The Twins have granted right-hander Jeff Hoffman his release, Jon Heyman of the New York Post tweets. He’d been in camp on a minor league deal but had an out clause in his contract if he did not make Minnesota’s Opening Day roster.
Hoffman, 30, allowed a pair of runs on two hits and three walks with eight punchouts in five Grapefruit League innings for the Twins. He spent the 2022 season with the Reds, pitching to a 3.83 ERA with a 22.8% strikeout rate and a bloated 11.7% walk rate. In 348 1/3 innings at the big league level, Hoffman has a 5.68 ERA with a 20.3% strikeout rate and 11.1% walk rate.
That said, he’s also a former No. 9 overall draft pick and an extreme fly-ball pitcher who’s had the task of pitching his home games at two of baseball’s most hitter-friendly venues: Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park and Denver’s Coors Field. As one might expect, home runs have been an issue. He’s yielded 1.63 homers per nine innings pitched in his career, though he dropped that to 1.01 in 2022 with the Reds.
Hoffman has elite spin on his fastball, above-average spin on his breaking ball and in two seasons with Cincinnati posted solid swinging-strike rates that could portend a greater ability to miss bats than he’s shown for much of his career. He’ll head back to the market in search of a new opportunity with a clearer path to a spot on the big league roster.
Tigers should sign him to a minor league deal.
Would not surprise me at all.
Hoffman could be the next great closer for Texas.
I didn’t realize his homerun rate and FIP were so high.
Someone with a big ballpark should grab him. He just doesn’t work in ballparks that see a lot of homers.
Back to Reds
He wasn’t all that bad there so no problem here.
Sounds like a future Ray.
Back to Toronto!!
Had the pleasure of watching Hoffman’s entire college career. Dude dominated the Cape Cod League, and has a lot of confidence. I remember all the scouts and executives coming to see him as he was projected to go in the top three in his draft year. I was at his final start when he stuck out 16 in 8 innings. Unfortunately he hurt his elbow in that start and needed TJ surgery just a week or two before the draft. Hoffman still went #9 overall to Toronto. Even with the surgery, Hoffman still felt like he should have went #1 overall. Young man had a ton of confidence and moxy. Hopefully some smart team (that doesn’t play in a band box like Coors or GABP) will sign him and get something useful out of him. I can see the Dodgers turning Hoffman into a reliable middle relief pitcher. At the very least Hoffman needs to stay away from small stadiums since he’s a fly ball pitcher.
I suppose the Twins were trying their patented pitcher development technique of instructing “don’t walk so many batters, and everything will be better”. When it became clear that Hoffman would not just throw more strikes, they let him go. Or at least told him he wouldn’t join the big club until he followed instruction, after which he asked out. Seemed like a curious pairing from the start. Twins don’t like their pitchers handing out free passes still after all.
Twins need to work on getting outs and back in the dugout. Their starters can reach 80 pitches with one swing through the order. Not much room for grit when 100 is the hook line.
I’m happy that Sonny Gray chirped about the skipper. It’ll do little more than make for an unfriendly room.
Intriguing guy. Maybe he will see a path to the majors after an injury or two and stick around
Good pure stuff but a classic control over command guy. Misses in the middle of the zone WAY, WAY too often.
The Tigers will never sign Hoffman. He has good stuff, but his walk ratio is way too high for Scott Harris taste.
Seems like a prototypical Mike Rizzo type pitcher.
Yankees could use a warm body