Juan Rincón

[William Malone]

This bullpen featured many names familiar to Twins fans. Matt Guerrier and Jesse Crain had solid seasons. Dennys Reyes posted a 0.89 ERA while dominating his lefty specialist role. Pat Neshek made his Major League debut in July and quickly became a high-leverage staple during the second-half stretch run. But the guy in the eighth inning ahead of Nathan was veteran righty Juan Rincón.

Forty-six of his 75 appearances in 2006 came in the eighth inning. Another four featured him pitching into the eighth after entering in the seventh. Rincón led the Twins with 25 holds that season. The Twins' only pitchers with a higher WPA in 2006 were Nathan, Cy Young winner Johan Santana, and breakout rookie Francisco Liriano.

2006 capped off a dominant three-year run for Rincón. His 2.66 ERA from 2004-06 was the eighth lowest among major league relievers who appeared in at least 200 games.

Rincón built his dominance around reverse splits, holding left-handed hitters to a .196 average and .528 OPS during that great three-year stretch. He was also a workhorse, pitching over 80 innings twice and posting a 2.22 ERA on zero days rest over his eight seasons in Minnesota.

He owned a 5.19 postseason ERA in eight appearances with the Twins, but most of that is ballooned by one horrible appearance in game four of the 2004 ALDS. Rincón allowed just one earned run across the other seven appearances, covering 8.1 innings. His most notable playoff performance came in game two of the 2004 ALDS when he retired all six batters he faced in a tie game. This included strikeouts of Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada, Ruben Sierra, and Miguel Cairo.

Things began to fall apart for Rincón after 2006. He recorded a 5.13 ERA across 63 appearances during the 2007 season, as the Twins finished below .500 for the first time since 2000. His performance didn’t improve in 2008, and Minnesota designated Rincón for assignment in June. His struggles would continue over the next few seasons during stints with Cleveland, Detroit, and Colorado.

Part of his career decline was tied to opponents' sudden spike in home runs. He once went 77 straight appearances without allowing a home run. LaTroy Hawkins is the only pitcher in Twins history with a longer streak, not allowing a home run in 79 consecutive outings between the 2000 and 2001 seasons. Through 2006, Rincón had allowed just 0.5 home runs per nine innings. But that number jumped to 1.2 per nine innings from 2007 onward.

Current Twins manager Rocco Baldelli can say he hit Rincón at his peak, though, as his only career grand slam came against the Venezuelan righty in 2004. 

Rincón began to find success in closing games in independent ball. He posted a 2.86 ERA with 56 saves in the Atlantic League from 2011-13, pitching for the Bridgeport Bluefish and York Revolution. The Angels signed him to a minor league deal in the second half of 2012, but he was never called up to the bigs after making 17 appearances in Triple-A.

After retiring, Rincón coached for one season in the Toronto Blue Jays minor league system. According to his LinkedIn page, he is an Athlete Relations Consultant for a private jet company.

Despite having a solid big-league career, Rincón is perhaps most remembered for being one of the first players suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs. His May 2005 suspension made him the fifth player suspended for steroid use by Major League Baseball. Under today’s policy, that’s an 80-game ban. It was just ten games back then, and Rincon was back in his set-up man role later that month. You wouldn’t even know he missed time by looking at the back of his baseball card, as Rincón still appeared in 75 games during the 2005 season.

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[NYCTK]

Best roided up reliever outside of Gagne.