MINNEAPOLIS _ Martin Perez discovered a cut fastball that produced a 10-win season in 2019, making him a bargain at the $3.5 million he accepted from the Twins last spring.
But doubling that salary? That's not such a good deal, the Twins have decided.
Minnesota will pay the veteran lefthander a $500,000 buyout rather than trigger his $7.5 million option for 2020, the team informed Perez on Monday. In doing so, the Twins made Perez a free agent, the fourth member of last season's five-man rotation to be available on the open market.
Of those four, the Twins made it clear they especially want Jake Odorizzi to return, extending him the $17.8 million one-year qualifying offer, which the veteran righthander is expected to decline, preferring to shop for a multiyear contract instead. By making the offer, the Twins would receive a draft pick in compensation should Odorizzi sign elsewhere this winter.
Odorizzi has 10 days to accept or decline the offer.
The Twins' other free agents _ pitchers Kyle Gibson, Michael Pineda and Sergei Romo, plus catcher Jason Castro and second baseman Jonathan Schoop _ were not extended the qualifying offer, and the Twins will receive no compensation if they depart.
The team formally picked up designated hitter Nelson Cruz's $12 million option for 2020, a move they'd indicated was coming.
Free agency officially began on Monday, and Odorizzi, who enjoyed the best season of his career in 2019, is expected to receive offers from several suitors. The 29-year-old righthander, acquired in a trade with Tampa Bay before the 2018 season, went 15-7 with a 3.51 ERA, and struck out a career-high 178 batters in 159 innings.
Pineda was considered a candidate for the qualifying offer, too, though his next contract comes with an extra hurdle: The righthander must sit out the first 39 games of the 2020 season to fulfill his 60-game suspension for failing a test for performance-enhancing drugs. Pineda cannot return until roughly May 10, costing him about one-fourth of his salary next year.
Like the others, Perez could still sign with the Twins for next season. The former Rangers lefty was brilliant early in the season, utilizing the new cutter to produce a 7-1 start and 2.95 ERA in his first 11 appearances. But Perez faltered as the summer went on, and though he earned an extra $400,000 for reaching innings-based incentives, he posted a 6.29 ERA over his final 21 starts and was left off the Twins' playoff roster.
Kohl Stewart, the righthander who was the Twins' first-round pick in 2013, also became a free agent when the Twins outrighted him off their roster. Stewart, 24, has a 4.79 ERA in 17 major league appearances, six of them starts.
And lefthander Stephen Gonsalves, a fourth-round pick in that same 2013 draft, was claimed off waivers by the Mets, the team announced. Gonsalves, the Twins' minor league pitcher of the year in 2016, posted a 6.57 ERA in seven big-league games in 2018, then missed nearly all of the 2019 season with an elbow injury.
The Twins now have 31 players on their 40-man roster.
