López on extension: 'Ready to live and breathe' Twins baseball

The Twins officially announced on Friday they've signed Pablo López to a four-year contract extension that will cover the 2024-27 seasons. The deal is for $73.5 million, a source told MLB.com, though the club did not confirm the financial terms. López was originally slated to become a free agent following the ‘24 season, meaning this new deal will buy out three years of free agency.

"I'm ready to live and breathe Minnesota Twins baseball, on and off the field," López said at a news conference on Friday. "We're very thrilled to go out and let the community know that just how they have our backs when they come out to the field to support us, we also have their backs when they're in the community.

"I couldn't be happier to be on the Minnesota Twins. There are so many great things about the game of baseball, and I think doing them for a great organization like this is going to make it all the much more exciting."

The deal is the largest financial commitment to a pitcher in team history, surpassing the four-year, $55 million deal the Twins gave Ervin Santana ahead of the 2015 season.

According to Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey, the decision to extend López wasn’t a difficult one.

“It’s rare when you read the scouting reports and you look on paper and the player exceeds everything that’s written there, and it says 'high character,' and it says 'incredible work ethic,' and it says everything about the quality of the pitcher he is,” Falvey said. “And then he comes through the doors and you get to know the person -- the living, breathing human being who is there -- and [he’s] just over and above.”

The newfound certainty around López’s future is particularly meaningful now because three of the Twins’ rotation veterans -- Sonny Gray, Kenta Maeda and Tyler Mahle -- are in the final year of their contracts. Now, the Twins are poised to build their rotation around their last two Opening Day starters -- López and Joe Ryan -- for years to come.

López has had a history of injury concerns, and it was significant to the 27-year-old that he finally stayed healthy for a full 32 starts last season after finding a better routine to stay healthy. He’ll be only 31 at the end of this extension.

And significantly, this isn’t the same López who has pitched to a career 3.83 ERA across 98 starts in six seasons with Miami and Minnesota; there are underlying reasons to believe he’s only scratching the surface of his frontline potential.

“They were willing to make the trade they did for me and that was, No. 1, very encouraging for me, and No. 2, let me realize there’s something that they see in me and now we’re going to try to find those things,” López said.

“We’re trying to get better at these new skills, these new things that you’re working on. To take them on the mound and make you better. It’s going to make you go out there and be a better version of yourself to eventually help the team win.”

Though the Twins had to trade away reigning American League batting champion Luis Arraez to bring López into the organization, he has given them immediate results with the kind of playoff-caliber, frontline pitching (albeit in a small sample size) that this organization has long sought to end its postseason-win drought.

And with players such as López, Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton now locked up for multiple seasons, the Twins hope to take full advantage of the opportunity to do big things in Octobers to come.

“The guy pitching at the top of your rotation and the guys hitting at the top of your lineup, they give strength to everybody else. They make you stronger, they make you better,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “You look to them at times to do things for the team when you need them, and to get the job done and to carry you at times, and to do a lot of other things at times.

"But more than anything else, you’re looking to them. And [López] is a guy we’re going to be looking at and looking towards to give everyone strength for a long while.”