Twins Reach Agreement With Mike Pelfrey

The Minnesota Twins and Mike Pelfrey agreed to a two-year deal worth $11 million, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Pelfrey’s deal contains an additional $3.5 million in performance incentives. With the earlier signings of Phil Hughes and Ricky Nolasco, this is the third free agent pitcher signing the Twins have made.

Pelfrey, who will turn 30 in January, is coming off a difficult season. He posted a 5.19 ERA in 152.2 innings, as opposing hitters batted .296 against Pelfrey. While he led the Twins’ starting rotation in strikeout rate, that wasn’t saying much as the group managed the worst strikeout rate relative to the league average in MLB history.

Missing bats isn’t a strength of Pelfrey’s game. He has a career 13.2 percent strikeout rate, well below the major league average for starting pitchers. His career swinging strike rate of 5.9 percent is also well below average.

What Pelfrey does do well is generate groundballs. He throws a heavy sinker that sits at 92-93. Though his groundball rate dropped in 2013, he owns a career groundball rate of 47.8 percent. Against righthanded hitters, that jumps to 53.3 percent. This has helped him avoid surrendering home runs. His career mark of 0.71 HR/9 is one of the lowest among active starters.

Though his ERA was unsightly in 2013, other pitching metrics suggest Pelfrey ran into some bad luck. Due to his ability to avoid the long ball, his FIP was 3.99, right around the major league average. For his career, his FIP has only been four percent worse than the major league average. These numbers suggest that Pelfrey can be a viable back-end starter. He doesn’t have the upside of Hughes, but he should be able to eat some innings for the Twins.

The two-year contract for $11 million is likely to be considerably less than what Bronson Arroyo, another pitcher the Twins have been linked to, will command.