Sources: Twins find their Graterol-for-Maeda trade after all, with a slight twist
Just when it looked like their part in the Mookie Betts mega-deal was finished, the Twins stayed in and acquired starting pitcher Kenta Maeda from the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday night, with only a slight twist to the original plan.
A little more than 24 hours after the three-team trade with Los Angeles and the Boston Red Sox fell apart, the Twins reached agreement on a straight trade that will send pitching prospect Brusdar Graterol, a Comp B pick in the 2020 draft and, reportedly, minor-leaguer Luke Raley to the Dodgers in exchange for Maeda, $10 million in cash and a prospect to be named. The Dodgers then agreed to trade several prospects to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for Betts and David Price and cash.
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The deal, first reported by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, is pending physicals, according to multiple club sources.
As originally designed when the deal was first agreed upon on Tuesday, the Twins intended to trade Graterol to Boston along with a Dodgers prospect as part of a move that resulted in Betts, Price and cash going to Los Angeles with Maeda coming to the Twins. But that move hit a serious snag, threatening to derail the whole series of trades, when Boston had issues with Graterol’s medical reports.
Graterol, who sat out the 2016 season after undergoing reconstructive elbow surgery, missed part of the 2019 season with a right shoulder impingement. Despite several days spent negotiating additional compensation, with a number of potential prospects discussed, talks between the Twins and Red Sox reached an impasse on Saturday afternoon. One report Saturday suggested Boston requested the Twins add an extra top-10 prospect to the deal along with Graterol, whom MLB listed as Minnesota’s third-best minor leaguer and its top pitching prospect. The same report suggested the Twins, who boast a top-10 farm system, were unwilling to budge.
The lengthy delay in the trade being finalized drew the ire of not only Graterol’s agent, Scott Boras, but also earned the teams a public reprimand from MLB Players’ Association boss Tony Clark.
Rather than let the groundwork that had been laid fall apart, the Twins and Dodgers began to work on a separate deal that would send Graterol and pieces to Los Angeles for Maeda, cash and pieces. The Twins are including the 67th overall pick of the 2020 draft and a minor-leaguer who falls just outside of their top 30 prospects. Meanwhile, Los Angeles included money and a low-level prospect still to be named. The two sides agreed to their end of the trade early Sunday, which allowed Los Angeles to readjust its deal with Boston for Betts and Price, the 2012 American League Cy Young Award winner.
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While they absolutely wanted to add Maeda to their rotation, the Twins felt they had the least to lose in a trade that brought the 2018 American League Most Valuable Player to Los Angeles and also gave Boston the salary relief it desired. The deal will bring the Red Sox under the luxury tax penalty as it sheds Betts’ $27 million salary as well as half of the $96 million owed to Price over the next three seasons.
As the Twins saw it, they were in a win-win situation. If they simply walked away from the deal, they’d retain Graterol, a flame-throwing pitcher that teammates have nicknamed “The Human Bazooka” who eventually would help the club out of the bullpen this season as it attempts to repeat as AL Central champs. But because the club is also very happy with its bullpen depth, the Twins thought if they continued to negotiate what they believed was a fair deal, they’d acquire Maeda, an experienced right-handed starter who significantly bolsters the starting rotation.

The move is in alignment with how the rest of the offseason played out for the Twins, who have been in win-now mode since the outset. Although their plan didn’t pay off until they signed Josh Donaldson last month to the biggest free-agent contract in club history, the Twins have tried to push the envelope since they were eliminated from the playoffs in early October. The Twins attempted to sign Zack Wheeler in November only to eventually lose out as he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies. Then they began their five-week-long pursuit of Donaldson, outlasting the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals for the 2015 AL MVP winner. Along the way, they added complementary pieces in free agents Alex Avila, Tyler Clippard, Homer Bailey and Rich Hill while re-signing Sergio Romo, Jake Odorizzi and Michael Pineda.
Maeda, 31, has averaged 9.79 strikeouts per nine innings with a 3.87 ERA, a 3.71 Fielding Independent Pitching and produced 9.6 Wins Above Replacement over four seasons, according to Fangraphs.
Not only has Maeda’s three-pitch mix (four-seam fastball, slider and changeup) resulted in 641 strikeouts in 589 career innings, it also has produced a lot of weak contact when hitters have managed to put the bat on the ball. According to Statcast, Maeda’s hard-hit rate and average exit velocity were the fourth-lowest in the majors in 2019 among all pitchers with 250 or more batted-ball events. In 2018, Maeda had the 36th-lowest hard-hit rate and 24th-lowest average exit velocity. Back in 2017, his hard-hit rate was the 10th-lowest and Maeda’s average exit velocity was the 18th-lowest.
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Another plus for the Twins is that Maeda is signed for four seasons at a $3 million base salary. Though the pitcher’s contract includes more than $6.5 million in performance bonuses and an annual $150,000 Opening Day roster bonus, the Twins are acquiring a pitcher who has averaged 2.4 f-WAR the past four seasons at a reasonable rate, which will prove significant as a number of the team’s core players sign more lucrative deals in the next few years.
Adding Maeda to the rotation now means the Twins have three starting pitchers under contract for 2021, including José Berríos and Pineda. The Twins entered the 2020 offseason with four openings in their rotation. The club retained Pineda and free-agent pitcher Odorizzi before adding Bailey and Hill at the end of December.
But with Hill sidelined until the middle of the summer as he recovers from an elbow injury and Pineda to miss 39 games as he completes a 60-game suspension he earned in September 2019, the Twins planned to enter the season with a rotation featuring Berríos, Odorizzi, Bailey and two rookies. The addition of Maeda not only gives the Twins another mid-rotation starter, it allows the Twins to limit starts by inexperienced pitchers over at least the first quarter of the season.
With his electric arm, Graterol may well develop into the kind of player a team wishes it hadn’t traded, but Twins further addressed an area of need as they enter their win-now mode while still feeling comfortable with their bullpen as it’s currently projected. Not only does the team return Taylor Rogers, Trevor May and Tyler Duffey, the Twins re-signed Romo and added Clippard. Throw in a bunch of young arms including Zack Littell, Cody Stashak and Matt Wisler and the Twins are comfortable moving forward even with Graterol in Los Angeles.
(Top photo of Kenta Maeda: Harry How / Getty Images)
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