High-A Fort Myers, slashing .296/.333/.454. A large portion of that production came with Cedar Rapids, where he was about a year younger than the average Midwest League player. At that level, he hit .320/.362/.544 in 62 games. He also played exactly 62 games for Fort Myers, but hit just .269/.303/.359.
He was nearly three years younger than his average contemporary in the Florida State League, however.
Make sure to check out Eric Longenhagen’s report on Palacios for Fangraphs:
Palacios was exclusively a shortstop last season, but has played some third base (41 games and a little at second (four games) in his four years in the Twins farm system.
The Twins will have Odorizzi’s rights through the 2019 season, as he’s arbitration eligible after 2018 before he’ll hit the open market.
Odorizzi turns 28 at the end of spring training, but has already been traded three times in his young career. He was part of the mega-deal that sent Zack Greinke from the Kansas City Royals to the Milwaukee Brewers on Dec. 19, 2010, and nearly two years later he was traded in another huge deal, this time to the Rays with Wil Myers, Mike Montgomery and Patrick Leonard in exchange for Wade Davis and James Shields.
Odorizzi has a career 3.83 ERA (4.23 FIP), but is coming off the worst season of his big-league career. Fangraphs pegged him as exactly a zero-win pitcher last year, as his 4.14 ERA was bogged down by a FIP of 5.43. The primary issues for Odorizzi were that he allowed nearly two homers per nine innings (1.88) and had a BABIP of just .227.
With that said, he also battled health issues, as he pitched just 143.1 innings — his fewest in the big leagues since his 2013 debut with the Rays. Odorizzi suffered a right-foot contusion in early August, and also missed time earlier in the year with a lower back strain. He even missed time with a hamstring issue to begin the year as well.
If that wasn’t enough, he also was given intravenous fluids for a bout of food poisoning in late June as well.
Odorizzi won his arbitration case with the Rays on Thursday, and was awarded a $6.3 million salary instead of the $6.05 million the team was offering.
Where Odorizzi should benefit most is with his batted-ball mix. He’s got a career groundball rate of 33.7 percent — league average is typically around 45 percent — which means a ton of balls in the air. Prior to the last two years, he was very good at keeping the ball in the yard — 1.0 HR/9 from 2012-15, 1.6 the past two years — but at the very least, he’ll have the “Nothin’ Falls but Raindrops” crew chasing fly balls for him this time around.
With that said, the outfield crew in Tampa wasn’t that bad last year, either. Kevin Kiermaier missed some time due to injury, but had he been healthy, he’d have provided some serious competition for Byron Buxton for a Gold Glove.
Defensive metrics aren’t exactly ironclad, but the Rays had 46 defensive runs saved (second-best, behind the Red Sox) from their outfield last year. The Twins had 24 (fourth).
Odorizzi told Topkin at the beginning of February that he was surprised he was still with the Rays.
“Still happy to be here,” the right-handed said. “It’s just the waiting game. If something happens, sooner than later is always helpful for the player.”
Well, 13 days later, Odorizzi has gotten his wish.
Stay tuned to Zone Coverage for more updates as we get them.
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