Twins’ Chris Paddack might be ready to temper risk with new reward

FORT MYERS, FLA. - Chris Paddack played basketball and football as well as baseball at Cedar Park High School north of Austin, Texas.

“You must have been a quarterback in football,” this reporter responded.

Paddack smiled, and then told a story.

“No, I was actually a wide receiver,” he said. “We had some one-on-one drills in high school. The quarterback threw me a pass. I was wide open and I dropped it. I was ticked, picked it up and threw it back. A 50-yard bomb. The quarterback coach was like, ‘Come to quarterback camp tomorrow.’”

Paddack attended, but reading defenses wasn’t his jam.

“I wanted to throw Hail Marys every play,” Paddock said, laughing.

Paddack chose baseball for his life’s work. He held a football near the batting cages at Hammond Stadium on Wednesday as teammates warmed up for a game against the Red Sox. He throws it between starts because the arm motion is good for his pitching delivery.

He’s preparing for a season in which he hopes to remain in the rotation from start to finish. He wants this, and the Twins need this.

Paddack is the wild card among the Twins’ planned starting five, a rotation weakened by the departures of Sonny Gray and Kenta Maeda. Paddack is an unknown as he enters his third season with the Twins because he’s a member of the two-Tommy-John-surgeries club, one that includes Jacob deGrom, Mike Clevinger, Nathan Eovaldi and Shane McClanahan. While studies have shown that pitchers return to form 85% of the time following one TJ surgery, it drops to around 50% for two-timers.

The Twins will manage his innings this season by using off days, pushing him back in the rotation, skipping him in the rotation or even using a six-man rotation in the final months.

The football Paddack held the other day could be seen as a symbol of the deep shot the Twins took when trading for Paddack in 2022. Before the trade, the Mets reportedly discussed sending Dominic Smith to San Diego for Eric Hosmer, Emilio Pagán and Paddack. New York backed away once they saw Paddack’s medical information. The Twins looked over the same information and concluded that Paddack was worth the risk; they sent Taylor Rogers, Brent Rooker and cash to San Diego for Paddack, Emilio Pagan and minor-leaguer Brayan Medina.

I balked at the move based solely on another team having reservations about an injured pitcher. It would not be the last time the Twins took on a player the Mets backed away from (see: Correa, Carlos).

Paddack had Tommy John surgery in 2016 soon after being traded from the Marlins to the Padres as a minor leaguer. His Twins debut season lasted five starts in 2022 before he tore the ulnar collateral ligament a second time. That was the year Dylan Bundy and Chris Archer combined to make 54 mostly underwhelming starts for a third-place team. Year 1 with Paddack was a dud and a misallocation of resources.

Last fall, he showed he was experienced with the dedication necessary to return from such an injury. He worked his way back to pitch five innings in relief at the end of the season, then impressed with two scoreless outings out of the bullpen in the playoffs.

My skepticism remains, but Paddack’s passionate explanation of how he’s returned to health forces me to have an open mind about a turnaround.

“My mind has grown as a person and as a player,” said Paddack, who is pondering writing a book about his experience. “And I think that helped me in this progression of coming back from a 16-17 month journey. I’m a big believer in if you go about your work the correct way, you put your head down and do everything and check all the boxes and then some, you’re going to be where you need to be.”

The Twins were infatuated with Paddack’s pitch mix and control when they dealt for him. They even signed him to a three-year, $12.5 million extension while he recovered, another move with risk. At this point, risk has dominated reward.

It’s up to Paddack to reverse that while proving me wrong. If that happens, I have no problem admitting so. That means I would have gotten two columns off of one idea.

A win-win for both of us. And someone will have to help him write the book.