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The Minnesota Twins have completed a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays for reliever/opener Trevor Richards , per Dan Hayes of The Athletic.
Richards is a seven-year veteran who is a classic “swing guy”; he started as starter, has moved to the bullpen, and has bounced through four teams as a classic eat-innings reliever, including working as a “opener” this season with the Blue Jays. His career ERA of 4.51 doesn’t inspire, nor does his 4.64 ERA this year. But he’s appealing because the right-hander has “reverse splits,” and has for his entire career. He'll be a free agent at the end of the season.
The Twins bullpen this year has been generally effective, relying on high-leverage arms like Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, and (recently) Jorge Alcalá or (previously) Brock Stewart to secure close games. But all of those pitchers are right-handed, and the three left-handed relievers in the Twins bullpen have been unreliable in close games. Richards is not left-handed, but his combination of pitches plays well versus left-handed hitters, which is who left-handed pitchers would usually face.
Richards is a pure two-pitch pitcher: high-rise fastball, and scroogie-style, fadeaway changeup. The vertical break difference between the two is almost two full feet. It’s akin to Jake Odorizzi, if Odo didn’t have a curveball or that cutter he learned in Minnesota. Richards is vulnerable in various ways, but the change has a whole bunch of spin on it, heavily pronated out of his hand, and it just disappears down and away from a lefty.
It can miss bats against righties, too, but when he misses with it, it gets hit hard. Lefties are .156/.256/.250 against him this year, but righties are .200/.294/.391, and almost 5% of plate appearances by a righty against him end in a homer.
Jay Harry was a sixth-round draft pick of the Twins in the 2023 draft. The 22-year-old infielder played this year in High-A Cedar Rapids and has posted a .655 OPS in 340 plate appearances. He is not one of Twins Daily's Top 20 Twins Prospects. To make room for Richards, Josh Staumont was designated for assignment, putting an end to one bargain-basement reliever experiment so as to begin another.
Injuries and control issues marred Staumont's brief stay in Twins Territory. Richards is only a small upgrade over him, but with the team's lefty relievers scuffling so badly, the matchup value proved to be the tiebreaker.
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