Joe Ryan

AL Central Notes: Francona, Twins, Tigers

By Mark Polishuk | September 26, 2023 at 1:09pm CDT

The first 20,000 fans in attendance at Wednesday’s Guardians home game against the Reds will receive “Thank You, Tito” t-shirts, to commemorate what is very likely Terry Francona’s final home game as the Guards’ manager. It isn’t much of a secret that Francona is planning to retire after the season, though he has stopped short of making an official announcement since “he would rather execute an Irish exit than attract one extra iota of attention,” the Athletic’s Zack Meisel writes. Meisel’s piece is an excellent profile of Francona’s long career as a manager, coach, and player, providing plenty of insight and colorful anecdotes into one of baseball’s greatest skippers.

Here’s more from around the AL Central…

The Twins will use Pablo Lopez and Sonny Gray (in an order to be determined) as the starters of their first two playoff games, manager Rocco Baldelli told The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman and other reporters. Baldelli didn’t confirm any of Minnesota’s other pitching plans for October, but in implying that Kenta Maeda will be working as a reliever during the postseason, that would seem to set up Joe Ryan as the team’s top choice as a third starter. Ryan has a 3.82 ERA over 30 2/3 innings since returning from the injured list, as trying to pitch through a groin strain contributed to some very shaky numbers for Ryan in midseason after an outstanding April and May. Maeda has had a strong season in his own right and hasn’t worked as a reliever since 2019, but his usage out of the bullpen gives the Twins a potential impact reliever for their playoff run.
Tigers prospect Jace Jung has played only second base and DH during his two pro seasons, but he’ll now be getting some looks as a third baseman in the Arizona Fall League, Lynn Henning of the Detroit News writes. Both MLB Pipeline (67th) and Baseball America (98th) rank Jung among the top 100 prospects in baseball, though both outlets have concerns about his eventual defensive future, as second base was seen as a less-challenging spot for Jung than the hot corner. However, an even more highly-touted Detroit prospect faces similar defensive questions, as Colt Keith (18th BA, 25th Pipeline) looks ticketed for second base duty. Keith gets the priority because he has posted big numbers at Triple-A this second and could factor into Detroit’s lineup as early as Opening Day 2024, while Jung might need more time to get acclimated at his new position and has yet to reach Triple-A. Keith and Jung are two of several intriguing position-player prospects coming up the ranks in the Tigers’ farm system, to the point that Henning feels a possible logjam for future playing time gives the Tigers a good problem to have in figuring out who plays where, and ultimately might players might be kept or used as trade chips.

Twins Reinstate Joe Ryan From Injured List

By Anthony Franco | August 26, 2023 at 9:35am CDT

TODAY: The Twins officially reinstated Ryan from the 15-day IL, and righty Jordan Balazovic was optioned to Triple-A in the corresponding move.

AUGUST 25: The Twins are listing Joe Ryan as the probable starter for tomorrow evening’s game with the Rangers. They’ll need to reinstate him from the 15-day injured list. Ryan will oppose Max Scherzer in the third contest of a four-game set.

Ryan missed three weeks after straining his left groin. It isn’t clear if he’d been pitching through discomfort before his IL placement. His results immediately prior to landing on the shelf had taken a sharp downturn, though. Ryan carried a 3.70 ERA through 107 innings into the All-Star Break. He was tagged for 18 runs in 19 frames in four starts out of the Break, pushing his season mark to a middling 4.43 earned runs per nine.

Whether that was directly tied to his groin concern, the Twins will hope the few weeks off allows Ryan to recapture his early-season form. His return could lead to a roster decision for the front office and manager Rocco Baldelli. Ryan joins Pablo López and Sonny Gray at the top of the rotation. The Twins have filled out the starting staff with Bailey Ober, Kenta Maeda and Dallas Keuchel — whose contract was selected at the time Ryan landed on the IL — this month.

Maeda has a 2.91 ERA while striking out 32% of opponents in 11 starts since returning from an IL stint of his own at the end of June. Ober still has minor league options remaining, but he’s been a quietly effective rotation piece. Over 21 starts and 118 2/3 innings, the third-year hurler owns a 3.41 ERA and has fanned just under a quarter of batters faced. He’s clearly deserving of a spot on the big league staff.

Perhaps that leaves Keuchel as the odd man out. The former Cy Young winner has tossed 13 innings over three outings, allowing seven runs. He has struck out just three against four walks and a hit by pitch. He’s averaging 87.5 MPH on his sinker and has gotten swinging strikes on only 6.3% of his pitches.

On the other hand, Keuchel’s ground-ball rate sits at an excellent 56.3%. That’s not quite at the levels of his peak days in Houston but is markedly above last season’s 50.2% mark. Keuchel also kept the ball on the ground at a huge 61.1% clip through six Triple-A starts before his call-up, posting a 1.13 ERA in the process.

Earlier this week, Dan Hayes of the Athletic wrote that the Twins were considering the possibility of a six-man rotation after Ryan’s activation. That’d allow the coaching staff some flexibility in workload management. Maeda missed all of last season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, though he’s only at 74 2/3 frames this year. Ober has shouldered the heaviest work of his career in 2023. Including four Triple-A starts in the opening month, he’s at 136 1/3 frames for the year. His previous high for combined innings was 108 1/3 during the ’21 campaign.

Hayes also indicates that piggybacking some combination of Ober, Maeda and Keuchel could be on the table. That’d be another means of limiting workload while reducing the number of times those pitchers face an opponent a third time in a game. While keeping all six starters on the roster would temporarily shorten the bullpen, teams are permitted to add one pitcher to the MLB club on September 1.

Twins Select Dallas Keuchel, Place Joe Ryan On IL

By Darragh McDonald | August 3, 2023 at 3:45pm CDT

The Twins announced that they have selected the contract of left-hander Dallas Keuchel, who triggered an opt-out in his minor league deal two days ago. In order open space for him on their roster, right-hander Joe Ryan has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a left groin strain while righty José De León will be transferred to the 60-day IL.

Keuchel, 35, is looking to bounce back from a rough stretch in the big leagues in the previous two years. After close to a decade of effective pitching, including a Cy Young-winning season in 2015, the lefty allowed 6.35 earned runs per nine innings over the 2021 and 2022 seasons. He started that time period with the White Sox but bounced to the Diamondbacks and Rangers last year, with each club trying unsuccessfully to get him back to his previous form.

The Twins signed him to a minor league in June of this year, at which time it was reported that he had done some work with Driveline Baseball to restore some velocity and movement to his pitches. The early results of that have been encouraging, as he made six Triple-A starts lately with a 1.13 ERA, 21.2% strikeout rate, 9.1% walk rate and 61.5% ground ball rate.

He had a couple of opt-outs on that minor league deal, the first of which was about two weeks ago. He skipped that first chance, likely due to the fact that his second chance would be on trade deadline day, when new opportunities might emerge. He triggered that second opt-out on Tuesday, giving the Twins 48 hours to either select his contract or release him back to free agency.

There were arguments to both sides of the choice. On the one hand, Keuchel had previously shown literal Cy Young upside and was again posting encouraging results. On the other hand, his recent improved form was a small sample in the minors and it’s been quite a while since he was effective at the major league level. Plus, the Twins had a strong group of five starters in Ryan, Sonny Gray, Kenta Maeda, Pablo López and Bailey Ober. But it now seems Keuchel will get his shot after all, with Ryan now going on the IL.

It’s unclear exactly when Ryan suffered his injury but his results have been getting worse as the season has gone along. His ERA was sitting at 2.98 after a complete game shutout against the Red Sox on June 22. Since then, however, he’s allowed 31 earned runs in 32 1/3 innings, bringing his season ERA to 4.43.

It hasn’t been reported how long Ryan is expected to be out, but it seems Keuchel will take his spot in the rotation for at least a couple of turns. The southpaw will try to revive his reputation as a viable major league starter while the Twins try to hold onto the lead in the American League Central. They just barely have a winning record at 55-54 but that’s still good enough for a two-game cushion in the division.

De León required Tommy John surgery in June, so this transfer was an inevitable formality. He’ll be out for the rest of this year and at least the first half of next year as well.

Best Deadline Rental Returns In Recent History, No. 1: Twins Land A Rotation Cornerstone

By Steve Adams | June 22, 2023 at 1:44pm CDT

With the trade deadline now less than two months away, we at MLBTR are setting our sights backwards for a bit to highlight past trades of rental players to provide a loose guideline of what sort of returns fans can expect with their teams’ current rental players. With an arbitrary cutoff point of 2017-21, we’re counting down the top 10 returns that a team got when selling a rental player. We’ve already published some honorable mentions as well as entries No. 10, No. 9, No. 8, No. 7, No. 6, No. 5, No. 4, No. 3. and No. 2. If you disagree with our rankings, let us know! It’s all part of the subjective fun! Now for the top spot in our series…

The 2021 season was a disaster for the Twins. Fresh off a division title in the shortened 2020 season, they entered the year as the team to beat in the American League Central but faceplanted with a 9-15 showing in the season’s first month and never recovered. Offseason signings of Andrelton Simmons, J.A. Happ, Alex Colome and Matt Shoemaker all flopped. Top prospect Alex Kirilloff, expected to be a key contributor, was limited to 59 games thanks to a torn ligament in his wrist. Kenta Maeda followed up his Cy Young runner-up season with an injury-shortened year that ended with him undergoing Tommy John surgery. Jose Berrios was the only pitcher who even reached 110 innings on an injury-ravaged Twins staff.

Berrios was also one of several veterans the Twins wound up trading once they waved the white flag on their 2021 season. After years of failed extension efforts, he was traded to the Blue Jays in exchange for prospects Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson. That trade was one of the headline moves of the entire 2021 trade deadline, but it wasn’t the defining move of the summer for the Twins.

That distinction goes to the first trade they made, jumping the market to send designated hitter Nelson Cruz to the Rays in a trade that brought back a pair of pitching prospects: the since-DFA’ed Drew Strotman and a near-MLB-ready right-hander by the name of Joe Ryan. The Twins also sent minor league righty Calvin Faucher to the Rays as part of the deal — he’s since made his debut but hasn’t pitched particularly well — so it can be argued that this wasn’t a pure rental, but the heart of the trade was a half season of Cruz for the aforementioned prospects.

Regardless of how things play out with Faucher, there’s no getting around the fact that the trade didn’t work out as the Rays hoped. Cruz was hitting .294/.370/.537 with 19 homers in 346 plate appearances at the time of the trade, and Tampa Bay hoped they were acquiring a heart-of-the-order slugger who could deepen their lineup and provide some needed thump in the postseason. Cruz kept hitting for power (13 homers, 238 plate appearances), but his strikeout rate spiked as his walk rate plummeted.

The end result was a .226/.283/.442 slash, plus a 3-for-17 showing in an ALDS loss to the Red Sox. One of those hits was a solo home run, but Cruz’s well below-average OBP and dramatic rise in strikeouts (from 18.2% in Minnesota to 26.5% in Tampa Bay) fell shy of expectations. Cruz hit free agency following the season and went on to sign a one-year deal with the Nationals.

The now-26-year-old Strotman’s time with the Twins lasted barely a year. He was hit hard in Minnesota’s Triple-A rotation following the trade and moved to the bullpen the following year, which did little to quell his long-running command issues. He’s since bounced to the Rangers and Giants via waivers, the latter of whom was able to pass him through waivers unclaimed. He currently has a 6.54 ERA in Triple-A Sacramento. Strotman was an upper-level pitching prospect who had a chance to debut in the Majors in relatively short order, but his half of the trade (quite clearly) hasn’t panned out.

The other half of the Twins’ return is another story entirely.

At the time of the trade, Ryan had only just begun to sneak onto the back-end of top-100 prospect rankings around the industry. He was in the midst of a strong season with Triple-A Durham, pitching to a 3.63 ERA with a 34.9% strikeout rate against a 4.7% walk rate. Ryan’s lack of velocity — he averages under 93 mph on his fastball — perhaps created some skepticism about his ability to continue missing bats at that level in the big leagues, but his atypical release point has allowed him to continually befuddle hitters despite his pedestrian velocity.

Ryan’s time in the minor leagues with the Twins was brief, to say the least. Minnesota had the right-hander make just two starts in Triple-A following the trade before summoning him for his Major League debut. In his next four starts, Ryan held opponents to a 2.45 ERA with a 25-to-3 K/BB ratio in 22 innings. He was hit hard in his final outing of the year, finishing out the season with a 4.05 ERA and 30-to-5 K/BB ratio in 26 2/3 innings.

The Twins had seen enough to not only pencil Ryan into their 2022 rotation, but make him their Opening Day starter after just five big league appearances. Ryan’s 2022 campaign, his age-26 season, marked a significant step forward. The right-hander made 27 starts, pitched to a 3.55 ERA and fanned a quarter of his opponents against a tidy 7.8% walk rate. If there was any doubt about his status as a surefire big league starter, it’d largely been eliminated.

Continuing on at that pace would’ve made Ryan a clear building block for the Twins, but he’s taken his game to another new level so far in 2023. Long an extreme fly-ball pitcher, Ryan has added a splitter that’s helped him up his ground-ball rate and further neutralize left-handed opponents. Ryan’s 35% ground-ball rate is still lower than average by nearly 10 percentage points, but it’s a huge increase from the 27.7% mark he posted in 2022. Lefties weren’t effective against him in the first place, hitting just .202/.288/.348 in 2022, but they’ve flailed away at a .199/.242/.281 clip in 2023. The addition of that splitter has helped out against righties, too; they’re hitting just .225/.257/.373 against Ryan this year. Statcast credits the newly implemented splitter with a .196 “expected” opponents’ batting average and a .283 expected slugging percentage.

Ryan entered play today with a 3.30 ERA, 27.1% strikeout rate and 4.5% walk rate in 84 1/3 innings. After averaging just over 5 1/3 innings per outing last year, he’s been given a longer leash by the Twins in 2023 and averaged a bit better than six innings per start. The mustachioed righty has already surpassed his 2022 total of 2.1 FanGraphs wins above replacement, and his 1.8 WAR over at Baseball-Reference is rapidly approaching last year’s mark of 2.3. He’s a candidate for a 2023 All-Star bid, and if he can sustain this pace, he’ll likely find himself on the periphery of Cy Young voting later this season.

Because Ryan fell well shy of a full year of service time in 2021, he didn’t accrue a full year of service until the completion of the 2022 season. He’ll finish the 2023 campaign with two-plus year of service and won’t be eligible for arbitration until after the 2024 season. The Twins control him all the way through the 2027 season, though his performance through his first 46 career starts certainly makes him a logical extension candidate for the Twins if the two sides can find a palatable middle ground.

It’s difficult for teams marketing rental players to command any degree of highly ranked prospects, let alone a near-MLB ready arm who can step into a big league rotation just weeks after the swap is completed. The Twins’ willingness to jump the sellers’ market — Cruz was traded more than a week before the deadline — and his status as perhaps the top bat available on the market created the right circumstances for Minnesota to strike gold and set a new benchmark for modern-day rental returns.

It’s probably not realistic for fans hoping their teams can cash in on a high-end rental player to expect a return this good, but the Twins surely don’t mind Ryan’s status as a best-case scenario for a return in this type of swap. Their decision to re-sign Cruz for a third year netted them a half season of excellent offense and, quite possibly, six-plus years of a pitcher who’s increasingly looking like a front-of-the-rotation arm. It’s the type of return any GM or president of baseball operations dreams of every July but the type that is rarely achieved.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Twins Activate Joe Ryan, Designate Elliot Soto

By Anthony Franco | June 14, 2022 at 5:49pm CDT

The Twins announced that right-hander Joe Ryan has been reinstated from the COVID-19 injured list to start this evening’s game against the Mariners. To create space on the active and 40-man rosters, infielder Elliot Soto has been designated for assignment.

Ryan has missed a bit more than three weeks due to virus issues. The length of his absence necessitated a one-game rehab stint with Triple-A St. Paul, where the righty tossed three scoreless innings last Thursday. He’s now ready to return to the MLB rotation, where he’s made eight starts this season. Through 43 1/3 innings, the 26-year-old owns a sparkling 2.28 ERA with a solid 24.3% strikeout rate. Acquired from the Rays as part of last summer’s Nelson Cruz trade, Ryan was surprisingly tabbed Minnesota’s Opening Day starter and has allowed fewer than three earned runs per nine innings over his first 13 big league appearances.

Soto was selected onto the major league roster yesterday, and he loses his spot after just one game. The 32-year-old didn’t play in last night’s win over Seattle, leaving him without an MLB appearance since a three-game stint with the 2020 Angels. Signed to a minor league deal over the winter, Soto has hit .213/.327/.331 with a pair of home runs in 159 trips to the plate with St. Paul.

Minnesota will likely place the right-handed hitter on waivers within the next few days. Having previously been outrighted in his career, he’d have the right to refuse a minor league assignment in favor of free agency if he passes through unclaimed.

AL Central Notes: Lynn, Candelario, Tigers, Twins, Ryan, Dobnak

By Mark Polishuk | June 5, 2022 at 5:52pm CDT

Lance Lynn is scheduled to make his third rehab start on Wednesday, White Sox manager Tony La Russa told reporters (including Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times). Beyond that, La Russa left open the possibility that Lynn could be activated from the 60-day injured list, assuming that the veteran right-hander is feeling good coming out of that next Triple-A outing.

Knee surgery sidelined Lynn in early April, so the hurler has yet to make his 2022 debut. Getting Lynn back in action would be a huge help to a Chicago team that has been bitten hard by the injury bug, but the White Sox are still treading water despite a shorthanded roster. The White Sox improved to 25-27 after today’s 6-5 win over the Rays.

Twins Place Sonny Gray On Injured List

By Steve Adams | June 2, 2022 at 11:30am CDT

The Twins announced Thursday that they’ve placed right-hander Sonny Gray on the 15-day injured list due to a right pectoral strain. The move is retroactive to May 30, so Gray will be eligible to return on June 14. Right-hander Yennier Cano is up from Triple-A St. Paul to take Gray’s spot on the active roster.

It’s the second IL stint of the season for Gray, who also missed time during the first month of the year due to a hamstring strain. He’s been excellent when on the mound, registering a 2.41 ERA with a 29.8% strikeout rate and a 7.5% walk rate — both strong marks that are well better than league average. Gray has thus far managed just 33 2/3 innings, however, which is surely less than the Twins envisioned when acquiring him in a March trade with the Reds that sent prospect Chase Petty to Cincinnati.

Gray joins Joe Ryan, Chris Paddack, Josh Winder, Kenta Maeda and Randy Dobnak on a crowded Twins injured list and leaves the Twins with a current rotation mix of Dylan Bundy, Devin Smeltzer, Bailey Ober and Chris Archer. It’s not a group that’s going to jump off the page at first glance, but the Twins rank sixth in the Majors with a 3.34 ERA and third with a 3.38 FIP their starting staff.

Minnesota has gotten solid performances from Bundy (aside from one disastrous outing), Ober, Archer and Smeltzer in particular as of late. Still, Gray and Ryan are the clear top options on the Twins’ staff, so being without both righties is problematic. Ryan is currently on the Covid-related IL and working toward a return. Manager Rocco Baldelli told reporters today that Ryan is “a tick behind” outfielder Gilberto Celestino, who’s also on the Covid list but has now received two negative tests and is meeting the team in Toronto tomorrow (Twitter link via Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press). The Twins are currently deciding whether he’ll need a rehab start.

Strong as Minnesota’s starters have been to begin the season, it still wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Twins venture out into the trade market to further bolster the staff in the next two months. The Twins, eight games over .500, currently lead their division by five games and sport the fourth-best run differential (+29) in the American League.

Twins Place Joe Ryan On COVID Injury List

By Mark Polishuk | May 25, 2022 at 1:42pm CDT

The Twins have placed right-hander Joe Ryan on their COVID-related injury list. Left-hander Devin Smeltzer was called up to take Ryan’s spot on the active roster, and Smeltzer will start for Minnesota against the Royals on Thursday (Ryan’s next scheduled outing).

Manager Rocco Baldelli told the Associated Press and other reporters that Ryan was “doing okay,” but didn’t provide any details about Ryan’s health. If Ryan has only been sidelined due to symptoms or due to being a close contact, he could be activated from the COVID list as soon as tomorrow, though obviously that would be cutting it too close to make his scheduled start. If Ryan has indeed tested positive, he’ll miss at least the next 10 days, unless he meets the three criteria for early activation — 24 hours without a fever, two negative tests, and clearance from a panel of the team doctor, a league-appointed physician, and a union-appointed physician.

Acquired from the Rays as part of the Nelson Cruz trade last July, Ryan has emerged as a force in his rookie season. The righty has a 2.28 ERA and an above-average 24.3% strikeout rate, thanks in large part to a four-seam fastball that has been one of the most devastating pitches in baseball this season. Some secondary metrics (4.30 xFIP, 3.93 SIERA, .234 BABIP, 83.7% strand rate) indicate some good fortune, but Ryan has also done well to limit damage by allowing very little hard contact.

Minnesota had plenty of questions about its rotation heading into the season, but the starters have generally performed quite well, despite some injuries. Ryan and Josh Winder (shoulder impingement) are on the IL, while Chris Paddack has already been lost for the year due to Tommy John surgery.

Twins To Select Joe Ryan’s Contract

By Mark Polishuk | August 31, 2021 at 1:17pm CDT

The Twins will select the contract of right-hander Joe Ryan when rosters expand to 28 players on Wednesday, SKOR North’s Darren Wolfson reports (via Twitter). Minnesota created space on the 40-man roster last night by passing reliever Edgar Garcia through outright waivers.

Ryan and fellow righty pitching prospect Drew Strotman were acquired from the Rays in the Nelson Cruz trade last month. MLB Pipeline ranks Ryan as the sixth-best prospect in Minnesota’s farm system, saying he “has all the makings of a mid-rotation big league starter” if he can develop secondary pitches to properly support his outstanding four-seam fastball.

Ryan has a combined 3.41 ERA, 4.82% walk rate, and 36.9% strikeout rate over 66 Triple-A innings with the Rays’ and Twins’ top affiliates this season, which marks Ryan’s first taste of Triple-A ball. That impressive strikeout total has only increased over his nine innings with Triple-A St. Paul, as Ryan has an absurd 17 strikeouts during his brief time in the Twins organization. Ryan has only thrown nine innings since joining the Twins since he was busy at this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo — the righty had a 1.74 ERA over 10 1/3 innings to help the American team win a silver medal.

With the Twins fully looking ahead to 2022, pitching is a particular need for a club that dealt Jose Berrios and J.A. Happ at the trade deadline, could lose Michael Pineda to free agency, and could quite possibly be without the injured Maeda for all of next year. This leaves plenty of room for the 25-year-old Ryan to establish his case for a rotation spot over the next month. Ryan’s Major League debut could potentially come as soon as Wednesday, when the Twins host the Cubs.

Rays Acquire Nelson Cruz

By Mark Polishuk | July 22, 2021 at 11:59pm CDT

With just over a week before the trade deadline, the Rays have made a big move in acquiring slugger Nelson Cruz from the Twins as part of a four-player swap. Cruz and minor league righty Calvin Faucher will head to Tampa, while Minnesota will pick up right-handers Joe Ryan and Drew Strotman.

With the Twins in the midst of a nightmare season, Cruz became a natural trade chip, as the 41-year-old slugger can be a free agent this winter. Cruz re-signed with Minnesota last offseason on a one-year, $13MM contract, and Cruz has roughly $4.87MM remaining in owed salary.

There was no announcement made of cash considerations being involved, so it appears as though the Rays will be taking on all of Cruz’s remaining salary. This is no small matter for a Rays team that always has an eye on the budget, and even with Cruz now in the fold, the club’s payroll is still under the $67MM threshold. Tampa Bay can (and likely will) make other moves before the July 30 deadline that could move some other dollars off the books, but as it stands, the Cruz deal is a sign that Rays ownership is willing to stretch a bit financially to bolster a team that looks like a contender to return to the World Series.

Despite Cruz’s age and seeming lack of defensive value, his bat has remained so dangerous that even some National League teams were reportedly including him in trade considerations, with an eye towards deploying Cruz in the outfield for the first time since 2018. While the Rays’ penchant for roster maximization could lead to Cruz getting at least a bit of time in the outfield, it’s a very safe bet that he’ll slot in as Tampa’s new everyday DH, bringing some big-time pop to a lineup that is solid overall but middle-of-the-pack in terms of power.

Austin Meadows had received the bulk of Tampa’s DH at-bats, though Meadows now looks to move into the outfield mix with Randy Arozarena, Kevin Kiermaier, Brandon Lowe, and (when he returns from the IL) Manuel Margot. Lowe can also be utilized at second base, and between any other injuries or even trades that might emerge, the Rays shouldn’t have much issue in finding enough playing time to keep everyone fresh and ready for another postseason push.

Cruz will suit up for the sixth different team over what has been a very impressive 17-year career. Named to his seventh All-Star team just this season, Cruz is showing no signs of slowing down, hitting .294/.370/.537 with 19 homers over 346 plate appearances in 2021. This production is actually a dropoff from the .308/.394/.626 slash line he posted over 735 PA for Minnesota in 2019-20, but “decline phase” doesn’t really seem like an applicable description.

Neither Ryan and Strotman are in the upper crust of Tampa prospects, though MLB Pipeline did have them solidly ranked (Ryan 10th, Strotman 17th) on their list of the Rays’ best minor league talents. Both are starting pitchers with solid performances at Triple-A this season, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see their make their Major League debuts before 2021 is finished. Since the Twins are looking to return to contention next year, landing two big league-ready arms will help their rotation depth, considering Michael Pineda and J.A. Happ are both free agents this winter (and either could be moved before July 30.

Ryan is 25 years old and was a seventh-round pick for the Rays in the 2018 draft. He cracked Baseball America’s top 100 list (at 98th) prior to the 2020 season, and Ryan has continued his rise up the ladder by posting a 3.63 ERA over 57 innings at Triple-A Durham this year. At all levels, Ryan has been great at missing bats (36.65% strikeout rate over 217 minor league IP) and avoiding walks (6.05% walk rate), thanks in large part to an excellent four-seamer. MLB Pipeline’s scouting report isn’t as enamored with his other pitches, but Ryan’s slider did merit a 55 grade on their 20-80 scouting scale.

The 24-year-old Strotman was a fourth-rounder in the 2017 draft, though his pro career has been limited to 179 innings thanks to the canceled 2020 minor league season and a Tommy John surgery that kept him out of action for big chunks of the 2018 and 2019 campaigns. The Rays saw enough from Strotman that they added him to their 40-man roster last winter to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, and Strotman has looked solid in posting a 3.39 ERA over 58 1/3 Triple-A innings this year. His walks have increased as he has moved up the minor league ladder, topping out at an unimpressive 13.15% walk rate at Triple-A this year. Pipeline notes that command has been a strength for Strotman in the past, however, and the right-hander’s fastball, cutter, and slider are all ranked as above-average to plus pitches.

Faucher is the other name in the deal, a 25-year-old righty who has struggled in his first taste of Double-A baseball, posting a 7.04 ERA with six homers and 24 walks in 30 2/3 innings this season. After consistently posting big strikeout numbers earlier in his minor league career and in college (at UC Irvine), the hard-throwing Faucher has continued that trend with a 27.63% strikeout rate amidst his difficulties this season.

ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link) was the first to report that the Rays were acquiring Cruz, while Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter links) was the first to report that it was a four-player deal also involving Strotman.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

« Previous Page

Headlines

Joe Ryan

Navigation

MLBTR INFO

Connect