Ehire Adrianza will return to the Twins next year, the team announced, after agreeing to a one-year contract for $1.6 million.
Adrianza was one of 11 Twins players eligible for salary arbitration this winter, a group whose members must be formally offered a 2020 contract by 7 p.m. Central time Monday. A player who is not offered a contract by the deadline immediately becomes a free agent.
The Twins did not tender C.J. Cron or Trevor Hildenberger.
Adrianza, a 30-year-old utility player who batted .272 with 16 extra-base hits in 83 games in 2019, is the first of the 10 to agree to a deal for next season.
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La Velle E. Neal III has covered baseball for the Star Tribune since 1998 (the post-Knoblauch era). Born and raised in Chicago, he grew up following the White Sox and hating the Cubs. He attended both the University of Illinois and Illinois-Chicago and began his baseball writing career at the Kansas City Star. He can be heard occasionally on KFAN radio, lending his great baseball mind to Paul Allen and other hosts.
Phil Miller covered three seasons of Twins baseball, but that was at a different ballpark for a different newspaper. Now Miller returns to the baseball beat after joining the Star Tribune as the Gopher football writer in 2010, and he won't miss the dingy dome for a minute. In addition to the Twins and Gophers, Miller covered the Utah Jazz and the NBA for six years at The Salt Lake Tribune.
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