I'm not a betting man, but I want to make a bet. Honor system; no cheating. I will bet that, when you think "elite fastball characteristics", you don't think about Twins reliever Ronny Henriquez. And since this medium is really a one-way communicative forum, I'm going to go ahead and assume I just won my bet. In fact, you probably hardly ever think about Henriquez at all. I can't blame you for that. I don't, either. I don't think even the Twins have thought that much about Henriquez over the last two seasons.
The thing is, though, we're all thinking about him now. In the Twins' last two wins, Henriquez has turned in 2 1/3 innings pitched, without allowing a run. He's pitched in high leverage in each contest, and added 0.217 in win probability for the team across the two outings. Brock Stewart and Chris Paddack are hurt. Jorge Alcalá is in St. Paul. Louie Varland isn't adjusting as smoothly to the whole reliever thing this time around, albeit in an extremely limited set of observations to date. Don't look now, but Ronny Henriquez might be part of the 'A' bullpen for Rocco Baldelli, with fewer than a dozen games left in the season and a playoff berth in the balance.
No one asked for this set of circumstances, but as scary as the above might sound, Henriquez might just be up for the job. Out of nowhere, or nearly so, he's blossomed into an awfully interesting arm--maybe even one with upside akin to what Paddack, Stewart, and Varland offered the team at the tail end of 2023. That's an extraordinary-sounding claim, but give me a minute. I bet I can sell you, at least a little, on it.
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