Ripples: Welcome Back Jay Jackson, and the Yankee Problem

In a move that will surprise some, the Twins are recalling Jay Jackson to join their bullpen Wednesday. They had to designate Diego Castillo for assignment to do it, which the team is always loath to do, but those who read Theo Tollefson's piece here at Twins Daily earlier this week know why they made this call.

Jackson has rediscovered the slider that is, more or less, his whole career. He couldn't consistently execute that offering during his first stint with the big-league team, and when that's the case, he's not an MLB-caliber pitcher. While he was in St. Paul, though, he maintained a good attitude and found the shape on that pitch that makes him not only MLB-caliber, but a valuable middle reliever.

Theo gave you all you needed to realize Jackson was primed for a return, and it's no surprise that Varland is headed back to the minors after his spot start. All that remains to explain is the choice to let Castillo go in the process, but that's not a galloping shock, either. Castillo filled in adequately as the last arm on the staff for a short time, but he's past his best utility in the big leagues. Jackson is a better fit for the roster, now that he has his best weapon back.

Why the Twins Can't Beat the Yankees
Tuesday night, while the Twins struggled against the Rockies, the Yankees were busy thoroughly bashing the Royals. They've made a habit of that, over a not-insignificant stretch. In fact, while the Twins get the headlines, the Yankees' 116-49 record against Kansas City since the year 2000 is even better than their 114-51 against the Twins. That doesn't count their dominance over the Twins in the playoffs, of course, but not coincidentally, the Royals' two playoff appearances during that span (2014 and 2015) each came in seasons when the Yankees just didn't make it.

It feels less notable that the Yankees lay such a whupping on the Royals than that they consistently drub the Twins, because the Twins have been much better than the Royals over those 25 seasons. Because the Twins are a winning team when not playing New York, their inability to beat the Bombers has become a popular enigma on which to muse.

Here's the thing: it's not really a mystery at all.

Ask yourself two important questions, any time one team seems to have special mastery over another:

1. What does the team with the upper hand do especially well?
2. What does the team getting beaten do poorly?

If the answer to those two questions is the same, it makes plenty of sense for one team to dominate the other. In this case, the overlap couldn't be more perfect. The 2024 Twins are the perfect illustration of this point. Their pitching staff strikes out batters as well as almost any in baseball, and issues very, very few walks. That's what they do well. What do they do poorly? It's the same thing they've done poorly for the last 30 years, in otherwise good times and in bad ones. The Twins give up home runs. They give up lots and lots of home runs. An assemblage of fly-ball pitchers, they're vulnerable to power, even in seasons in which they do everything else well.

What do the Yankees do well? They hit home runs. Much about that team has changed over the last quarter-century, just as much has changed about the Twins, but the Yankees still (always, forever) hit home runs. When one team has one of the league's greatest vulnerabilities to a particular outcome, and the other team has one of its greatest proclivities to produce that outcome, and when that outcome is the most extremely valuable (or damaging) one in baseball, it's a recipe for trouble.

The Yankees' .466 SLG against the Twins since 2000 is the sixth-highest for any team against an opponent they've played at least 100 times. Three of the top five involve the Rockies. The other two are the Yankees against the Royals, and the Red Sox against the Royals. When you're just plain bad, you're going to give up power to great power-hitting teams. When you're otherwise above-average, it feels like that should be avoidable, but because the Twins remain a team that gives up power in exchange for more whiffs and fewer walks, they run into the same trouble as worse pitching staffs.

No team in baseball throws fewer sinkers than the Twins. They work vertically within the zone, rather than horizontally. They do a lot of things well, but when they face the team who most consistently does well what they do a poor job of preventing, they lose. That's not a mystery, and the Yankees don't have a special hold on the team. The Twins can get the upper hand, or at least stop losing five or six games a year to the Bombers. They just have to make some adjustments that will frustrate the Yankee offense more effectively.