Twins' Derek Falvey: 'No setbacks, no concern' for Alex Kirilloff's injury

With spring training getting starting this week, that means updates are rolling in on various players and their health, or lack thereof, as well as details on teams and their plans for the season ahead. 

Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey provided a couple of updates to reporters, including Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com (Twitter links).

“No setbacks, no concern,” Falvey said of first baseman/outfielder Alex Kirilloff. “AK has been in a great spot. Our strength guys said [the wrist is] probably in as good of a spot as they’ve seen him coming into camp, where he’s at. The early returns on swinging are very positive.”

The health of Kirilloff’s right wrist has been an ongoing concern for the past couple of years, seemingly preventing him from reaching his potential. 

Ranked as one of the top prospects in the game as he was coming up through the minors, he has thus far hit .251/.295/.398 for a wRC+ of 91 in the majors. That’s come in 387 plate appearances over the past two seasons, each of which ended in wrist surgery for Kirilloff.

The club has plenty of outfielders but it seems Kirilloff has a path to regular playing time at first base. The Twins declined an option on Miguel Sanó and traded Luis Arraez to the Marlins, in addition to trading Gio Urshela to the Angels in order to have José Miranda take over at third base. 

Those moves have left Kirilloff atop the depth chart at the cold corner and the club will be hoping that better health can help him produce at a level more like his minor league work. Since reaching Double-A in 2019, he’s hit .305/.378/.484 at the top two levels of the minor leagues for a wRC+ of 143.

Turning to the pitching staff, the club had some success turning a starter into a reliever last year with Griffin Jax. He had mostly started coming into last year but worked exclusively in relief in 2022. 

He ended up posting a 3.36 ERA over 65 appearances with a 26.9% strikeout rate, 6.9% walk rate and 47.3% ground ball rate. 

However, no such plans are currently in place for other members of the staff right now, with Falvey stating that pitchers like Josh Winder and Cole Sands will be built up as starters this spring.

The Twins seem to have a strong rotation on paper, with Pablo López, Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan, Kenta Maeda and Tyler Mahle likely taking the top five spots, with Chris Paddack potentially returning from Tommy John surgery and joining them at some point as well. 

That will leave pitchers like Sands, Winder, Bailey Ober and others likely squeezed down to Triple-A. Though that’s plenty of arms in theory, most of them have injury concerns. 

Maeda missed all of 2022 while recovery from an internal brace procedure and each of Gray, Ryan and Mahle dealt with various injuries that kept them below 150 innings on the year. 

López got to 180 frames last year but he’s been hampered by his health in the past, never previously reaching 115 innings in a major league season.

With all of those question marks, it makes sense that the club would want to maintain some starting depth as they plan out the season ahead, especially after those injuries seemed to play a role in the club fading in the second half last year. 

Winder posted a 4.70 ERA in his first 67 MLB innings last year but with a subpar 16.4% strikeout rate. Sands, meanwhile, had a 5.87 ERA in his debut last year but in a smaller sample of 30 2/3 innings. Since they both have options, they can head to Triple-A and wait for their next opportunity to arise.

Turning to the bigger picture, Dan Hayes of The Athletic recently spoke to Joe Pohlad, who is taking on a more meaningful role with the club these days. It was reported in November that club chairman Jim Pohlad would be ceding responsibilities to his nephew Joe going forward. 

Some have wondered if that switch would lead to changes in the ways the team is run, with the younger Pohlad perhaps giving a small bit of insight into that. 

“I think that there are a number of factors that you need to consider,” Pohlad said in response to a question about the club’s payroll getting into the $180-200M range. “I don’t think something like that is ever out of the question. I really don’t.”

The Twins have yet to get near that level of spending, with their franchise high payroll being last year’s $134M figure, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. It seems likely that they will set a new record this year, with Roster Resource currently pegging their spending at $154M. That’s a nice jump but it would still require another one to get into that proposed range. 

Despite generally being in the middle of the pack in terms of spending, the club has made some surprising splashes of late, including giving a huge extension to Byron Buxton and twice being the surprising victors of the Carlos Correa free agent frenzy. 

Though it doesn’t seem like there are any imminent plans to hit the gas pedal and really ramp up spending, it appears that there’s at least some hope for more aggression going forward.