Last month, the Minnesota Twins and Carlos Correa agreed to a 6-year deal. And, the Twins front office didn’t stop. Just a few days later, the Twins decided to make a trade with the Marlins.
In this trade, the Marlins acquired Luis Arraez from the Twins. Luis Arraez had a great 2022 season. Last year, he slashed .316/.375/.420 with 8 home runs and 49 RBI in 144 games. Arraez had 173 hits, which ranked 7th in the AL. He was selected to the All-Star game for the first time in his career.
When we look back at the Marlins lineup in 2022, Miguel Rojas was the only player to play 140+ games in 2022. Additionally, only two Marlins players had 100+ hits last season. Moreover, Arraez had an OPS of .795 in 2022. Last year, among those Marlins batters who played 100+ games. Garrett Cooper’s OPS of .752 was the best. In 2022, the Marlins’ OPS was .657, which ranked 27th among 30 MLB teams. Hence, adding Luis Arraez in the lineup will surely be helpful.
Meanwhile, the Twins acquired three players from the Marlins. In particular, the Twins will add Pablo Lopez in the rotation. Pablo Lopez made 32 starts for the Marlins in 2022, posting a 3.75 ERA and a 1.17 WHIP over a career-high 180 innings. Additionally, he threw a career-high 174 strikeouts last year. While looking back at the Twins rotation last year, Joe Ryan led the Twins with 147 innings in 2022. Moreover, in 2021, Jose Berrios led the Twins with 121.2 innings. We all know that the 2020 season was a shortened season. The last time that we saw a starter from the Twins throw 180+ innings was in 2019. Jose Berrios tossed 200.1 innings for the Twins in 2019. Hence, it’s been a while since the last Twins’ starter ate 180+ innings in a single season. Pablo Lopez tossed 180 innings last year and adding Pablo Lopez will surely help the Twins enhance the rotation. Furthermore, the Twins also got shortstop Jose Salas and outfielder Byron Chourio. These two players are still not entering their twenties, and it will be worth watching their development in the Twins farm system. In 2020, the Twins won the AL Central and the Marlins finished second in the NL East. They each clinched a playoff berth in the shortened 2020 season. However, over the last two seasons, they didn’t clinch a spot in the postseason. The Marlins didn’t reach 70 wins in each of the last 2 seasons. For the Marlins, if Luis Arraez stays healthy, he will definitely contribute to the Marlins lineup. However, the Marlins might still have a long way to go to get back to the postseason. At the same time, the Twins finished 3rd in the AL Central last year. The Twins won 78 games in 2022. Adding Pablo Lopez will enhance the Twins rotation. Moreover, after undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2021, Kenta Maeda is expected to return to the Twins rotation in 2023. It will be interesting to see whether the Twins rotation will perform better and help the team return to the postseason for the first time since 2020.
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