The Minnesota Twins essentially laundered Isiah Kiner-Falefa over the weekend, a la Jaime García, and unloaded the Josh Donaldson contract. However, it overshadowed Minnesota’s trade with the Cincinnati Reds, which initially brought an excitement that the fan base has been clamoring for ever since baseball bloggers were buying Beanie Babies.
The Twins acquired a bona fide ace in right-hander Sonny Gray. The 32-year-old veteran has one year left on his contract, plus a reasonable $12 million club option for the 2023 season. Gray instantly becomes the team’s best starting pitcher, at least for now. More on that later.
The Kiner-Falefa trade brought some fuel to the fire that is the never-ending debate over whether the Twins are rebuilding, retooling, or competing in the short term. The Gray swap poured cold water on that blaze faster than a Twitter troll can say “Cheap Pohlads.” Gray is a steady innings-eater who will be desperately needed as Minnesota’s pitching staff continues to readjust their workloads post-pandemic. He’s the kind of pitcher that fans want, and he has a chance to be a front-line starter that the team’s offensive core deserves. The Twins lineup has been viewed as closer to a competing product than the team’s pitching staff, but Gray’s arrival closes the gap by a step.
After the Twins traded rotation-stalwart José Berríos last season, there has been a depressing absence in that sweet spot between staff ace and a really good No. 2 starter in the Twins rotation. Gray fills that hole rather nicely.
Sure, Gray’s fastball has lost some giddy-up in recent years. While the velocity on his fastball was in just the 25th percentile last year, its spin rate was in the 82nd percentile. Gray still manages to use it deceptively, and he pairs it with his plus slider to get outs and induce weak contact. Over the last three seasons, opponents have a Well-Hit average (exit velocity of 95 MPH+) of just .169 on Gray’s fastballs, good for 10th-best among qualified pitchers according to Inside Edge.
His high-spin slider has similar results. Opponents only have a .056 Well-Hit average on those offerings since 2019, by far the best in MLB in that span. Over the last three years, his slider has averaged 2776.4 RPM, sixth-highest in MLB. That puts him ahead of notable aces such as Gerrit Cole, Yu Darvish, and future Hall of Famers Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander. Clearly, the Twins aren’t too concerned about a decline in velocity just yet.
On the surface, Gray’s 2021 campaign looks mediocre. A 31-year-old with a 4.19 ERA in only 26 starts is hardly anything to write home about. But a major portion of the damage done against him occurred in just two weeks of the season. A two-start stretch right out of the All-Star break where he gave up 13 earned runs, and the final two starts of the season where he gave up nine.
Outside of those two weeks, Gray had a stellar 3.10 ERA. Granted, the bad starts need to be counted just as much as the good stretches. But it’s a relief to see that he wasn’t as volatile as many pitchers with a 4.19 ERA could be. The Twins are going to need that stability and then some. They’re giving up a promising young arm in last year’s top draft pick, Chase Petty, who topped 100 MPH regularly as a high schooler last year. That’s a pretty penny for the chance at a workhorse for two seasons. They’re gambling that this horse can finish the race.
Another aspect of this move is that they still have the prospect capital, financial flexibility, and the vacancy in their rotation to make another big move if they want to. Like Berríos, Gray is a suitable top-dog in a pitching staff, but he’d make an even greater No. 2 starter. Imagine pairing him with another playoff-caliber difference-maker atop the starting rotation. The Twins have plenty of redundancies in their offensive depth chart, making valuable players such as Max Kepler, Luis Arraez, Trevor Larnach, and Alex Kirilloff expendable. They also have a collection of intriguing pitching prospects in the high minors who other teams could pry away in the right deal.
Names like Frankie Montas and Sean Manaea of the Oakland A’s or Zac Gallen of the Arizona Diamondbacks make a ton of sense. Both teams could be looking to make a deal if they get big-name prospects and affordable established MLB contributors in return.
Regardless of what they do next, the Gray deal represents a fresh slab of meat for Twins Twitter to eat up for the time being. It won’t last forever, but it’s certainly welcome for a fan base that was starving for something big.
