Several reports by national writers report that the twins agreed to an agreement with veteran left-handed pitcher JA Happ.
Image courtesy of Brad Penner, USA Today
On Wednesday afternoon, the twins returned to the news, making a second move in the major league. The team added a veteran with a lot of experience and a lot of success.
Happ turned 38 in October. 2021 will be his 15th season in the major leagues. In 2020, he scored 2 to 2 with an ERA of 3.47 in nine games for the Yankees. In 49 1/3 innings, he walked 15 and hit 42 hitters. He has had an ERA below 4 in five of the past six seasons.
According to Jon Heyman, the one-year deal will be worth $ 8 million.
The agreement leaves the twins with a rotation that consists of:
Kenta Maeda
Jose Berrios
Michael Pineda
JA Happ
Randy Dobnak
Devin Smeltzer and Lewis Thorpe are still on the scene, and Jordan Balazovic, Jhoan Duran and perhaps Dakota Chalmers will also see the time in 2021.
This shouldn’t be such a surprise, as the twins were interested in Happ the last time he was a free agent. Tom Froemming of Twins Daily discovered this interesting information about Happ last week:
This information is available at Happ’s Baseball Savant page. Happ was third in the league in HR-xHR with 2.9 in 2020 and was second in that statistic with 9.3 in 2019. He will certainly embrace a change of scenery.
Last season, Happ launched his 91 mph fastball 66% of the time, his slider 19% of the time and his shift 14% of the time. It will also mix in a curved ball sparingly. Information below also via Baseball Savant.
The $ 8 million deal corresponds to what Toronto signed with Robbie Ray earlier this season. MLB Trade Rumors had Happ as its 41st ranked free agent and predicted he would get a $ 6 million contract for a year. FanGraphs placed him in 45th place and Craig Edwards predicted that he would get exactly that deal.
Happ had a $ 17 million option that would have been triggered if he had made 10 games or thrown 61 1/3 innings last season. The Yankees made sure he only made nine games, and Happ didn’t like that much.
(Tom Froemming also contributed to this article)
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