Louis Varland Has Got That Closer In Him

[Peter Labuza]

Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

If the Twins are considering anything at the deadline, trading Jhoan Duran or Griffin Jax has become the obvious route for the team. Joe Ryan would require a package that would rival the haul the Nationals got for Juan Soto. Rental pieces like Harrison Bader or Willi Castro might bring a couple interesting picks but nothing to cement the team’s future. But two ace relievers with multiple years of team control? That haul could change the team's future.

As most fans known, relief pitchers are fickle beings. It was only a few years ago that Cole Sands existed primary to mop up blow ups. Derek Falvey grabbed Brock Stewart as a minor league pick up in the middle of rehabbing from Tommy John. And on the negative side for the Twins, somehow the Red Sox have found the Jorge Alcala magic. The idea that Duran or Jax will remain commanding relievers (not to mention pricey for a team whose budget next year remains a black box) has already been tested this year to an extent. 

But what do you do when you lose the top of your bullpen? Trading these two would require multiple new arms to take their place. But if it comes to it, there is no reason Louis Varland cannot elevate himself to the closer role.

Twins fans (not to mention the front office) have valiantly attempted to peg Varland into several different roles in his years with the team. Many of them on trying to unlock a starter’s potential. Even this offseason, Varland spent his time in limbo as the team decided how to build its rotation. When I met him briefly in December, he said he was working on a “depthier” slider. That pitch has turned out to be one of his weakest and rarely used (it has a 30% whiff rate but lands too much in the zone). 

But if Varland has the time now to know he’s the head of the bullpen, that will finally give him the runway to develop a closer’s arsenal. For some pitchers, it doesn’t take much to be a closer; Emmanuel Clasé does it throwing a single, unhittable pitch. Varland still has a starter’s arsenal, but only his knuckle curveball has developed into a workhorse alongside his fastball.

But there’s a case to be made that Varland has been the team’s most valuable reliever. He might carry a lower strikeout rate than Jax and Duran, but he also walks fewer batters than them. That's while being a multifaceted choice for the team, whether as fireman, set up man, and sometimes double inning relief. Varland has thrown more innings than any other relief pitcher and holds the highest WPA for the core. Before this week against the Dodgers, Varland hadn’t allowed an inherited runner to score since May. He’s also cemented himself as the most…acrobatic pitcher among the relief corps.

The case for closing becomes evident when you start to put Varland among other closers in the game. I pulled a number of the game’s current top closers alongside the Twins core and looked at various +Stats (where 100 is league average), and color coded them based on their general rank against each other—all of them have elite stuff, but red is marked where they are closer (or in some cases, below) league average. At the end, I took averages of all these markers, treating them relatively equally, to produce a sense of how Varland stacks up against elite pitching in the game (GAME-, where lower is better): 

Pitcher	Team	ERA-	FIP-	xFIP-	K/9+	BB/9+	GAME-
Louis Varland	Twins	51	69	70	104	71	71.4
Griffin Jax	Twins	101	49	41	164	76	65.6
Jhoan Duran	Twins	48	58	67	117	96	70.9
Josh Hader	Astros	58	82	71	155	77	70.5
Edwin Diaz	Mets	39	56	61	163	96	62.7
Aroldis Chapman	Red Sox	29	43	52	158	69	51.3
Jeff Hoffman	Blue Jays	118	99	64	147	71	84
Mason Miller	Athletics	95	68	67	168	131	84.1
Robert Suarez	Padres	87	56	85	115	80	79
Emmanuel Clase	Guardians	69	54	81	109	60	71.1
Andrés Muño	Mariners	38	58	61	140	124	70.5
Dennis Santana	Pirates	35	57	89	87	46	68.4
Trevor Megill	Brewers	56	66	82	131	117	79.5
Devin Williams	Yankees	117	61	79	141	109	87.4

 

If there’s one story that stands out, it’s that Louis Varland needs more strikeouts to enter that elite echelon. In fact, the most league average FIP- and xFIP- are essentially that story; a few more strikeouts would easily put him in the green. Some of that is where Varland comes in the game, where Baldelli has called upon him for 11 appearances with runners already on base. For Varland, that has meant treading with caution: fewer pitches in the zone, inducing more walks, and striking out less (ironically, runners on base dramatically increases his whiff rates, but he cannot seem to put them away). Varland needs to get aggressive to become a serious contender.

But what happens this offseason as Varland focuses on that command and building out those off-speed pitches? What does his ceiling look like as he builds a clear role for the future? Varland probably needs one more pitch to enter that next echelon. But the velocity is already there—hitting close to 101. 

But given he doesn’t he begin his arbitration until 2027, there is no doubt that Varland could be a cornerstone closer until the next decade begins.  We all know that Varland has got that dog in him. Maybe it’s time to see if he’s got a closer mentality too.

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[Rod Carews Birthday]

This is good information, but it places an overemphasis on the closer role being the single most important thing in the bullpen.  This is a bit of ann oversimplification.  Every time that you take players away from the “top” side of the bullpen, it slides others upward into more crucial roles.  If they are ready, as Varland was this year, then it all works out nicely.  However, if you are trying to put lower leverage arms into higher leverage situations, the whole thing can potentially blow up.  

Might Varland be successful as a closer?  He might be.  Does the necessity of moving him “up” to the closer role have other deleterious effects on the bullpen as a whole?  Also pretty likely.  We may need to do this, but expecting it all to work out if only Varland can handle the closer role is only half of the picture.

[arby58]

11 minutes ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

Might Varland be successful as a closer?  He might be.  Does the necessity of moving him “up” to the closer role have other deleterious effects on the bullpen as a whole?  Also pretty likely.  We may need to do this, but expecting it all to work out if only Varland can handle the closer role is only half of the picture.

A valid concern - and why I don't think the Twins would trade both Jax and Duran (especially since they are also likely to lose Coulombe either through trade or free agency). So, who else might emerge? Prielipp has the stuff to do it, and in 16 starts at AA, he's only pitched an average of 3 1/3 innings per start. He'll be 25 before the start of next year, so he's not like Raya (22) who still might get stronger and be able to pitch 6 innings a game.

[mickster]

20 minutes ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

This is good information, but it places an overemphasis on the closer role being the single most important thing in the bullpen.  This is a bit of ann oversimplification.  Every time that you take players away from the “top” side of the bullpen, it slides others upward into more crucial roles.  If they are ready, as Varland was this year, then it all works out nicely.  However, if you are trying to put lower leverage arms into higher leverage situations, the whole thing can potentially blow up.  

Might Varland be successful as a closer?  He might be.  Does the necessity of moving him “up” to the closer role have other deleterious effects on the bullpen as a whole?  Also pretty likely.  We may need to do this, but expecting it all to work out if only Varland can handle the closer role is only half of the picture.

Although I do think Varland has a closer in him - this is so accurate.   For those of us that remember a fantastic bullpen arm that was used to set up the great Goose Gossage.   Twins traded for him and made him our closer.           BOOM!, fail.   Mr. Ron Davis

[arby58]

18 minutes ago, mickster said:

Although I do think Varland has a closer in him - this is so accurate.   For those of us that remember a fantastic bullpen arm that was used to set up the great Goose Gossage.   Twins traded for him and made him our closer.           BOOM!, fail.   Mr. Ron Davis

Brings back (mostly painful) memories. Five years as the Twins closer, cumulative WAR of 0.1 - and never had a WHIP lower than 1.371. Yuck.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

4 minutes ago, arby58 said:

Brings back (mostly painful) memories. Five years as the Twins closer, cumulative WAR of 0.1 - and never had a WHIP lower than 1.371. Yuck.

Oof!  Gives me ugly flashbacks!  

[mickster]

5 minutes ago, arby58 said:

Brings back (mostly painful) memories. Five years as the Twins closer, cumulative WAR of 0.1 - and never had a WHIP lower than 1.371. Yuck.

Bring me Doug Corbett and Mike Marshall 

[Bodie]

9 minutes ago, arby58 said:

Brings back (mostly painful) memories. Five years as the Twins closer, cumulative WAR of 0.1 - and never had a WHIP lower than 1.371. Yuck.

"Heartburn" Davis???

Everyone at Tums loved him!!!

[arby58]

2 minutes ago, mickster said:

Bring me Doug Corbett and Mike Marshall 

Corbett actually had a couple of decent seasons for the Twins - on a couple of pretty lousy cubs (combined 34 games under .500). He had a combined WAR of 8.5 in 1980 and 1981 but got off to a poor start in 1982 and was traded to the Angels. That trade worked out pretty well for the Twins - Corbett and Rob Wilfong brought  Tom Brunansky to the Twins.

[Bodie]

4 minutes ago, mickster said:

Bring me Doug Corbett and Mike Marshall 

Mike "5 days a week" Marshall???

Any GM with half a brain should be moving  every failed starter into a multi-inning, multiple times a week reliever. 

With nearly every starter doing number 4 or 5 starter innings, bullpen help is mandatory. Running 3, 4 or 5 pitchers out every game is simply a failure waiting to happen (repeatedly).  Every team needs competent multiple inning guys in the BP to have any hope of getting through a season without shelling out your bullpen.

Or you can run your closer out when your down 5 runs because, "who else is left?"... and insure his unavailability tomorrow because no one can safely pitch 2 days in a row!

Gawd, I miss the days when actual men played this lovely kids' game...

[LA Vikes Fan]

40 minutes ago, mickster said:

Although I do think Varland has a closer in him - this is so accurate.   For those of us that remember a fantastic bullpen arm that was used to set up the great Goose Gossage.   Twins traded for him and made him our closer.           BOOM!, fail.   Mr. Ron Davis

I agree and we see the same thing in Jax. There's something about closing out games - some guys can do it and some just can't. Jax is a great reliever in the late innings but turns into a pumpkin when asked to close (0-5 this year). I put out a lot of stats that show this in another thread so I won't bore everyone by repeating them here. 

I think the only way to find out if Varland can close is to let him close.  Give him opportunity. For example, Duran has pitched the last 2 nights. If we can get a lead going into the 9th today, Varland should close.  Try to find him 10 plus closing opportunities the rest of the season and live with the inevitable hiccups along the way (It might not be that hard if Jax is traded).  Let's know the answer to this question going into next year. This is what the rest of 2025 is for - finding out what we have for 2026. 

[rdehring]

Interesting subject.  Although there remains a chance they trade Coloumbe, I don't see them trading more than one of Duran, Jax or Stewart.  Of that trio, I see Duran as the most desirable.  Why?  He will likely be the most expensive over the next two years, the most difficult to extend, and he should bring the biggest return.  A much better return than Stewart and also a better return than Jax.  

Only see Duran being traded, or Jax for that matter, if they get an absolute obscene return.  Expect they are having discussions with one or more teams and the inquiring G.M. is both shocked and offended by the ask.  Doesn't mean some team doesn't pony up come Thursday.

[AceWrigley]

Couldn't we have found a better lead photo of the mad closer Varland rather than him doing the shot put from his posterior? 🙂

[gman]

The team needs to identify and bring up next years Varland this year. Maybe 2.

[Nshore]

Baseball's a tough business.  They work so hard to put together a quality pen, and the second they achieve it, they have to get to work dismantling it.