Twin Trades

The Twins have struggled to separate themselves in the AL Central, but their crop of acquired arms could lead them into their next contention window.

Introduction

Entering 2021, the Twins had a pitching problem. Jose Berrios and Michael Pineda did the job, but the rest of the rotation struggled en route to a below .500 finish - Maeda struggled before getting Tommy John Surgery, missing the rest of 2021 and the entirety of 2022 in the process, J.A. Happ was on his way out of the league at 38, Bailey Ober was young and raw, and Griffin Jax was so bad in the rotation that they converted him into a reliever immediately after the season. In response, the Twins added four marquee starting pitchers via trade in the following two years - Joe Ryan, Pablo Lopez, Tyler Mahle, and Sonny Gray. The first two will be the focus today, because I feel they’re the most interesting in terms of long-term outlook. I’ll start with the older acquisition of the two, Joe Ryan.

Joe Ryan

Reinventing Himself

Acquired by the Twins in a trade with the Rays as a prospect, Ryan has developed into one of the few misses in Rays’ player evaluation in recent memory. He dominated the minors with excellent strikeout rates and low walk rates - a skill set that's carried over into the majors - and peaked 8th in a 2020 Rays system stocked with talent, such as Wander Franco (1st), Josh Lowe (9th), and my personal favorite (don’t check his statline today), Shane McClanahan (7th). With four better pitching prospects above him, the Rays were willing to part ways with him for offensive help at the 2021 Trade Deadline, despite the obvious upside. 

While his fastball was ever present in the minors, the secondaries lagged behind, forcing him to inevitably throw his fastball over half the time with no reliable secondary pitch once he got to the majors in 2021. It was clear that to be successful in the majors, he had to shake some things up. He did so right before 2023: dropping three of the five pitches he threw the previous year and adding one more to create a brand-new three-pitch mix. Ryan is nothing like himself in previous years; in this case, that's a good thing! He's embraced what makes him great - that killer fastball - while supplementing it with new toys. 

What He's Working With

Fastball: Joe Ryan's success all comes from his fastball and how unique it truly is. Despite running at just 93 mph in an era with more velocity than ever, it performs at an elite level due to its elite vertical approach angle (VAA, the angle the pitch enters the zone from the perspective of the front of the plate). His VAA is 0.66° above the average, 4th best amongst starters, only trailing Bryan Woo, Freddy Peralta, and JP Sears, which allows him to ignore his lack of velocity in favor of greater movement. The pitch sees 3 extra inches of horizontal movement despite its below-average velocity, making it difficult to barrel up in conjunction with the VAA. This remains his dominant pitch in terms of usage and is the foundation for everything else.

Sweeper: The other pitch he retained is his sweeper, which he debuted late in 2022 to great success. It's struggled thus far, though, only carrying a 28% CSW and 13% swinging strike rate while giving up tons of flyballs. The league has seen a massive drop in effectiveness from sweepers this year, likely caused by a mix of hitters' extensive training against them in the offseason and their inherent volatility with how much movement they have. While sweepers are an excellent pitch to get same-handed hitters out, I wonder if it's stable enough, especially in Ryan’s case, to be the only offering for that purpose. As his only secondary for dealing with RHB, his sweeper's success is crucial for keeping up his improved form - otherwise, it's all fastballs again.

Splitter: His brand new addition this year has not been as reliable as he may have initially hoped it would. It's currently bottom-half in terms of swinging strike rate (13%) but has an intriguing movement profile that's similar to Ohtani's. They both have an 8 mph difference between fastball and splitter and possess the same gap in vertical movement between the two pitches. The one key difference between the two is the difference in horizontal break; Ryan has 3 more inches of difference, which may be the critical factor - Ohtani's whiff rate is top 5 amongst starters at 40%, and Ryan's is bottom 5 at 23%. The other consideration is that Ryan's repertoire may be too limited now; Ohtani only turns to the splitter 7% of the time overall, while Ryan uses his a whopping 28% of the time. Due to this splitter reliance, his mix is much more reminiscent of Gausman for me than Ohtani. More on that later.

What He Dropped

Curve: Used 7% of the time in 2022, it performed alright despite some questionable command. He used it to steal strikes (24% called strike rate), yet only found the zone 40% of the time. Its 18.5% chase rate and 5.5% swinging strike rate indicate that it wasn't beneficial beyond that, so he chose to drop it entirely. It didn't seem bad enough to drop entirely, but he never believed in it. It was only used 7% of the time last year.

Changeup: Used 12% of the time and only vs. lefties, it performed horribly. 20% CSW with an 8 SwStr% wasn't doing him any favors and was his worst performing pitch by far vs. LHB by CSW, and it had a higher xWOBA than his curve, despite the curve not even being explicitly for lefties. Good riddance.

Slider: Used 18% of the time, it did well with a 30% CSW and 18% swinging strike rate vs. righties. I think it was only dropped because it was made redundant by his new sweeper, although pitch tracking has seen a few "standard" sliders from Ryan throughout the season. I don't know if that data is reliable, or just natural variance in sweeper break.

PLV (predicted pitch performance on a scale of 1-10 based on its location, velocity, spin, etc.) is far more impressed by the sweeper(SL) than me. It doesn’t like his splitter (FS) at all, which can explain why his whiff rate is so poor - weak command. 

His Mid-Season Change

Midway through writing this, Joe Ryan threw a strategic curveball by abandoning his sweeper entirely before dismantling the Red Sox for 9 Ks in a complete game shutout at home. People applauded his adaptation, but there were real problems under the hood that instantly proved it couldn’t work long-term. The fastball and splitter duopoly cost him splitter whiff rate (17% instead of the already-low 22%) and overall CSW% to a significant degree; 28% (previously 33%) for the fastball and just 20% (once 24%) for the splitter. This decline in stuff is why even my closest comparison Kevin Gausman, who has perhaps the nastiest splitter in the game, still turns to a slider 11% of the time - if a hitter sits fastball, they'll be correct about half the time, and he needs something to beat same-handed hitters. The Red Sox were clearly caught off guard, but his next opponent, the Braves, were well-prepared, and it showed.

It wasn't a good omen when Joe Ryan's first pitch to Ronald Acuna Jr. went 414 feet for a home run. Nor when Ozzie Albies hit him for a triple, Austin Riley a home run, and after an Olson K, a monster 445-foot Sean Murphy home run. For the uninitiated, Ronald Acuna Jr., Austin Riley, and Sean Murphy are the three righties he faced to that point (Albies is a switch-hitter and opted to hit left-handed), and they all took him deep. He had nothing great for them without a sweeper except loads of fastballs. Guess what they all hit out? The heater.

Joe Ryan had seen enough. His first pitch (pitch #21 overall) to the right-handed Marcell Ozuna was a sweeper, and 14/62 (23%) of his remaining pitches were sweepers. He ended his experiment then and there because a poor-performing sweeper was clearly better than no sweeper at all. While a sweeper is better than no sweeper, he's due for an additional pitch to be added to his repertoire this offseason. If I were to guess, a sinker. His teammate Pablo already throws one, so he'd get some help.

Conclusion

Will Joe Ryan keep this newfound success up? To some degree, yes. His fastball/splitter combination is a great foundation with some tuning, and the fastball itself remains excellent. He reminds me of Gausman with the fastball/splitter base with a slider (in this case, sweeper) thrown in. The critical difference is that for Gausman, the fastball was the sore point of his central mix, while in Ryan's case, it's actually a sweeper. That's critical - the fundamental problem for Ryan is beating RHB, which only his sweeper (and fastball, of course) can do. Meanwhile, Gausman's slider is far better than Ryan's sweeper and can use his elite splitter in a bad spot. Gausman's slider improved considerably this year, which I believe was the catalyst for his career-best year in strikeout rate and general consistency.

Perhaps he can find a Gausman-esque splitter that can consistently beat hitters on both sides of the plate - a fastball and splitter of that caliber would push him into top-10 territory. Otherwise, his moments of struggle will force him to turn his fastball usage up into overdrive, or the "Bryce Miller approach." If he can rein the sweeper in or find a solid 4th pitch to complement it, he's also probably a top-10 SP long-term. Otherwise, the fastball/splitter combo nets him a spot in the top 20. His fastball is that good. 

Pablo Lopez 

Introduction

Also acquired in a trade, this time with the Marlins for bat control maestro Luis Arraez, Pablo Lopez has struggled to find consistent results with his new team. Unlike Joe Ryan, Pablo kept his pitch mix nearly the same entering 2023. Still, the solitary addition of a sweeper has transformed him into an elite creator of both swings and misses and hard contact. While the results aren't there yet regarding run prevention, I think the pitch mix improvements ensure that they will come in due time.

Pitch Mix

Fastball: Thrown primarily vs. LHB, it's improved considerably this year off a 1 mph gain in velocity from his previous best. A 5% increase in swinging strike rate to 17% leads the charge while maintaining an elite 33.5% CSW% on the pitch. Its 36.5% chase rate is elite and lends itself to longevity in that improvement, especially considering he has also maintained a 25.5% hard contact rate, which falls in the 83rd percentile, according to PitcherList. Overall, the heater looks very sharp, despite far worse results on balls in play off it. It even is located better! Its well-above-average 16% HR/flyball rate will surely improve. 

Changeup: Pablo's money pitch; he's getting it in the "shadow" area below the zone with some consistency and reaping the rewards of a swinging strike rate of 16%, but it has struggled more this year than most, with it finding the middle and upper-end of the zone more than ever. He's found the zone with it more than any other point in his career as a result, which isn't ideal for a changeup specifically, but it still only gives up hard contact at an average rate. 

His 21% usage on it is about 10% lower than in years past, but it makes sense with the command as it is. Lance Brozdowski, formerly of Driveline and runner of an elite pitcher analysis channel, opines the "7/10 rule" for changeups where one wants their changeup to have a 7+ mph difference or a <10 in. difference in vertical break to their fastball for it to be an upper-echelon offering. Currently, Pablo runs a 6.5 mph difference and a 9-inch break difference, which explains why Pablo has become so synonymous with the pitch. 

Cutter: He ditched it in favor of a sweeper. It was average overall, so it makes sense. Except for 

the fact he still throws…

Sinker: This pitch to jam righties inside. Despite limiting hard contact and generating groundballs, it primarily steals strikes while fooling virtually no one (just a 12% whiff rate vs. RHB, 2nd lowest is the changeup at 35%). Given the fastball, curve, and slider have performed far better vs. righties, I'm not sure where this pitch finds its home. The changeup has just done just as well, if not better, in virtually every department, such as CSW%, whiff rate, groundball rate, hard contact rate, etc., while retaining nearly the same shape. It feels a little redundant overall.

Curve: With 2 more inches of induced vertical break, Pablo has made his curveball into his new money pitch. Using it just 10% of the time, it creates both swinging strikes (19%) and called strikes (17%) consistently against both sides of the plate. Its propensity to get hit extremely hard explains why it sticks at a 10% usage rate, but with some better command down in the zone, specifically against lefties, that'll work itself out. It's often leaked middle-in or middle-middle to lefties instead of down and in.

Sweeper: Pablo's newest addition, his sweeper, is performing great. 18 in. of horizontal break differential between it and the fastball is perfect, and it generates both whiffs and called strikes at a high frequency. The critical difference between Pablo's sweeper and other sweepers thus far is the hard contact rate - just a below-average 16% at a time when sweepers have gotten crushed with their newfound popularity. Unlike a lot of sweepers, I feel its inclusion perfectly fits his mix, and specifically, his fastball.

Other than the sinker, Pablo’s repertoire is adored by PLV (and many other metrics for that matter!)

Conclusion

Pablo looks better overall with the new sweeper in tow, but the sinker feels a touch redundant, given he already has tons of tools to beat RHB. A top-10 SP placement isn't out of the question - his fastball/changeup/curve/sweeper combo covers all the bases. Still, I'm curious if the mix currently utilized can sustain such a jump in K rate (6% in the past season!) while still mitigating hard contact at an elite level. His current strikeout, walk, and hard contact numbers are identical to 2022 Corbin Burnes, but his arsenal doesn’t feel that dominant. You already know from previous articles how I feel about Corbin Burnes in 2021 and 2022. 

With Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez, the Twins have a great foundation for their rotation in the future, with great auxiliary support from qualified contributors Kenta Maeda, Tyler Mahle, Sonny Gray, and Bailey Ober. The Twins are underperforming their Pythagorean record right now by 5 wins, so they’re closer to serious contention than one may think. Look out for this vaunted rotation with another year of development in 2024. 

Sources:

PitcherList

Alex Chamberlain’s Pitch Leaderboard

Lance Brozdowski’s Youtube (go subscribe)