Aug. 8: The Twins have released Duffey, per the transaction log at MLB.com.
Aug. 5: The Twins have designated right-handed reliever Tyler Duffey for assignment, as first reported by Patrick Reusse of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (Twitter link). Right-hander Cole Sands is being recalled from Triple-A St. Paul to take Duffey’s spot on the roster (and, seemingly, in the bullpen for now). Minnesota has yet to formally announce the move.
Duffey, a fifth-round pick by the Twins back in 2012, has had an up-and-down career in Minnesota. Debuting as a starter back in 2015, he quickly looked as though he could hold that role down for the foreseeable future, pitching to a 3.10 ERA with solid strikeout and walk rates as a rookie that year. However, Duffey was clobbered for a ghastly 6.33 ERA in 133 innings the following year and moved to the bullpen in 2017.
It took some time, but by the 2019 season, Duffey had become an indispensable member of the Twins’ bullpen. He logged 57 2/3 innings of 2.50 ERA ball and punched out a whopping 34.5% of his opponents against a 5.9% walk rate that season. From July 28 through Sept. 25 in 2019, Duffey went 26 straight appearances without allowing a run — a total of 23 2/3 innings during which he posted a scintillating 40-to-5 K/BB ratio. He followed that year with an even better showing in the shortened 2020 season (1.88 ERA in 24 innings), and while his numbers took a step back in 2021 they were still quite solid (3.18 ERA, 3.49 FIP in 62 1/3 innings).
All in all, from 2019-21, Duffey logged 144 innings with a 2.69 ERA (3.16 FIP), a 29.8% strikeout rate, an 8.2% walk rate and a 44.4% ground-ball rate. By and large, he was an effective late-inning reliever on whom the Twins relied with regularity.
This season, however, has been another story entirely. Duffey owns a 4.91 ERA and has already yielded eight home runs in just 44 innings of work (1.64 HR/9). The fastball that averaged 94 mph in 2019 is now averaging 92.3 mph, and he’s seen his strikeout rate plummet to 21.1% while his 8.1% walk rate is more than two percentage points higher than it was during that 2019 peak.
Much as he did in 2019, Duffey had an impressive run this summer when he rattled off 15 2/3 shutout innings with a 12-to-3 K/BB ratio from June 17 through July 23, but that hot streak has been bookended by nightmarish bouts of home runs yielded in leverage spots. Duffey has yielded multiple runs in 20% of his appearances this season (eight of 40), including five different outings where he’s been tagged for three runs. Since that promising run from mid-June through late July, Duffey has yielded seven runs on six hits (two homers) and four walks with three strikeouts in a total of 4 1/3 innings.
Minnesota’s bullpen has been the team’s greatest flaw this season, and Duffey’s wild inconsistency has played a significant part in that Achilles heel. He’s earning $3.8MM in his final season of club control before free agency, meaning any club who claimed him — he can’t be traded now that the deadline has passed — would be on the hook for the remaining $1.28MM on this year’s salary. Because of that, he’ll likely go unclaimed, and even if the Twins attempt to outright him to Triple-A St. Paul, he can reject the assignment and retain the rights to that salary, as is his right as a player with five-plus years of MLB service time.
As for the 25-year-old Sands, he’s been rocked for 16 runs in 16 1/3 Major League innings during this season’s debut, but he has a better minor league track record. Like Duffey, he’s a former fifth-round pick (Florida State University, 2018) with a history of solid minor league performances. While it’s true that Sands has been hit hard in St. Paul this season (5.59 ERA in 48 1/3 frames), he posted a brilliant 2.46 ERA through 80 1/3 Double-A frames last year and also notched a sub-3.00 ERA in his first full pro season with the Twins back in 2019.
Sands has worked primarily as a starter in his career, so it’ll be intriguing to see if, similar to Duffey earlier in his career, Sands’ stuff will play up in the ’pen and allow him to seize a role there moving forward. Alternatively, he could simply operate in a long relief role until lefty Jovani Moran returns from the injured list and then head back to St. Paul where he’d continue working as a starter and serve as rotation depth both this year and next.
it’s about time
Yes that needed to happen. Same with Pagan is needed.
Finally! Pagan next, please.
Thank god lol thanks for your service but Duffy has been cooked for a while
Thank god lol thanks for your service but Duffy has been cooked for a while, he’s had a long leash just because we were so thin
He has been awesome in the past but this year has been really tough to read those pitching lines.. hope he can turn it around if he accepts the demotion.
Agreed.
As a Twins fan it is sad to see Duffy get the boot before Pagan. Duffy has had success the past few years but was unable to find a groove this year. Pagan on the other hand hasn’t had a good season since 2019.
I agree with Pagan instead of Duffey. Both should go but Pagan is worse. Terrible in fact. His numbers paint him better than he is.
Pagan is pretty good when he’s “on”, and has superior raw “stuff” at this point on his career. He’s shown flashes this year that Duffey just hasn’t. I’ll take the modest upside with Pagan over the assured mediocre/bad with Duffey.
I think they both should go. I just get at annoyed that Rocco keeps defending Pagan after he gets rocked. Twins need to admit they lost the trade and move on.
LOST ???
Not just that. Preller must have had naked pictures of Flavine’s spouses !!
Let’s review.
Rogers + Rooker + $6.6MM for:
Paddack + Pagan + PTBNL (Brayan Medina)
Twins get 3 years of Paddack, a pitcher who had elbow issues in 2021, TJ surgery in 2016, will miss 2022 & a good chunk of 2023 after his SECOND TJ surgery and then who knows if he’ll have ANYTHING left for 2024.
Twins get 2 years of Pagan, who quickly flamed out as the team’s “new” closer and at present is also getting torched in mop-up appearances Pagan’s implosion led to the necessity of trading FOUR prospects to Baltimore for Jorge Lopez, who somehow in a few short months has transitioned from flamed out starter to stellar closer (at least for now). Meanwhile, the next headlines that are seen involving Emilio Pagan will feature the letters “DFA” preceding his name and we will not see him even finish his FIRST year as a Twin, yet alone spend any time with the 2023 team.
As for the dice roll of a PTBNL, Brayan Medina = “Born in Venezuela, Medina is just 19 years old. He made 12 starts and 2 relief appearances last year between the Arizona Complex League and the Dominican Summer League. In 33 2/3 innings pitched, he had a 5.88 ERA, 30.4% strikeout rate and 14.9% walk rate. Last year, Baseball America ranked him the #26 prospect in the Padres’ system.”
Despite the fact that both Rogers and Rooker have been traded away by the Padres, Flavine should be holding some sizable IOU’s from the Padres right beside the IOU’s from the Giants for the Sam Dyson trade and the Nationals for the Matt Capps trade.
Matt Capps trade was Bill Smith.
Rogers is a FA after this year, wasn’t good enough to stick around as closer in SD. Rooker is AAAA player.
Even if Paddack only pitches 100 innings between the next 2 seasons, Twins win that trade handily.
Ben, one in the hand is worth two in the bush. Both paddack and pagan had pitched poorly in the two previous years. Paddack was known injury risk. Rogers was and is the best player in the trade. It’s outright negative value until Paddack proves otherwise. Which he will have a hard time doing from the IL
This seems to be the odd trade where everyone loses. Rooker couldn’t make the Padres and has been dumped. Rogers flamed out and was salary dumped off the Padres entirely. Pagan has been horrible. Paddack actually is the most valuable player in the trade, even though he only pitched a few times. If he’s able to come back next year the Twins might be clear winners since the Padres have already moved on from everyone in the trade and received no value.
To be fair, of the players recieved by the Giants in the Dyson trade, only Teng is still in the Giants organization and is pitching pretty mediocre in AA. Another trade with no real winner.
No matter which Brain Wizard made the trade, the Twins organization still holds that IOU among others.
Whew some Matt Capps action
We are going back deep here !
Mixed feelings on this one. Duffey certainly should have been the first cut from this bullpen, but Sands seems like a lesser replacement. Did they need a long man that badly?
Yes, because they basically never let their starters pitch a 3rd time through the order
Ok Twins now do Pagan
@BillyEppler
I got to watch Duffy’s last HR pitch as a Twin vs. Vlad. Sweet.;)
Vlad ended his career. Won’t be the last pitcher to have a similar fate
Sister of Danny Duffey?
Duffey and Rogers were a great anchor to this pen for a couple years. What the heck happened?
Rocco Baldelli
….and the pitching coach went back to college.
The sticky-stuff ban triggered the end of his dominance.
It’s been a hard road for Duff lately, but he had some pretty good years with the Twins. I thank him for those. Good luck to Tyler in the future, but it is a move that the Twins needed to make now.
Cole might be able to go long a couple of innings out of the pen, and that’s something that the Twins could use.
It’s the time of the season for releases.
We’ll take him !!
Every article about pitchers obsesses over K-rate and fastball velocity. How many great (or HOF) pitchers of the past 50 or 60 years would have been completely overlooked—or cut, even—if those criteria were always the focus, as opposed to all-encompassing run prevention.
I would honestly rather have duffey in the cards pen than Stratton. Sure somebody will claim him
The life of a bullpen pitcher is brutal, unless he is dominate across multiple seasons. Duffey went from an indispensable part of the Twins pen to being released in less than one year. Can’t be an enjoyable way of life; although at least he made some money before being cut.
@Dorothy: Owners (billionaires) and GM’s (multi-millionaires) couldn’t care less about 99% of players, and essentially think of them as interchangeable, inanimate baseball cards that exist to be used up and dfa’d.
Majors today, Jiffy Lube tomorrow.
Cardinals?
What pitching fixit team takes him on?
Houston? SF? LA? Cleveland? Baltimore? Tampa Bay?
I think he could help one of the marginal playoff contenders