Can Daniel Duarte Take Another Step Forward in Minnesota Twins Bullpen?

[Cody Pirkl]

The Minnesota Twins' bullpen will be tested over the next few weeks. With three of their top five relievers missing, someone must step up. One of their offseason waiver pickups may be a top candidate to do so.

Daniel Duarte had the raw stuff to be a decent reliever with the Cincinnati Reds in 2023, but couldn’t put it all together. Now, with a bit of Twins magic and a golden opportunity, Duarte may find himself climbing the bullpen depth chart.

Spring Training results are to be taken with a grain of salt, but his 12 strikeouts in 12+ innings were impressive, especially without a walk to temper their value. Free passes were arguably Duarte’s biggest problem in 2023. He may have walked a hitter in his regular-season debut, but he still looked like a candidate to move up the pecking order at the end of games.

On a day when everyone standing on the mound in a Twins jersey was getting knocked around by the Royals, Duarte threw two scoreless innings with two strikeouts, while allowing one hit. He showcased a slider and averaged north of 96 miles per hour on the fastball. Both pitches generated whiffs at least a third of the time. He was typically a one-inning reliever in 2023, but he held his stuff through two innings on Sunday. It may be jumping the gun based on one appearance, but what we’ve seen is a fantastic sign.

Duarte’s most-used pitch in 2023 was his sinker, which was incredibly effective in terms of overall results but only drew a 20% whiff rate. His slider was his fourth-most-used pitch. On Sunday, those two pitches traded places. The slider became a legitimate weapon, and his high-octane fastball seemed a lot more effective than it had at any point last season.

Unsurprisingly, the Twins picked Duarte up to make him a slider-first pitcher. The pitch was effective for him in 2023, but it had an extra inch and a half of vertical drop against the Royals on Sunday. The hope is that a change in pitch mix and the tweaked movement on the slider helps Duarte’s fastball play up, after it allowed a .724 SLG with Cincinnati.

The Twins have found this to be a winning formula in the past, even if the payoff is turning a player bouncing around the league into a solid middle reliever. At this point, such a development would be welcome, given the injuries to the bullpen. There is no apparent hierarchy behind Brock Stewart and Griffin Jax, but it would be a win for the Twins if Duarte could grab ahold of that job. The group will be much deeper, of course, when Jhoan Durán, Caleb Thielbar, and Justin Topa return in the coming weeks.

Duarte isn’t expected to have the upside of Durán or Jax, but he has good enough stuff to aspire to a setup man ceiling. We’ve seen the Twins succeed with these kinds of pitch mix changes, and it’s fair to wonder whether Duarte’s 2024 success has everything to do with walks. If he’s throwing 96 mph with the weapon of a slider he showed on Sunday, the only thing that can hold him back is issuing free passes.

The Twins currently have solid depth in the bullpen, even in light of their injury issues, but they could use someone taking a step forward. Duarte flashed that capability against the Royals. Could he be another under-the-radar success story?

View full article

[Kenny Powers]

It's been touched on already many times, but the Twins really did a good job of loading up on bullpen guys at AAA.

Ryan Jensen, Diego Castillo, Scott Blewitt, Hobie Harris, Jeff Brigham, Matt Bowman, Austin Schulfer...that's seven guys who throw 95+.  Now, I'm not saying they are all going to be great.  But, at least we have a stockpile of hard throwing guys that we can cycle through the waiver wire/back to AAA.  And with bullpen guys, you just never know year to year (or even month to month) what you are going to get, so it's nice to have options.

[jmlease1]

I'm going to wait a bit before getting on the Duarte train. It's good to see him throwing well and he certainly has good stuff, but he's struggled to not hand out free passes at higher levels, and walked a guy in his first appearance as a Twin too. Of course outside of last season he's never had more than 20 appearances in a season in the minors/majors, so it's not like we're working with big numbers.

He's an interesting addition and did fine in a low-leverage first outing. But I would count his season a success if he can replace some of those Pagan innings effectively, rather than look to him to be a late inning weapon.

[terrydactyls]

Great job, Cody.  It must have been a difficult task to find something positive to say about Sunday's game! 😀

[Cody Pirkl]

14 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

I'm going to wait a bit before getting on the Duarte train. It's good to see him throwing well and he certainly has good stuff, but he's struggled to not hand out free passes at higher levels, and walked a guy in his first appearance as a Twin too. Of course outside of last season he's never had more than 20 appearances in a season in the minors/majors, so it's not like we're working with big numbers.

He's an interesting addition and did fine in a low-leverage first outing. But I would count his season a success if he can replace some of those Pagan innings effectively, rather than look to him to be a late inning weapon.

The jury is still out on him for sure, but they took a big risk scrapping his 2 seamer from last season and by stuff numbers it looks like it could pay off. They've had success stories like having Matt Wisler throw his slider more, but in Duarte's case they completely changed who he is as a pitcher. I'm very interested to see how it plays out.

[JD-TWINS]

I like the focus the Team seems to have on slider - tough pitch to hit and can be tough to master. If the pitcher can use it around the plate consistently it makes a guy’s fastball that much more effective. No need to keep trying to find guys that can be moved into the 7th/8th inning (high leverage). If he can pitch effectively in the 5th - 6th to get to a clean 7th for another guy - that amount of value/niche is just fine for a guy that was 10 or 11 on the Pen depth chart 3-4 weeks ago.

[Dman]

He looked really good this spring until they had him pitching against teams MLB lineups.  Then the results weren't as good.  I sure hope they found something that can help him turn the corner. Always looking for good pen arms.

[DocBauer]

No, most of the time, ST numbers really don't mean that much. Unless you're a fringe guy like Castro last year, or Duarte this year, looking for opportunity and grabbing hold of it.

But just to be real, Duarte would be in AAA right now if not due to injuries. Not a knock on him, just reality. My philosophy has always been...not excluding the FO efforts this past offseason...to collect a group of arms and see what you can do with them. You end up with a Stewart and Thielbar, amongst others, if you do it right. But when you do it wrong, like the Twins did last year, you find a Hoffman who does great and you let him walk for inexplicable reasons, as they did last year.

Duarte is 27yo, right at the perfect age where stuff and "game maturity/experience" happens with the right coaching where you might find something. But I do find it oddly interesting that with the 2 seamer coming back in to vogue, including with the Twins, that was the pitch they eliminated. Might they bring it back for him down the road? Was this maybe an attempt to find better control by limiting his arsenal? At least for now?

He's healthy, throwing 96 and has a good slider. Right now, I have zero illusions he's going to reach anything close to set up reliability. I'd be ecstatic if he could just be reliable for an inning...maybe two...in the 5th-7th innings. Nothing more expected, or dreamed on, just throw solid stuff in the zone and help be part of the bridge to the later innings. If he can do that for a month or even two, the Twins did a good job with him. Anything more is gravy.