Griffin Jax

Twins setup man Griffin Jax has quietly emerged as one of the top relievers in the sport, having just wrapped up a career year that included a 2.03 ERA, 34.4% strikeout rate and 5.4% walk rate in 71 innings. Jax, a former third-round pick out of the Air Force Academy, broke into pro ball as a starter, however, and still works with a starter’s repertoire even in short relief stints. The Twins are at least open to the possibility of seeing what Jax would look like back in a more traditional rotation setting, bench coach Jayce Tingler told Mike Ferrin of MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM. There’s no indication of any firm plan to move him from his current role right now, to be clear.

Certainly, there’s risk in taking Jax out of a role in which he’s come to excel. The right-hander’s 2024 season was among the best of any reliever in baseball and set new career-best marks in most notable categories, but Jax has been a quality setup piece in Minnesota even before this past season.

Dating back to 2022, the 29-year-old Jax sports a 3.06 earned run average with 15 saves, 65 holds, a 28.7% strikeout rate and a 6.4% walk rate in 208 2/3 innings. He’s added 3 2/3 shutout innings with one hit, no walks and five strikeouts in postseason play during that time. Jax averaged a career-high 97.1 mph on his four-seamer this season, and his gargantuan 18.4% swinging-strike rate ranked second in all of MLB among pitchers (starters and relievers) with at least 70 innings pitched, trailing only Josh Hader.

Unlike most relievers, many of whom narrow their arsenal to two pitches, Jax works with a five-pitch mix, throwing four of those offerings around a 10-30% clip. He uses his slider as his main offering (37.5%, per Statcast), followed by a four-seamer (29.9%), changeup (16.7%), sinker (9.8%) and an occasional show-me curveball (6.2%). There are some instances of starters getting by with two-pitch repertoires — more than 90% of Dylan Cease’s pitches are either a slider or four-seamer; Kevin Gausman is similar with a four-seamer/splitter combo — but most have at least a third offering that’s mixed in with some degree of regularity.

Just yesterday at The Athletic, Eno Sarris took a data-driven look at six relievers who could be particularly well-suited to make the jump from the bullpen to the rotation, prompted by recent news that Jeff Hoffman (one of the six) has been drawing some free agent interest as a starter. Jax was featured prominently due to his five-pitch selection, his velocity, two plus breaking balls and his standout command.

The Twins have tried Jax as a starter in the majors previously, but that was a different version of Jax. The right-hander started 14 games in 2021 and was shelled for a 6.37 ERA with an 18.1% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate. As Sarris observes, however, Jax has gained nearly five miles per hour on his heater — far more than the standard bump received when moving from the rotation to the ’pen — and added three inches of ride to the pitch. He’s also added the sinker, changed the shape of his curveball and made other gains of note. (Readers are highly encouraged to check out Sarris’ piece in full for detailed breakdowns of Jax, Hoffman and four other relievers.)

From a pure roster and payroll perspective, there are reasons to consider the move. The Twins’ payroll has been crunched in 2024-25 after ownership unexpectedly slashed it by $30MM last offseason amid broadcast uncertainty and, now, the exploration of a potential sale.

Pitching depth was an issue in 2024, as Joe Ryan and Chris Paddack missed the final two months of the year. The Twins relied on rookies (Simeon Woods Richardson, David Festa, Zebby Matthews) who were all pushing well past their prior career-high workloads. Jax could have similar workload concerns, but he’d also take some stress off those young arms. It’s also possible that the payroll crunch leads the Twins to trade Paddack and his $7.5MM salary — a spendy fifth starter for a team undergoing payroll reduction mandates — and a starting role for Jax would add some innings and depth without further adding to the budget.

Beyond that, Jax is controllable for three more years. If he’s able to make a successful return to the rotation in 2025 — even he’s capped around 120-130 innings — he could be a full-fledged rotation option in 2026 and 2027. That could give the Twins a rotation headlined by Pablo Lopez, Bailey Ober, Ryan and Jax all the way through 2027, which clearly carries the potential to be formidable. And, because Jax has been a reliever to this point, his first-year salary projection in arbitration (via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz) is just $2.6MM. He’d be an affordable hedge against an injury to the Twins’ top three or perhaps a trade from the bunch somewhere down the road.

Of course, moving Jax to the rotation would thin out the late-inning relief corps. Closer Jhoan Duran would still be tasked with shutting down most games, but he had some red flags in 2024, including a dip in average fastball (to a still-elite 100.5 mph), a drop in strikeout rate and an uptick in line-drives. Former starter Cole Sands had an under-the-radar breakout of his own (3.28 ERA, 29.1 K%, 4.1 BB%), and the Twins can hope for better health from Justin Topa and Brock Stewart. Jax’s departure would create a void — but adding a quality reliever to replace him would likely be less costly than adding rotation depth with similar upside.

It’s always possible the Twins could simply take a look at Jax as a starter in spring training and go from there. If he shows well and seems up to the challenge, the experiment can carry into the season. It’s always easier to stretch a pitcher out before the season and then ramp him back down to a relief role than it is to build him up as a starter on the fly in the season, so that scenario could hold appeal. All of it will depend, to an extent, on what opportunities present themselves this offseason as the Twins look to deepen their pitching and reshape their lineup amid ongoing budgetary issues that don’t seem likely to be alleviated during the sale process (and are far from guaranteed to improve even after a potential sale).