Twins Sign Luis Ayala

According to Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Twins have signed reliever Luis Ayala to a 1.3 million dollar deal that could earn the former Nationals and Mets reliever 575K in incentives. Ayala had a rough go of it this past season, when he was traded from the Nats to the Mets August 17th. Though the bright side to signing Ayala, is that with all the options in the Twins bullpen, his arm will not be overused. Leading the Majors in appearances this past season, Ayala found himself in trouble, accounting himself with an ERA high in the 5's and being hit hard. Statistically in his career, he's shown to be a tendency to be low on walks and strikeouts with a 2.91 BB-K ratio and a 4.35 lgERA.

However, like I said before, Ayala's arm should resist abuse this season, when the Twins will walk into camp with Boof Bonser, Jose Mijares, Jesse Crain- all viable options for set up man, respectively. Ayala shouldn't strike anybody as a set up man, as he is low on gas and he induces plenty of ground balls.

To me, this comes off as a low risk-high reward signing. He's not the Twins big offseason move we were hoping for (at least I don't hope so), just a nice guy to add as a minor tweak to the roster, which is what the Twins have been doing the whole offseason. I like the signing, a guy who has been historically very good for the Nationals and a guy who has the opportunity for success and a chance to compete for the set up role with the Twins.