Reports indicate that the Minnesota Twins and Mike Pelfrey have agreed to a 2-year, 11 million deal with more than 3 million in incentives included. Jon Heyman broke the story a short while ago on Twitter.
Mike Pelfrey spent 2013 with the Minnesota Twins, his first season in the organization and pitching primarily against American League clubs.
It wasn't the type of year that Pelfrey or the Twins wanted, but considering that he was just coming off Tommy John Surgery--which saw him miss most of the 2012 season--some of his statistics--just one season since he opted to have his elbow surgically repaired--were somewhat impressive and may indicate a rebound in 2014.
He proved some skeptics wrong last season. Many doubted his goal to start the season on the active roster. He achieved this accomplishment, making his first start against the Detroit Tigers on the 4th of April, not allowing any earned runs trough 5.1 innings pitched. A fairly impressive debut for a pitcher coming off major injury against one of the best offenses in the league.
A number of the following starts for Pelfrey weren't as impressive, as he ended the season with a 5.19 ERA, 5.95 K/9, 3.12 BB/9, 43.2 GB% through 29 starts totaling 152.2 innings pitched.
On the positive side, Pelfrey showed considerable progression this past season in his task to return to form. In contrast to his below-average total K/9 in '13 of 5.95, Pelfrey averaged a much better rate of 7.2 after the All-Star break, also showing more life on his fastball. He averaged a total of 92.3 mph on his fastball in 2013, just 0.2 mph less than his career average.
Pelfrey was also relatively unlucky in 2013, seen by his 3.99 FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) and bloated .337 BABIP (Batting Average on Balls put In Play). Although his '13 BABIP is relatively high, he hasn't averaged a significantly lower BABIP for his career, which is .312; this connection may indicate more toward his style of pitching as a cause than a lack of luck.
The Twins hope that the progression Mike Pelfrey showed after the All-Star break translates into 2014 and continues beyond that, as their new multi-million dollar commitment to Pelfrey shows they have considerable expectations from him as a back-end starter.
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