Starting pitching options for the Minnesota Twins

It’s no secret the Minnesota Twins need to improve their starting rotation. Let’s take a look at the available arms on the free agent market and what they could bring to the team!

The Minnesota Twins came into the 2017 season knowing their starting rotation was far from a finished product. Basically, apart from Ervin Santana, there was much uncertainty surrounding the rotation. A common theme over the past few seasons.

Yet, when you think of where the Twins ended up, you wonder how the Twins got to the playoffs given the instability in the rotation. For those of you who may have forgot, this is how the original starting rotation looked: Ervin Santana, Hector Santiago, Kyle Gibson, Phil Hughes, and Adalberto Mejía.

Of course, Santiago and Hughes didn’t even finish the year on the squad. In fact, they both went down with injuries in July. In the cases of Gibson and Mejía, they finished the year with Minnesota, but saw time out of the rotation due to inconsistency and injury. As a result, Twins fans didn’t see much of the original rotation, which is a bad sign for a team in most cases.

On a positive note though, Ervin Santana had arguably the best season of his career, while Jose Berríos returned to the rotation and showed fans why he was rated the top arm in the farm system. Behind those two though, there was a mix and match of starters. Outside of the ones already named, the likes of Bartolo Colón, Dillon Gee, Nik Turley, Aaron Slegers, and Felix Jorge saw starts as well as a few other prospects.

At season’s end, Gibson, Colón and Mejía provided stability in the backend of the rotation, but they aren’t exactly long-term solutions in the rotation outside of maybe Mejía. Although, if they plan on making a run in the playoffs, they’ll need far better arms in their rotation.

With that, there’s no doubt the Twins need to add a couple more reliable arms via free agency or trade. Not to mention, they could use a legitimate top of the rotation starter to take pressure off Santana and Berríos, who carried the load last season.

So, with that, let’s take a gander at the free agent options the Twins could look at in the offseason!