twins, Marilyn approaches a trade involving Aries, Lopez

2:09 PM: Outfielder Byron Chorio He is the third player to head to Minnesota, Mesh tweets. American baseball is ranked 29th in the Miami system.

1:57 pm: Put down the possibilities Jose Salas Also heading to Minnesota, reports Craig Mish from SportsGrid and the Miami Herald. He is currently ranked fourth among Miami prospects in Baseball America and fifth in MLB.com.

1:50 pm: The Twins and the Marlins agree to a trade serve player Louis Araz To Miami and right Pablo Lopez to minnesota, reports ESPN’s Jeff Bassin. It’s not a one-to-one swap and it will include two additional players, Ken Rosenthal and Dan Hayes of The Athletic, who first said the deal was in full swing, reported. John Heyman from the New York Post Tweets That the Twins will get two prospects from Miami in addition to Lopez.

The core of the trade would, for immediate purposes, see the Twins trade three-year-old Arraez, the American League champion, for two-season Lopez, who would immediately be an upgrade to their rotation. The 26-year-old Lopez has become a major league starter over the past three seasons, hitting a 3.52 ERA, a strike rate of 25%, a walk rate of 7%, and a ground ball average of 47.4% in 340 innings pitched.

Lopez has dealt with a few injuries in his career, landing three times on the injured list due to a shoulder strain. The most recent of those three injuries came in the summer of 2021 and wiped out more than two months of Lopez’s season, but he was injury-free in 2022 when he pitched 180 innings over 32 matches. Last year’s performance netted Lopez a $5.45 million salary that’s still affordable. He will get an additional arbitration increase in the 2023-24 season before he reaches free agency after the 2024 campaign – barring the extension, of course.

Newly acquired Lopez will step into the Twins’ rotation that also includes Sonny GrayAnd Joe Ryan And Tyler Mahley. It is possible that Lopez’s acquisition will pay off Kent Maeda in the hitting role after missing the entire 2022 season in the wake of internal brace surgery on his right elbow in September 2021. If the team wants to return Maeda to the starting role in which he thrived in 2020, when he was runner-up in the MLS Cy Young voting, 27 years old Billy Uber The most likely minus will be from junior employees. Alternatively, the Twins can look to deploy a six-man rotation that will help them manage Maeda’s workload and hopefully lead to better health among a rookie staff that has been hampered by injury overall throughout the 2022 season.

On the other side of the swap, the Marlins will get a left-handed batter to help balance out the right-handed lineup. Aries brings to Miami perhaps the most flawless at-bat skills in Major League Baseball, having fielded in just 8.3% of his plate appearances since debuting as a 22-year-old in 2019. He doesn’t particularly walk. High clip, but Aries’ mark of 8.7% is still higher than his offensive strike rate and last season’s league average of 8.2%.

Arraez, 26 in April, hits .316/.375/.420 with eight home runs in 2022 and he’s hitting for a lifetime of .314/.374/.410 in the Major Leagues. His communication skills are second to none and will likely always allow him to hit a high average, but the rest of his game is somewhat limited. Arraez lacks power, as evidenced by his career . 096 ISO (batting minus batting average), and below-average sprint speed, per Statcast.

While he debuted as a second baseman, defensive struggles left Aries as something of a nomad. He bounced between second base, first base, third base and left field, putting up lackluster defensive scores at each of those points other than first base. This may be his new position in Miami, given the presence Jazz Chisholm Jr. In second base and Jean Segura At third base. If that is indeed the case, the 2022 All-Star Jarrett Cooper He’ll likely slip into the DH role – if he doesn’t trade himself, given his status as a suspended free agent after the season – and thus slip Jorge Soler Back abroad.

Like Lopez, Arraez has some troubling injury issues on his resume. A torn anterior cruciate ligament during his prospective days set the 2017 season on fire, and he’s been on the injured list three times since Opening Day 2020 due to knee issues as well. Aries also had a 7-day Illinois concussion week in 2021 and missed nearly three weeks of that season with a shoulder strain.

More is coming.