The 2010 Twins had a middle-of-the-road starting rotation, ranking 16th in MLB in starters' ERA, but it was enough to get the teams to the postseason.

From there, of course, everything fell apart. From 2011-14, the Twins starters' ERA ranked, in order, among the 30 teams in baseball: 26th, 29th, 30th and 30th.

In 2011, the Twins could be excused because a reasonable plan fell apart. Carl Pavano, Francisco Liriano, Scott Baker, Brian Duensing and Nick Blackburn, who took the bulk of the starts after anywhere from adequate to promising performances the previous year, regressed. In 2014, the Twins again had the makings of a better plan … and again, it fell apart.

The plan in the two middle years … that was a wing and a prayer, which wasn't answered.

The objective here, then, is to look at the rotation in 2012 and 2013 — both seasons in which the Twins lost 96 games — and see just how much better, realistically, we could expect the rotation to be in 2015 given only average performances from the three free-agent pitchers to whom they committed more than $125 million: Ricky Nolasco, Phil Hughes and Ervin Santana.

• Nolasco: He was a disaster last year. Nobody would disagree. He was 6-12 with a 5.38 ERA and only made 27 starts because of a midseason injury (though with the way he was going, it was no great loss). With three years and more than $35 million left on his contract, he simply has to be better. And the good news for the Twins is that he should be. He might never pitch to his contract, but both his five-year average from 2010-14 and the projection for 2015 from FanGraphs puts Nolasco on pace for close to 200 innings with an ERA of around 4.50.

• Hughes: He was the exact opposite of Nolasco last year: durable, productive and a relative bargain at $8 million a season. Expecting him to win 16 games with such impeccable control again is tough, but expecting 200 innings with an ERA under 4 is what FanGraphs projects.

• Santana: This is the recent prize, of course, and the biggest outside free-agent contract in team history. Like Nolasco, he's more of a midrotation pitcher. But he, too, projects in an average year to pitch around 200 innings with an ERA around 4.

If that sounds pretty average, consider this: Those "average" seasons for those three pitchers would add up to a WAR (wins above replacement) of about 6. All three of them could very well top a WAR of 2. In 2012 and 2013, the leanest of the lean pitching years, the Twins had one starter each year perform even close to that well. They didn't have any starter top 186 innings.

Long story short: This is the best starting pitching plan the Twins have had in half a decade, and there is a reasonable expectation that, led by those free agents, Minnesota will move back toward the middle of the pack like it was in 2010. That probably isn't enough to get the team back to the postseason, but a return to respectability would be a start.

MICHAEL RAND • star tribune file Photos