Minnesota Twins Offseason What-If: Dallas Keuchel

Welcome back to our third and final Twins Offseason What-If, where we look at what could have been, if the Twins had been able to meet the demands of the off season’s biggest free agents who still hadn’t signed upon the opening of Spring Training.

After taking a look at Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, we now turn our eyes to lefty starting pitcher Dallas Keuchel, formerly of the Astros.

As is tradition, I will talk about the offseason I think would have happened if we had been able to sign Keuchel early in free agency, and then again what would happen if we were able to land him in Spring Training.

While doing so, I will refrain from making any additional transactions that I feel would be unrealistic. So the Twins won’t be signing Keuchel and Harper, and they won’t be signing Keuchel and then trading prospects Nick Gordon and Lamont Wade for Nolan Arenado.

So let’s get to it, shall we?

November 3rd, 2018: Minnesota Twins sign LHP Dallas Keuchel to 4-year, $90 million contract.

So far, the What-Ifs have been fairly simple: Bryce Harper and Manny Machado are both generational talents who are worth spending slightly over their listed demands in order to make the team better, even if it means having to shuffle some pieces around.

Dallas Keuchel presents far more of a challenge. You think it would be simple: the Twins need pitching and Keuchel is one of the best pitchers on the market. You pay him his cash and we win... right? Not so fast.

You see, Harper and Machado are some of the best 26 year olds to ever reach the free agent market, with skill sets that will age well into their megadeals. Dallas Keuchel, simply put, isn’t that at all.

Keuchel is a 31 year old pitcher. That is a relatively scary sentence in its own right before considering the amount of money and term involved. Even in an era where Charlie Morton improved while getting far into his 30s, the simple time-tested trend is that pitcher’s get worse as they age. The Morton comparison is actually worthwhile, because Morton has had something in his old age that doesn’t necessarily seem likely for Keuchel: increased velocity.

In his age 31 season with the Pirates, Morton threw 129 innings and averaged 92 MPH on his fastball, which isn’t miserable but is far from noteworthy. By 2017 Morton had caught on with the Astros and was averaging a career high 95 mph on his fastball, as a 33 year old. Last year, as a 34 year old, he increased that average to 95.7 mph. Prior to his 2016 season, his previous career high fastball velocity average had been 92.9, all the way back in 2010 as a 26 year old. With that added velocity, seemingly out of nowhere, Morton has had a well-known career renaissance.

Keuchel has always been a different sort of pitcher. When he won the Cy Young as a 27 year old in 2015, Keuchel averaged just 89.6 mph on his fastball. That average dropped a full mile-per-hour in an injury filled 2016, and in a full season in 2018 he was only able to get that average back up to 89.3 mph. With any significant decline in velocity over the course of the 4 year deal, Keuchel runs the risk of becoming a left-handed Jered Weaver.

Keuchel is, for all intents and purposes, an excellent crafty lefty, who has been able to succeed because of good control and a solid four pitch mix that induces ground balls. He threw all three of his offspeed pitches (slow slider at 78 mph, cutter at 86-87 mph, and a changeup around 78-79 mph) at least 12.9% of the time in 2018, and has never thrown his fastball more than 58% of the time, which came in his injury shortened season in 2017.

One comparison Keuchel does have with Morton is a recent injury history. After throwing 200 innings in 204 and 232 innings in 2015, Keuchel managed just 168 in 2016 and 145.2 innings in 2017. He was able to get back to the 200 inning plateau last year, which is realistically the only reason Keuchel was seeking (and may still get) a $20+ million AAV.

Rumor has it that for much of the offseason Keuchel (represented by Scott Boras) had been asking for a 5 year deal, which would ultimately take the pitcher through his age 35 season and be worth north of $100 million. Even with a Cy Young award hanging in his living room, I don’t think Keuchel has proven to be worth that. The injuries in recent seasons is one thing, the lack of velocity to begin with, along with no expectation of him improving it, is another.

And even if you are willing to wave those concerns off, I just don’t think his metrics prove he is an ace pitcher worthy of the contract he is asking for to pitch past his prime. Remember that Cy Young season in 2015? He earned a W/L record of 20-8 with a 2.48 ERA, throwing 232 innings with a 216-51 K/Rate. It was a 5.9 WAR season, according to Fangraphs, no doubt a good year worthy of the award. But that 8.4 K/9 ratio has been the best of his career and an outlier by a fairly significant margin. He posted a 7.7 K/9 in both of his injury-shorted seasons in 2016 and 2017, and despite pitching well in 2018 overall, he did so with a 6.7 K/9. That dip is not a great trend to be looking at going into a 4 or 5-year deal.

While Keuchel has always avoided the longball (1.1 HR/9 in 2016 has been his highest since 2013, and just 0.8 BB/9 in 2018), he has also benefited greatly from his team’s defense as a ground ball pitcher. Despite posting three seasons with an ERA below 3.00, he only has one season where his FIP and xFIP reach that same benchmark. Since 2016 Keuchel has posted FIP’s of 3.87, 3.79, and 3.69, respectively. To be fair those are consistently solid numbers and a positive trend, but is a very good #2/#3 pitcher worth $20 million at his age?

The deal I have signed Keuchel for is an honest compromise. I personally only value Keuchel highly on a 3 year deal, while he prefers a 5 year deal. So we compromise in the middle. We know he is aiming for around $20 million a year, so we bump his AAV to $22.5 million, which is higher than mlbtraderumors.com guessed for him earlier this offseason.

This is not my favorite deal as I think the AAV is too high, but with money to spend and a window opening, why not. Keuchel has proven to be a solid #2/#3 pitcher who has helped his team win a World Series. Keuchel is also a mid-rotation left-handed pitcher, which is something the Twins do not have in the present or in the near future, barring a significant breakout from one of their prospects. When offering this deal you obviously are banking on his velocity maintaining its current average and his K/9 rebounding. You know he will probably remain an elite groundball pitcher and since we are expecting our infield defense to improve over the time of his contract and help him out, it is a solid deal.

Additional Moves Made

The Twins sign Nelson Cruz to 1 year deal with team option.

The Twins sign Blake Parker and Martin Perez to add to the pitching staff.

The Twins sign Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler to 5 year extensions.

The Twins sign Marwin Gonzalez to 2 year deal.

The Twins sign Lucas Duda to a minor league deal.

The Twins sign Jonathan Schoop to a one year deal

The Twins pick CJ Cron off waivers and sign him to a 1 year contract.

Real Moves that change

None

Twins Opening Day Pitching Staff

Starting Rotation

SP - Dallas Keuchel (L)
SP - Jose Berrios (R)
SP - Kyle Gibson (R)
SP - Jake Odorizzi (R)
SP - Michael Pineda (R)

Bullpen

RP - Addison Reed (R)
RP - Trevor May (R)
RP - Taylor Rogers (L)
RP - Trevor Hildenberger (R)
RP - Blake Parker (R)
RP - Martin Perez (L)
RP - Fernando Romero (R)

Triple-A Callups

SP Kohl Stewart (R)
SP Stephen Gonsalves (L)
SP Zach Littell (R)
SP/RP Adelberto Mejia (L)
RP Jake Reed (R)
RP Gabriel Moya (L)

With the additions of Keuchel and the signings the Twins made in real life, their opening day salary is around $138 million, an increase from their franchise record 2017.

After signing Keuchel the Twins still add Blake Parker and Martin Perez to help their bullpen. Perez, a former starter, is another ground ball machine who increased his velocity dramatically in a limited number of relief appearances after struggling as a starter in 2018. Thinking he will benefit from a shift to the pen, Perez pairs with former prospect Fernando Romero to act as high-velocity long men who could, if need be, spot start for Michael Pineda, who is returning after multiple injuries in the last two seasons.

The signing of Keuchel pushes the rest of the Twins starters into the roles they actually are valuable in. While I think Berrios will eventually be a number one starter (more of a 1B than a true 1A Ace) he is still more of a #2 based on his past two seasons. Kyle Gibson’s career rebound still has him pegged as more of a #3 starter, and Jake Odorizzi is a very solid #4 pitcher for any team. Pineda is the wild card here, as a pitcher who might return to his former #2/#3 form but is just as likely to get injured again.

The Twins current pitching depth is built for that scenario, with Kohl Stewart, Stephen Gonsalves, and Adalberto Mejia waiting in the wings to take some starts if Pineda (or anyone else) is shelved. With Gibson, Odorizzi, and Pineda not currently signed for the 2020 season, the Twins will need someone to fill those holes even if they are able to get team-friendly extensions from 2 of those 3 starters, so giving those innings to the prospects is paramount.

I think the bullpen legitimately improves with the signing of Parker and Perez, as I think Perez could join Rogers as a shutdown lefty reliever. The bullpen is still banking on the return-to-form of Reed and Hildenberger, but I think the reliance on those two is lessened by moving Romero into the bullpen as he can join with May and Parker to be the go-to righties.

March 5th, 2019: Minnesota Twins sign LHP Dallas Keuchel to 3-year, $70 million contract.

After waiting to sign until deep into free agency, this is a deal I can get behind. I’ll even throw in a team option for a fourth year at $25 million with a $5 million opt out, to make it a $75 million guarantee and the potential to be a 4-year, $95 million deal.

There are a few things greasing the wheels on this one. After the Twins’ signing of Marwin Gonzalez (another Boras client), Keuchel took to twitter and made it clear just how much he likes his former teammate:

So the Twins currently roster one of Keuchel’s good friends who, as a utility infielder, has been pretty important to Keuchel’s personal success. Speaking of players who have impacted Keuchel’s personal success: former Astros’ catcher and current Twins’ catcher Jason Castro has caught more of Keuchel’s innings than any other catcher, and caught Keuchel often during his Cy Young winning season in 2015.

When you combine that personal factor with the Twins’ up-and-coming young roster in a weak division, you start to wonder if Scott Boras mentioned Keuchel to the Twins when we signed Gonzales.

LaVelle E. Neal III spoke to Derek Falvey, who made it clear that this was not the case:

But let’s be honest, Derek Falvey is as good at non-committal, tactful business statements as anyone in the league. As we get farther into spring training, you wonder if Keuchel will end up looking to a team with two of his most impactful former teammates.

Additional Moves Made

The Twins sign Nelson Cruz to 1 year deal with team option.

The Twins sign Blake Parker and Martin Perez to add to the pitching staff.

The Twins sign Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler to 5 year extensions.

The Twins sign Marwin Gonzalez to 2 year deal.

The Twins sign Lucas Duda to a minor league deal.

The Twins sign Jonathan Schoop to a one year deal

The Twins pick CJ Cron off waivers and sign him to a 1 year contract.

Real Moves that change

None

Twins Opening Day Pitching Staff

Starting Rotation

SP - Dallas Keuchel (L)
SP - Jose Berrios (R)
SP - Kyle Gibson (R)
SP - Jake Odorizzi (R)
SP - Michael Pineda (R)

Bullpen

RP - Addison Reed (R)
RP - Trevor May (R)
RP - Taylor Rogers (L)
RP - Trevor Hildenberger (R)
RP - Blake Parker (R)
RP - Martin Perez (L)
RP - Fernando Romero (R)

Triple-A Callups

SP Kohl Stewart (R)
SP Stephen Gonsalves (L)
SP Zach Littell (R)
SP/RP Adelberto Mejia (L)
RP Jake Reed (R)
RP Gabriel Moya (L)

We get the same pitching staff in both scenarios, with Tyler Duffey and Matt Magill becoming the odd-men-out. Both will require waivers to send to Triple-A and I would expect both of them to be taken off waivers but would not be surprised if they either fetch value in trade, or somehow sneak by and report to Rochester.

Thoughts

The Twins payroll currently stands around $116 million after the signing of Gonzales. If we were to sign Keuchel at the above deal, our payroll would increase to $140 million, a bit north of last’s year franchise record. That is a significant increase for a team whose fanbase bemoans every financial decision because of the “CHEAP POHLADZ!”

But signing Keuchel also says something interesting about our current prospect pitching depth. It basically says that Falvey and Levine don’t care enough about our Triple-A pitchers to give them the innings needed to prove their major league value. As it stands in real life, Stewart, Gonsalves, Mejia, Zack Littell, and even Lewis Thorpe stand to pitch significant innings if the comebacks of Pineda and Perez hit even the smallest of snags.

If you add Keuchel you are then banking on 30+ starts each from 4 of your 5 starters, while also making a legitimate push for the playoffs. The number of “lets see what you got” innings for those prospects drops by a large number, limiting the chance of those guys breaking out and proving they are major leaguers for the 2020 and 2021 seasons (when our window truly opens for sure) and beyond. It’s hard to have both an open window and a few unknowns in your starting rotation, even if you have a core of Berrios-Keuchel-Gibson (would need to be extended after this year) so getting those guys experience is actually pretty important unless you have no faith in them whatsoever.

The one reason I have been okay with not signing Keuchel is exactly that. Keuchel is 31, as is Kyle Gibson. Michael Pineda is 30, and Jake Odorizzi will turn 29 before the start of the regular season this year. If your rotation is going to be Berrios-Keuchel and then some combination of Gibson/Odorizzi/Pineda in your 3 and 4 spots for the 2020 and 2021 seasons, you are putting major emphasis on winning in those years. You are also keeping your pitching prospects from entrenching themselves in your rotation for 2022 and beyond, the years our uber-prospects Royce Lewis and Alex Kirilloff are supposed to be entering their primes.

So that is the gamble here. Do you increase your chances for the next three years or look for 3-5 years down the road. I know a lot of Twins fans have been waiting for our window to open for years, and would rather bet on this season and next instead of waiting for more prospects to step up. Let’s see what the Twins have to say about that before the end of spring training.