The Joe Ryan Experience: Minnesota's Most Underrated Player

[NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin]

After all jacks are in their boxes and the clowns have all gone to bed, you can discuss performance.

Players who underperform are usually very polarizing. On TD, we have a lot of spirited debate over Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, and Pablo Lopez (pre All-Star break). Even overperforming players like Emilio Pagan can sometimes be subject to much scrutiny, especially in the heat of the season, when fans and media overreact to one or two bad performances. 

Now that the media clowns have gone to bed, and (hopefully) we can approach these discussions with a level head. In 2023, Joe Ryan was expected to emerge as a frontline starter, after a fantastic rookie season. For the first 2.5 months, this expectation was exceeded, he was one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball, by upping his K%, lowering his BB%, and maintaining his stellar statcast stats (xBA, xwOBA, etc). In his first 15 starts, he went 8-4 with 93.2 IP, 2.98 ERA, 100 K, which, if he stayed at that level, would have looked like this in 33 starts: 18-9 record with 206 IP, 2.98 ERA, 220 K; which would probably be good enough for 2nd in AL-Cy Young. Unfortunately, a groin injury sustained after this stellar start made his final line look like a much less impressive 11-10 record with 161.2 IP, 4.51 ERA, 197 K in 29 starts. He had major issues throwing pitches over the heart of the plate; his meatball % on the year was 8.5, well over the MLB average of 7.3%, and hitters swung at his meatballs 4.1% more often than they did for other pitchers. His lack of fine control hurt him down the stretch, and he had a whopping 3.18 HR/9 after the groin injury after posting a stellar 0.77 HR/9. His ERA subsequently ballooned to 6.62 post-injury, and I feel comfortable in saying that the Joe Ryan we saw in the second half was not indicative of the caliber of pitcher he is.

 

Now if 4.51 turned out to be 3.53, I don't mind, I don't mind.

Even with his horrid second half, Joe Ryan was still phenomenal at striking batters out without walking them. His 5.8% BB rate is in the 92nd percentile, and his 29.3% K rate was higher than Max Scherzer's this year. Even with his awful stats post-injury, Ryan posted an xERA was 3.53 and xFIP was 3.76 for the year. These expected stats can be misleading sometimes- Shintaro Fujinami had an ERA of 7.80 with an xERA of 4.80, but he was awful at limiting damage with RISP, as his -19.89 RE24 was one of the worst in baseball. xERA and xFIP do not account for pitchers who give up lots of damage in short bunches, so it is hard to say that Fujinami got unlucky with poorly struck balls dropping. However, Joe Ryan's RE24 was positive at 1.30, which is not great but is above average. This suggests that he was the victim of some bad luck, and his ERA probably should have been in the mid to high 3.00s if he had had neutral luck.

 

Fastball sweet fastball, I wish I could throw less.

A lot of the narrative around Ryan revolves around his less-than-elite secondary stuff and how it holds him back. While I agree that he has a tendency to lean almost exclusively on his four-seamer in tough spots, he has completely remade his arsenal, and his splitter/sweeper have the makings of excellent strikeout pitches. When Ryan first entered the organization, his arsenal consisted of a fastball, slider, changeup, and slow curve. Now, he uses a splitter, sweeper, and slider as his three secondary offerings, with the splitter and slider being introduced this year. This is the first year he's used this arsenal, and it will likely improve with more experience.

His splitter moves 0.6" more than the average splitter at his arm slot, and hitters have not been able to do much with it (sub-.300 xwOBA against). It had a negative run value in '23, mostly because he was not getting many chases on it and was not tunneling it off his four-seamer, which was used primarily at the top of the zone. If he can start to work more East/West with his fastball, he can set up his splitter, which has been doing a great job of keeping at the bottom edge of the zone.

His sweeper offers a lot of drop, which makes it a great compliment to his fastball, as they have nearly opposite breaks. He collected a 36.5% whiff rate and only a 32.4% hard-hit rate against. In the small sample of batted ball events, the batting average, OPS, etc against significantly outpaced the expected stats; in a larger sample size, it should have better numbers. If he continues to work on his sweeper, it could be an excellent offering.

 

You'd better stick your dagger in someone else.

Gauging fan sentiment from a few stray posts is unadvisable, but I have seen way, way too many posts describing Ryan as a "backend" starter or a "#4 or #5". Maybe I just happened to look at posts from the seven to thirteen people who look only at box scores, but to me, this is like calling Carlos Correa a bottom-of-the-order hitter, Byron Buxton a 4th outfielder, or Griffin Jax a middle reliever based on down '23 seasons. Joe Ryan is not an ace, and the Twins should definitely seek a Sonny Gray replacement, but a strikeout pitcher who eats innings and doesn't walk people is a certified #2 starter. He is better than anything the Red Sox, Nationals, Tigers, Royals, White Sox, Cardinals, Reds, Angels, Athletics, and Rockies currently have on their roster (or will once free agency starts): a guy who would be the opening-day starter for a third of the league is an asset that should be highly appreciated, not insulted.

There are many questions about whether Thielbar, Stewart, and Paddack will be able to pitch at a high level for a full season. First base is a huge question mark, given the injuries to Miranda and Kirilloff. A number of hitters are regression candidates. Joe Ryan is the kind of guy who can be penned into the #2 or #3 spot of the rotation without much thought- I hope he can enter the season without a cloud of doubt and disrespect looming over his head because he does not deserve that based on his performance.

 

No reason to get excited

The 2023 season was great, the Twins won three playoff games and the division, we had an incredible rookie class, and tons of exciting plays. 2023 is a great building block for this team to firmly cement itself amongst the elite American League teams for the foreseeable future. The Twins have high expectations and aspirations for 2024, and Joe Ryan is a big reason why. To summarize:

• He was a top-5 pitcher in baseball before his injury.
• According to several expected stats, he was the victim of very poor luck.
• He introduced two brand new pitches this year that figure to get better with time.
• He has the talent to be a star pitcher.

Some of you have selective or short memories and will choose to glom onto his HR-prone second half or the fact that Rocco only trusted him to pitch two innings in an elimination game. I look forward to seeing Joe Ryan prove his doubters wrong and fulfill his potential as a co-ace on this magnificent Twins pitching staff.

 

[Rod Carews Birthday]

I am also a fan of Joe Ryan.  Aside from the obvious thrill of getting a legit starting pitcher for a couple of months of Nelson Cruz in a down year, he has to be looked at as a long term really good piece in the rotation. He's only going into his third full year which is a time when a lot of pitchers really make a step forward (see Viola, Frank or Radke, Brad plus plenty of others).  Heck, Johan Santana wasn't even a starter until his fourth year in the majors.  By those Twins comparison, Ryan is doing really great. 

It's anybody's guess what his long term career looks like.  Will he be able to master a full season of "good" Joe Ryan and be in the running for a CYA?  Will he be a consistent solid pitcher like Kevin Tapani or Brad Radke?  Will he become a Twins great?  He seems like a guy who doesn't get flustered by much and who has established an exceptional floor (pretty solid even while injured for part of a season), so now it's time to take a step forward and show us what his ceiling can be. 

[JD-TWINS]

3 hours ago, NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin said:

After all jacks are in their boxes and the clowns have all gone to bed, you can discuss performance.

Players who underperform are usually very polarizing. On TD, we have a lot of spirited debate over Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, and Pablo Lopez (pre All-Star break). Even overperforming players like Emilio Pagan can sometimes be subject to much scrutiny, especially in the heat of the season, when fans and media overreact to one or two bad performances. 

Now that the media clowns have gone to bed, and (hopefully) we can approach these discussions with a level head. In 2023, Joe Ryan was expected to emerge as a frontline starter, after a fantastic rookie season. For the first 2.5 months, this expectation was exceeded, he was one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball, by upping his K%, lowering his BB%, and maintaining his stellar statcast stats (xBA, xwOBA, etc). In his first 15 starts, he went 8-4 with 93.2 IP, 2.98 ERA, 100 K, which, if he stayed at that level, would have looked like this in 33 starts: 18-9 record with 206 IP, 2.98 ERA, 220 K; which would probably be good enough for 2nd in AL-Cy Young. Unfortunately, a groin injury sustained after this stellar start made his final line look like a much less impressive 11-10 record with 161.2 IP, 4.51 ERA, 197 K in 29 starts. He had major issues throwing pitches over the heart of the plate; his meatball % on the year was 8.5, well over the MLB average of 7.3%, and hitters swung at his meatballs 4.1% more often than they did for other pitchers. His lack of fine control hurt him down the stretch, and he had a whopping 3.18 HR/9 after the groin injury after posting a stellar 0.77 HR/9. His ERA subsequently ballooned to 6.62 post-injury, and I feel comfortable in saying that the Joe Ryan we saw in the second half was not indicative of the caliber of pitcher he is.

 

Now if 4.51 turned out to be 3.53, I don't mind, I don't mind.

Even with his horrid second half, Joe Ryan was still phenomenal at striking batters out without walking them. His 5.8% BB rate is in the 92nd percentile, and his 29.3% K rate was higher than Max Scherzer's this year. Even with his awful stats post-injury, Ryan posted an xERA was 3.53 and xFIP was 3.76 for the year. These expected stats can be misleading sometimes- Shintaro Fujinami had an ERA of 7.80 with an xERA of 4.80, but he was awful at limiting damage with RISP, as his -19.89 RE24 was one of the worst in baseball. xERA and xFIP do not account for pitchers who give up lots of damage in short bunches, so it is hard to say that Fujinami got unlucky with poorly struck balls dropping. However, Joe Ryan's RE24 was positive at 1.30, which is not great but is above average. This suggests that he was the victim of some bad luck, and his ERA probably should have been in the mid to high 3.00s if he had had neutral luck.

 

Fastball sweet fastball, I wish I could throw less.

A lot of the narrative around Ryan revolves around his less-than-elite secondary stuff and how it holds him back. While I agree that he has a tendency to lean almost exclusively on his four-seamer in tough spots, he has completely remade his arsenal, and his splitter/sweeper have the makings of excellent strikeout pitches. When Ryan first entered the organization, his arsenal consisted of a fastball, slider, changeup, and slow curve. Now, he uses a splitter, sweeper, and slider as his three secondary offerings, with the splitter and slider being introduced this year. This is the first year he's used this arsenal, and it will likely improve with more experience.

His splitter moves 0.6" more than the average splitter at his arm slot, and hitters have not been able to do much with it (sub-.300 xwOBA against). It had a negative run value in '23, mostly because he was not getting many chases on it and was not tunneling it off his four-seamer, which was used primarily at the top of the zone. If he can start to work more East/West with his fastball, he can set up his splitter, which has been doing a great job of keeping at the bottom edge of the zone.

His sweeper offers a lot of drop, which makes it a great compliment to his fastball, as they have nearly opposite breaks. He collected a 36.5% whiff rate and only a 32.4% hard-hit rate against. In the small sample of batted ball events, the batting average, OPS, etc against significantly outpaced the expected stats; in a larger sample size, it should have better numbers. If he continues to work on his sweeper, it could be an excellent offering.

 

You'd better stick your dagger in someone else.

Gauging fan sentiment from a few stray posts is unadvisable, but I have seen way, way too many posts describing Ryan as a "backend" starter or a "#4 or #5". Maybe I just happened to look at posts from the seven to thirteen people who look only at box scores, but to me, this is like calling Carlos Correa a bottom-of-the-order hitter, Byron Buxton a 4th outfielder, or Griffin Jax a middle reliever based on down '23 seasons. Joe Ryan is not an ace, and the Twins should definitely seek a Sonny Gray replacement, but a strikeout pitcher who eats innings and doesn't walk people is a certified #2 starter. He is better than anything the Red Sox, Nationals, Tigers, Royals, White Sox, Cardinals, Reds, Angels, Athletics, and Rockies currently have on their roster (or will once free agency starts): a guy who would be the opening-day starter for a third of the league is an asset that should be highly appreciated, not insulted.

There are many questions about whether Thielbar, Stewart, and Paddack will be able to pitch at a high level for a full season. First base is a huge question mark, given the injuries to Miranda and Kirilloff. A number of hitters are regression candidates. Joe Ryan is the kind of guy who can be penned into the #2 or #3 spot of the rotation without much thought- I hope he can enter the season without a cloud of doubt and disrespect looming over his head because he does not deserve that based on his performance.

 

No reason to get excited

The 2023 season was great, the Twins won three playoff games and the division, we had an incredible rookie class, and tons of exciting plays. 2023 is a great building block for this team to firmly cement itself amongst the elite American League teams for the foreseeable future. The Twins have high expectations and aspirations for 2024, and Joe Ryan is a big reason why. To summarize:

• He was a top-5 pitcher in baseball before his injury.
• According to several expected stats, he was the victim of very poor luck.
• He introduced two brand new pitches this year that figure to get better with time.
• He has the talent to be a star pitcher.

Some of you have selective or short memories and will choose to glom onto his HR-prone second half or the fact that Rocco only trusted him to pitch two innings in an elimination game. I look forward to seeing Joe Ryan prove his doubters wrong and fulfill his potential as a co-ace on this magnificent Twins pitching staff.

 

Joe is very solid! I don’t know that a guy that throws around 92-93 with a couple other pitches he’s mastering is in the “talent” realm of a star pitcher? He can be a star, potentially, but I think his personality/mindset are his biggest attributes. His pitches will develop, that’s expected.

Whether he is classified as a #2 or a #4 doesn’t really matter when either guy takes the mound every 5th day in a rotation. I don’t think Ryan could care less. In fact, if he pitches in the 4 slot, his competition on the mound will be less likely to contain the offense. This allows Ryan to maintain an ERA near 4.00 & still reach 15 wins.

A 15-10 season with an ERA at 4.00 and 190 plus innings would be a fantastic year. He can win games if he can maintain health!

[Nine of twelve]

I think Ryan is positioned to improve next year. He's my early pick to click for 2024.