When the report broke that talks with the Marlins on Jesus Luzardo had hit a wall, I told some friends the guy I really wanted to see the Cubs pivot to was Pablo Lopez. I was kinda just having some fun, since it wasn’t at all clear whether the Twins would actually be shopping him, but I really do love the fit.
It wasn’t a post, however, until Jeff Passan wrote this: “The Twins have listened on right-hander Pablo Lopez, and if free agent pitching prices remain stratospheric, perhaps they’ll go beyond the listening stage.”
All right. Well, that’s a starting point. It’s an entree, at least.
Lopez, 28, took a couple years to find his footing in the big leagues, but once he did, he became a consistently solid, typically healthy starting pitcher (FanGraphs):
Lopez looked like he was really breaking out in 2023, and took a slight step back in 2024, which, hey, maybe makes him a little more available. His peripherals have generally always been better than his results, though, and in acquiring a guy like Lopez, you’d hope you could figure out how to make them better align. The swing-and-miss stuff is legit, he doesn’t walk guys, and he manages contact reasonably well in the process. Since 2021, Lopez’s K% minus BB% is 20th best in baseball, just behind guys like Blake Snell and Freddy Peralta, and just ahead of guys like Dylan Cease and George Kirby.
Lopez is also a hard-throwing (95 mph) righty, whose style does not really match anyone else in the current Cubs rotation. You want good pitchers more than anything else, but you do want different types of looks for the opposing hitters in a series.
The Twins signed Lopez to a four-year, $73.5 million deal ahead of the 2024 season, and while that deal by no means now looks like a bad one, it’s sitting large on the team’s books. The deal was heavily backloaded, with actual cash in 2024 at just $8.25 million, so now Lopez is owed $21.75 million each of the next three years.
Reports have consistently indicated that the Twins’ current payroll projection (~$142 million) is above their budget ($130 million), meaning that they have to move out salary just to stay within the budget, much less to try to improve the team. Lopez is an awesome pitcher and nothing close to a salary dump, but if moving him allowed the Twins to hit their payroll number while also returning a significant package of young players and/or prospects, might that be the best approach they could hope for? None of the other salary-paring moves available to the Twins are particularly appealing or realistic. Something has to give.
And if the Cubs prefer to go the trade route to acquire an impactful starting pitcher rather than what’s left of free agency, this might be worth pursuing.
How much would you give up to get Lopez on a three-year, $65.25 million deal? Given his health and consistent success, I expect the price tag would probably be a bit more than what we were hearing bandied about for Jesus Luzardo, who had two years of arbitration remaining. But that cost difference is so large that perhaps the price wouldn’t actually be THAT much more. It’s definitely worth a phone call, especially now that the Cubs have even more payroll available following the Cody Bellinger trade.
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