Pablo López has already been traded twice in his career, so he’s not one to overreact when he sees his name pop up in trade rumors.
Teams have inquired about López’s availability on the trade market because the Twins are operating with little payroll flexibility, and López is owed $64.5 million over the next three seasons. Considering the prices for free-agent starting pitchers this offseason, it’s a team-friendly contract for a pitcher who has shown dominance in playoff games.
There is no indication any conversations about López progressed to an advanced stage — Twins manager Rocco Baldelli declared López the club’s Opening Day starter on a radio show this week — and President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey noted that teams inquire about most of their players.
“I signed to be here long term,” López said Friday. “Rumors are just rumors until something happens. It’s not like they were rumors that the Twins called me [about them]. They are rumors that I mainly see because my aunt texts all those rumors to me.”
López prefers not to pay too much attention to trade rumors. He won’t ask his agent about them because he doesn’t want to be consumed by them. But he has two family members, an aunt and an uncle, who often text him when they see his name in stories or social media to ask if any of the rumors are true.
“I didn’t know Rocco named me the Opening Day starter until my aunt told me about it,” López said. “I thought that was funny.”
López, 28, returned to the Dominican Republic for the first time since 2017 earlier this month. He was a special guest speaker at the Twins’ Dominican baseball academy, which offers a variety of high school classes in English, life skills and academic studies for the team’s young signees.
The four-day visit to Boca Chica, which overlapped with the Twins’ signing day ceremony for their newest international signings and a high school graduation, was López’s idea.
