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It's a familiar surname, anyway: Gus Varland is the older brother of Twins pitcher Louie Varland. The pair are Minnesota natives who played collegiate baseball for highly respected Team USA coach Mark McKenzie. Thinking Varland could be available doesn’t take too much of a leap either, and the Los Angeles Dodgers may find something usable from Minnesota’s farm system.
The Dodgers left the elder Varland unprotected for the Rule 5 Draft a season ago. He was a 14th-round pick by the Oakland Athletics during the 2018 Major League Baseball Draft and reached Double A for Los Angeles in 2022. Having transitioned from a starter to a reliever, Varland saw a big jump in his strikeout rates, but was held back by walks and the long ball.
Despite some questions about how it would work, the Milwaukee Brewers took Varland in the Rule 5 Draft, and he made their 2023 Opening Day roster. Working just 8 2/3 innings for the Brewers while dealing with some injury concerns, he allowed 11 earned runs and tallied a 6-to-8 (not a misprint) strikeout-to-walk ratio. Ultimately, Varland returned to the Dodgers and resurfaced for 11 2/3 innings at the major-league level, in which he allowed just four earned runs and had 14 strikeouts against eight walks.
Varland is still far from a polished product, but his work at Triple-A Oklahoma City makes him intriguing for the Twins. Across 33 1/3 innings of work in the Pacific Coast League last season, he tallied a sparkling 2.16 ERA. The strikeout stuff has been there for the duration of his time as a reliever, and he also started to turn a corner when it came to command.
Now 27 years old, Varland still has three minor-league options available, but he would need to be added to the Twins' 40-man roster. They can make room, and the bullpen could reflect something that the San Francisco Giants have done by employing both Taylor Rogers and Tyler Rogers. Minnesota has already worked through a transition of Louie to relief, and although that may not stick for 2024, he has flashed triple-digit heat that made him a real weapon down the stretch.
Gus is not the same pitcher as his brother, but allowing the Twins to work with his stuff could unlock another level in his game. At the big-league level last year, Varland averaged 95.8 mph on his fastball, while mixing in a changeup and a slider. The Twins have long fancied that pitch mix, and Louie also found himself adding a cutter out of the bullpen.
Suppose Rocco Baldelli will be given additional arms for the bullpen beyond those already established. In that case, the expectation should be for them to be low-level additions or minor-league deals. Minnesota could again find a diamond in the rough, as they did with Brock Stewart last year, but the acquisition cost for Varland shouldn’t be substantial either. He could immediately be placed in low-leverage spots with an ability to work extra innings as Cole Sands was asked to do starting out the 2023 season.
Derek Falvey may determine that the bullpen is set and the blueprint already constructed is the way they want to go. That said, pairing the Varland brothers is appealing, if the Twins want to get creative and try to grab someone with stuff to work with.
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