There have been rumors swirling around the Minnesota Twins for a while now regarding possible trades, and one of the biggest names involved has been starting pitcher Francisco Liriano. Liriano has been off and on in his short career after a great rookie campaign, but has shown great stuff in the past few weeks to boost his stock.
Still, no trade has been made and no real solid rumors have even started regarding Liriano with only four days remaining until the MLB trade deadline hits on July 31.
According to an article by Sid Hartman of the Star Tribune, GM Terry Ryan has spoken to Liriano's agent about a possible move, but nothing has come up yet. There are plenty of reasons why they could move Liriano though, specifically his likely move to free agency at the end of the year:
The issue with Liriano is if the Twins do not trade him, there's a good chance he could leave through free agency after the season, and because baseball has changed how it awards compensation for departed free agents, the Twins would only get a draft pick if they offered him a contract of about $12 million for 2013.
"When a player gets to this point in his career and they're this close to free agency, I would say that the chances are that they would like to explore the free agency and the market and all of the things that come with free agency," Ryan said. "That's not unusual. When they get close to six years and they've gone this far without a multiyear [deal] then they might want to explore beyond it."
They still have four days to come up with something before the deadline hits, and they'll need to if they want to avoid losing Liriano for nothing after the season has ended.
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