Yoendrys Gómez Will Reveal the Intentions of Jeremy Zoll—and Tom Pohlad

[Tom Froemming]

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Yoendrys Gómez has me wondering: Can we have nice things? With the scars of last year’s trade deadline selloff still mending, I’m not ready to get hurt again. That’s why I’m shielding myself from falling for Gómez, a breakout bullpen sensation. 

Gómez has been brilliant since being plucked from the scrap heap. Perhaps this is outdated logic I’m applying to the current Twins brass, but I believe he’s more likely to be pitching for a contender come August than to be a long-term piece here. If the Twins continue to operate with the same mentality that Derek Falvey and Joe Pohlad did last July, Gómez is as good as gone. Will Jeremy Zoll and Tom Pohlad take a different approach? We’ll see.

The thirst for bullpen help at the trade deadline is nearly unquenchable. Twins fans know this as well as anyone. The Twins may end up being among the teams seeking relief help. Thanks to a middling American League, they’re just two games out of a Wild Card spot despite being 35-40 entering Thursday's play. But, as Cody Christie recently wrote, decision time is coming, one way or another.

Should the Twins fall further from contention, Gómez will be a commodity. Given his lack of a track record, he wouldn’t be any team’s first choice, but there will be no shortage of suitors if he continues to pitch well. Gómez had been used as a long-,relief mop-up man with the Rays, pitching at least two innings in six of his nine outings. After the Twins acquired him in early May, he worked himself into high leverage in short order. The role looks good on him, and a few minor adjustments are doing wonders.

As Matthew Lenz recently pointed out, the Twins have Gómez throwing more sweepers and fewer of his other secondaries. Also, among the many items Aaron Gleeman recently called out in his lengthy profile of Gómez was that he dropped his arm slot (link to article here, subscription required but highly recommended). 

Gómez has a 1.53 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, and 29.2 K% in 17 2/3 innings as a Twin. In 20 outings, he’s already earned seven saves and five holds. This is exactly the type of guy the Twins desperately needed to find. As if the early returns weren’t exciting enough, the righty is also under team control for ages. Though this is the fourth season in which he's pitched in the majors, he didn't even start the campaign with one full year of official service time. He's likely to become artbitration-eligible as a Super Two guy after 2027, but he still won't hit free agency until the end of 2031 campaign. Relievers are frustratingly fickle, and Gómez embodies that. Still, there’s a real chance he could be a high-leverage reliever for the Twins for another five seasons. 

On the other hand, he could turn back into a pumpkin at any moment. After all, this guy had pitched so poorly that the Twins were able to acquire him for cash considerations. In the past two seasons, he has been claimed off waivers twice and traded twice.

Before joining the Twins, Gómez had 93 1/3 career innings in the big leagues. In that time, he had a 5.11 ERA, 5.60 FIP, 20.2 K% and 10.5 BB%, and had recorded just a pair of saves (one of them being a three-inning save in a 9-2 blowout).

In his pre-Twins days, Gómez particularly struggled to keep the ball in the park. From the start of the 2023 season to the point that he joined the Twins, he was among 524 pitchers to log 90+ innings. Among that sample, he had …

• The fourth-worst Barrel% (12.6%).
• The 20th-worst HR/9 (1.83).
• The 24th-worst xERA (5.52).

It was easier to envision him being DFAd again by now, rather than him even simply finding his footing. Is this run he’s on sustainable? The one thing we can say for certain is that Gómez will eventually give up another home run.

It might not feel like there’s any rush for the Twins to come to a conclusion on Gómez’s future outlook, but that conversation changes once teams start to ask about him. And they will.

Maybe things will be different this time around. Jeremy Zoll inherited a mess. Even with Gómez stabilizing the late innings, this bullpen is in disorder. You can’t build a good team around a bullpen, but you also can’t build a good team without one. Zoll and his front office clearly saw something in Gómez. Maybe he’ll want to relish in this victory of an addition and keep him around as a building block of a more functional future bullpen.

While he hasn’t done much to back it up, Tom Pohlad has talked a lot about the Twins' intention to win. Since he’s been every bit as penny-pinching as all his relatives before him, the fact that Gómez will be dirt-cheap over the coming several seasons should endear him to Pohlad. This is an affordable potential building block, albeit a minor one. If the payroll is going to continue to be limited, these are the types of players the Twins need to prioritize holding onto.

At the end of the day, everyone has a price. It all comes down to value. Perhaps trading Gómez would turn out to be the smart move, but the Twins' bullpen is in dire straits due to a series of previous “smart moves.” If Zoll and Pohlad are content to simply sell off Gómez to the highest bidder, it’ll be a signal to expect more of the same. But if they aren't, maybe there's something genuinely different happening.

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[DJL44]

If they can get a return like they did for Varland they have to sell. He has pitched well for one month. 

[Cory Engelhardt]

I'd truly be shocked/surprised if they do trade him now. He is team controlled and cheap for a long time (that's assuming there IS a 2027 season, and who knows what the cba will look like whenever there are games again) but he was available a month ago and every team passed on him. What kind of return would be needed to flip him now? I'd imagine more than most teams would want to give.

[Patzky]

What could we possibly get that we don't already.got.. the next Gomez for 2027? Why....

[Mike Sixel]

I mean, it was stupid to deal varland.... And I'd keep this guy also. You can't build a bullpen in one year .... As we've seen. 

I have doubts! But just keep him, unless you are absolutely blown away, of course. 

[Blyleven2011]

Gomez reminds me of another pitcher that was lousy for some seasons and had a good half season and our famous trade of Lopez from Baltimore happened  ...

I sure hope I'm wrong and the twins struck gold by tinkering with his pitching arm slot and pitch selection , he's been good since acquired ... 

[mikelink45]

This is easy for me - keep him.  If he is a mirage we are no worse off.  If he continues to shine we have a building block for a BP

[tony&rodney]

Not sure the Louis Varland comparison is valid. We should remember that Yoendrys Gomez had been on a difficult journey before he found his current success just recently with the Twins. As a follower of minor league baseball I was aware that Alan Roden and Kendry Rojas had/have potential. Still, there must be a point when a club needs to trust the abilities of the players within their system and allows the guys they have to gain experience and flourish if the team believes in the talent. That is why I'm opposed to trading Joe Ryan for anything less than a 60 prospect and I'm willing to add a player or two to acquire the top talent, which I also do not think is very likely because teams hold their top prospects these days. Love Rojas but the Twins had no need to trade Varland and if Gomez has that type of talent it doesn't make sense to consider trading him this season. Now, if the club believes that Gomez is operating on borrowed time whose sand is going to run out real soon .... sure. 

As for Zoll and Tom Pohlad, I have never met them. Zoll has not exactly been very visible or verbal. I'm not sure what his role was under Falvey. He should be able to forge his own path. Tom Pohlad seems to have been more interested than people want to believe. I'm willing to wait and see how he proceeds as the director of the Pohlad ownership. 

[Permanent Twins Fan]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

If they can get a return like they did for Varland they have to sell. He has pitched well for one month. 

Which is why they won't get that kind of return for him. His track record before being with the Twins wasn't great, and it is a situation where the return they might get for him probably won't be enough for them to move him.