NASHVILLE — Sonny Gray has departed for St. Louis. Kenta Maeda will make his new home in Detroit for the next couple seasons. And now, the Twins’ front office must decide how to best reinforce a starting pitching rotation that was among the best in the major leagues last season.

“Losing those guys is tough, but you don’t want to have the exact same club every single year,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I also think some movement on the roster creates a little hunger and shakes things up in a good way for a lot of the players, too.”

Twins starters finished the season with a 3.82 earned-run average — first in the American League — helping carry the team to a first-place finish in the Central division.

While replacing Gray — he finished second in Cy Young Award voting last season — and Maeda won’t be an easy task, the Twins have one internal option they plan to turn to — Chris Paddack, who returned from Tommy John surgery late last season — and another potential option in Louie Varland, whose role for next year has not yet been defined.

“Our rotation was good to us last year. They were very productive, very effective,” Baldelli said. “Every time we handed the ball to someone, we got a good start, it felt like. It’s not going to be the same rotation, but you start adding Paddack in there, you start looking at Louie Varland. Again, he can pitch in different roles. We have some guys, but we’re going to stay open-minded and see if maybe we can even add to that group.”

Right now, the Twins have ace Pablo López in place, along with Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober and Paddack, who returned from Tommy John surgery in 2022 to pitch out of the bullpen late last season.

The Twins had a chance to look at Varland in relief late last season and liked what they saw — in seven regular-season games in September, he posted a 1.50 earned-run average and fanned 17 batters in 12 innings. But they also still believe in his ability as a starter, the role he’s had throughout his career.

“We’re going to have some decisions to make as far as what we’re going to eventually do with him,” Baldelli said of Varland. “I’ve talked with (pitching coach) Pete (Maki) a whole bunch on this. Pete is optimistic that he could be a very good major-league starting pitcher. When you have those guys in front of you, you don’t look away. You don’t just put a guy in the pen because he ticks up when he’s in the pen.”

Varland will come into camp stretched out, Baldelli said, and they’ll end up making a decision on how to utilize him later in the offseason or even in spring training. The hope, ultimately, it would seem, is to add another starting pitcher to the rotation which could push Varland down to Triple-A to begin the season as their first man up.

This front office has primarily built its rotations through trades rather than free agency and that could be the path they opt to take again this offseason. But while the Winter Meetings usually feature a good amount of player movement, it’s been relatively quiet and the Twins are still in waiting mode as they look to improve their rotation.

“I think there are some big stories that are probably playing a role in some things that just aren’t clear yet,” president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said. “… To me, it just feels like it’s a lot of conversations about potential fits, what it could look like, but no one really moving to action because they are not clear on what might happen.”

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