Tyler Duffey Waived

[Bamboo Bat]

Duffey was really good for a couple of years & passable last year, but his peripherals have been in slow, slow free fall. 

Average fastball declined from 93.9 in 2019 to 92.3 in 2022. K rate fallen from 34.5% to 21.1% over the same period. 

His average exit velocity in 2019 when his ERA hit 1.88 was, astonishingly, in the bottom 1% of AL pitchers. Read that again. It's appalling. My takeaway from all this random information is that a velo drop along with a 40% drop in Ks simply means more hitters getting the bat on the ball & he was always giving up hard contact...pain was inevitable in retrospect. 

I appreciated his competitiveness, but also that he's gone from the major league roster. Every time he was summoned to the mound this year (even during his good streak) I'd start saying bad things to the TV. And given the falloff in his peripherals & velo I suspect his useful years are behind him, but no doubt he'll hang around bouncing from team to team until 2025. Other teams, i hope!

[Brock Beauchamp]

29 minutes ago, Linus said:

He really did. Makes me wonder if he was a sticky stuff user. 

What’s more likely is that this just happens to relievers. All the time. 

[IndianaTwin]

2 hours ago, USAFChief said:

 

Sidenote: 2nd all time to Doug Ma3rdnkay...Doug Mienkaov... ...2nd all time to Douggie Baseball on the list of "Most often misspelled Twin" list?

 

Did you forget about A.J. Peerzyn... Pierzin...  

That catcher they used to have?

[RickOShea]

57 minutes ago, randy_moist said:

He was legitimately great between 2019 and 2020. Combined ERA+ 194 in a fireman's role. Great peripherals too. I think you're having selective memory

Mr. Moist, I think your memory is a little too selective.  In all of the time duffey was a Twin, you mention only a year, where he was good to very good.  I think if he was a cat, he would be pushing 9+ lives.  My observation of duffey was over his entire career with the Twins.

[IndianaTwin]

26 minutes ago, RickOShea said:

Mr. Moist, I think your memory is a little too selective.  In all of the time duffey was a Twin, you mention only a year, where he was good to very good.  I think if he was a cat, he would be pushing 9+ lives.  My observation of duffey was over his entire career with the Twins.

Mr. Moist actually mentioned two years when he had a combined ERA+ of 194.

So add in 2021 when he was also pretty good. He also played a key late-season role in starting 10 games as a rookie in 2015, both years with an ERA+ above 130. In just 10 games, he had a 1.6 WAR and was realistically the team's top starter in August and September as they made a push for the playoffs.

He just had a weird career where only one of his eight years had an ERA+ between 80 and 130. Four years above that and three years below.

[wabene]

22 minutes ago, RickOShea said:

Mr. Moist, I think your memory is a little too selective.  In all of the time duffey was a Twin, you mention only a year, where he was good to very good.  I think if he was a cat, he would be pushing 9+ lives.  My observation of duffey was over his entire career with the Twins.

Duffey came up late in 2015 as a starter and started 10 games going 5-1 with a .310 ERA. Very good run and very surprising. Then he reinvented himself as a reliever and had 2 really good seasons (one of them a short season) and one good season. So I guess you could say he was an above average major leaguer for 3 years. Not a bad run, made some tall snaps, good on him! Lucky guy.

 

Edit: Indiana Twin types faster.

[IndianaTwin]

3 minutes ago, wabene said:

 

...Edit: Indiana Twin types faster.

Nah, just better at avoiding work on a Friday afternoon. 

[luke829]

Nice enough guy it seems, but unfortunately that doesn't win ball games.

[Blyleven2011]

I'm sure there are fans that liked duffey ,,,,

Had a few good years as a reliever but this was long overdue  ,,, dfa'd today  ... be interesting to see where he might end up ....

If your happy and you know it , stomp you feet .... 

[Nine of twelve]

5 hours ago, cHawk said:

It’s a shame how quickly Duffey fell off.

 

4 hours ago, Linus said:

He really did. Makes me wonder if he was a sticky stuff user. 

 

4 hours ago, notoriousgod71 said:

I've said a couple times that he reminded me of Juan Rincon. Failed starter, early lights out success in bullpen, and very quick dropoff. 

I had the same thought. I don't have any proof to say Duffey was enhancing his grip on the ball. But his drop-off in performance was temporally correlated with MLB's crackdown on grip enhancers. I hate to think that was involved but I think there is reason to believe that it could very well have been a factor. Very similar to Rincon's drop-off in performance after he got busted for juicing.

[notoriousgod71]

43 minutes ago, Nine of twelve said:

 

 

I had the same thought. I don't have any proof to say Duffey was enhancing his grip on the ball. But his drop-off in performance was temporally correlated with MLB's crackdown on grip enhancers. I hate to think that was involved but I think there is reason to believe that it could very well have been a factor. Very similar to Rincon's drop-off in performance after he got busted for juicing.

I'd like to clarify that I'm not accusing duffey of juicing or cheating. His career path is what reminds me of Rincon.

[CRF]

Duffey went unclaimed (not really a surprise) on waivers and refused the outright minor league assignment, so he's a free agent. I honestly expect someone will take a chance on him. He was pretty brutal the last couple years here, but best of luck to him.

[nicksaviking]

Lot's of people are acting like Duffey's been bad for a long time. While his actual results weren't as good as his numbers last year, let's not pretend that 2021 Tyler Duffey wouldn't have been a huge boon to the overtaxed bullpen here in 2022.

And then I suppose we also have to pretend that his monthly long stretch starting in the middle of June where he appeared to round back into form wasn't needed nor a hope for better results going forward.

After an up and down season that included him pitching as well as ever for the last month he basically went four bad outings and they released him, just as we fans were asking for. That seems like a pretty quick trigger for a guy who's been here over a decade. It was the right move, but it's not like the team dragged this out for two years.

[USAFChief]

10 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Lot's of people are acting like Duffey's been bad for a long time. While his actual results weren't as good as his numbers last year, let's not pretend that 2021 Tyler Duffey wouldn't have been a huge boon to the overtaxed bullpen here in 2022.

And then I suppose we also have to pretend that his monthly long stretch starting in the middle of June where he appeared to round back into form wasn't needed nor a hope for better results going forward.

After an up and down season that included him pitching as well as ever for the last month he basically went four bad outings and they released him, just as we fans were asking for. That seems like a pretty quick trigger for a guy who's been here over a decade. It was the right move, but it's not like the team dragged this out for two years.

I don't concur he "pitched as well as ever for the last month."

He got some outs. He was pitching terribly and the results weren't going to continue. Low velo, looping curve, poor command. Every time.

We see position players throw a 1-2-3 inning sometimes too. That doesn't mean they pitched well or we should throw them out there again, based on small sample results.

Duffey had nothing. All year. And he was pretty bad last year as well.

[nicksaviking]

17 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

I don't concur he "pitched as well as ever for the last month."

He got some outs. He was pitching terribly and the results weren't going to continue. Low velo, looping curve, poor command. Every time.

We see position players throw a 1-2-3 inning sometimes too. That doesn't mean they pitched well or we should throw them out there again, based on small sample results.

Duffey had nothing. All year. And he was pretty bad last year as well.

Duffey wasn't bad last year, if the Twins had DFA'd him 29 other teams would have put in a claim. He just wasn't as dominant as he was the prior two years and with Colome getting crushed early, and Rogers going down at mid-season, it really stuck out because the Twins needed an elite shut-down guy.