The Twins’ pitching shortage is real, but that’s also why Bailey Ober could make sense as a trade chip this winter.
Minnesota is finishing off the last two weeks of a season that has already gone sideways again, and after another late collapse, the roster feels due for some hard choices. Several veterans could end up on the block, and Ober is one the Twins should seriously consider moving.
He’s been a useful starter. Over the past few years, Ober has gone 38-36 with a 4.12 ERA, and durability has been part of the package too. He has worked at least 120 innings in each of the last four seasons, and if he gets 17 more innings this year, he’ll clear 140 innings for that span.
That kind of profile still has value, especially for a club that is thin on starting pitching both in the majors and in the pipeline. But Ober is also heading into his age-31 season, which makes this a logical time to see whether another team wants to buy into the cost and the track record.
The problem for Minnesota is that the deeper numbers point to a pitcher who may be headed the wrong direction.
Ober’s best run came across the 2023 and 2024 seasons, when he went 20-15 with a 3.73 ERA in 57 starts. He was missing bats then, striking out 26.2 percent of hitters, and he held average exit velocity against him to 87.4 mph.
That version has faded. Over the last two seasons, Ober is 13-15 with a 4.75 ERA in 50 starts.
His strikeout rate has fallen to 18.1 percent, and this season it has dropped all the way to a career-low 16.8 percent. Hitters are also doing more damage on contact, with his average exit velocity allowed climbing to 88.8 mph.
The clearest sign of the slide is that he’s not fooling hitters like he used to. In 2024, Ober posted a 33.5 percent chase rate, which ranked in the 92nd percentile among qualifying pitchers.
He paired that with a 29.0 percent whiff rate. This season, those numbers have slipped to a 29.5 percent chase rate, which sits in the 38th percentile, and a 19.8 percent whiff rate, which is in the 10th percentile.
His fastball isn’t helping matters either. It averaged 91.7 mph in 2024, but now it’s at 88.1 mph and among the slowest in baseball. The “Bearded Nightmare” label doesn’t fit the same way anymore, and that makes him a candidate to be moved.
Still, there’s a reason another team might take the bet. Ober’s breaking ball carries a plus-11 run value according to Baseball Savant, and he continues to show strong control with a 6.9 percent walk rate. That gives him enough of a foundation to look like a possible reclamation project.
The price tag could be the real hook. After signing for $5.2 million last season, Ober is entering his final year of arbitration in 2027. Even with the possibility that MLB’s likely lockout could affect free-agent spending, that is a reasonable number for a back-end starter and could appeal to a team searching for affordable pitching.
Minnesota would not be dealing from a position of abundance. The Twins need arms, and they don’t have many obvious replacements ready.
But that may be exactly why Ober is movable. At 31, he no longer lines up neatly with the younger core the Twins should be building around, including Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez and Kaelen Culpepper.
The organization has more position-player help coming, with 2025 first-round pick Marek Houston and 2026 first-round pick Vahn Lackey in the pipeline, but the pitching side still needs to be filled in.
Ober wouldn’t headline a winter trade market the way Joe Ryan would. Even so, he could bring back a couple of lottery-ticket pieces to help shape the next wave of Minnesota pitching.
And with three straight lousy Septembers hanging over the franchise, the Twins have enough evidence that waiting around isn’t solving much. Ober looks like the kind of veteran they should be willing to move, and there may be a club out there ready to make that gamble.
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