One Last Shot for Lewis Thorpe

[Cody Pirkl]

Lewis Thorpe may be a long forgotten name in the minds of Twins fans, but in 2022 he has one last chance to make things work in Minnesota. Is there any chance he can revive his Twins career?

After breaking into the big leagues and filling some important innings in 2019, Lewis Thorpe looked like a future rotation piece for the Major League club. He led AAA in K/9 and while he posted a 6.18 ERA in 27 2/3 MLB innings, his underlying numbers looked like he got unlucky.

Unfortunately, 2020 proved those analytics wrong, as Thorpe posted a 6.06 ERA in just over 16 innings during the COVID-shortened season with underlying numbers to match. Thorpe failed to even eat innings in his outings as his BB/9 matched his K/9 at 5.5, and he soon became passed over on the rotational depth chart.

2021 was odd in the sense that Thorpe should have been a make-or-break player out of Spring Training before MLB granted the Twins an extra year of team control (a fourth option year) due to injuries early in his career. This allowed the Twins to option him to AAA to reset and try to work his way back up. Unfortunately, Thorpe still failed to impress in his 15 MLB innings in 2021, as he had a higher BB/9 (4.1) and ERA (4.70) than K/9 (3.52). So why are we still talking about Lewis Thorpe?

This spring is make-or-break for Thorpe, as he’s unable to be optioned if he doesn’t make the Opening Day roster. He could be on the fringes of the 40-man roster as is and could even be cut loose if the Twins make enough moves in the coming weeks. That being said, Thorpe possibly sticking around in a bullpen role should raise some eyebrows for those that remember the talent the lefty flashed early in his career.

The most confusing trend of Thorpe’s downhill trajectory is his fastball velocity. During his three MLB seasons, his fastball has dipped from 91.4 mph to 89.9 mph to 89.1 mph in 2021. He’s had a few shoulder ailments along the way which would help explain this dropoff, but at no point since 2019 has he even regularly hit 90 mph. It’s fair to call this the root of Thorpe’s problems, as sub 90 mph fastballs rarely play at the MLB level and the lack of separation in velocity affects the secondary pitches as well. 

What we know about moves to the bullpen is it often gives pitchers a nice velocity boost. The Twins bullpen has a foundation of players who’ve seen this play out such as Tyler Duffey and Taylor Rogers. It’s hard to imagine Thorpe recreating himself as a flamethrower coming out of the pen, but he showed that even sitting around 91 mph as he did in his rookie season is enough to rack up strikeouts and get the best of hitters.

It’s not unheard of for pitchers to find success after struggling mightily early in their careers. At 26 years old, Thorpe could still have plenty in the tank if something clicks. An immediate plan for a bullpen role may keep him fresher and healthier without a starter's workload which he’s struggled to shoulder thus far in his career. Letting his stuff play up in shorter stints may be the ticket for the Australian left-hander who averaged well over a strikeout per inning his entire minor league career as well as in his MLB debut.

The fact that Thorpe has remained on the Twins 40 man roster this long suggests the team believes he may prove to be worth it. 2022 is the season we all find out. Do you believe Lewis Thorpe can once again become a contributor for the Twins?

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[miracleb]

I just don't feel he is going to have enough time to establish himself as a reliable bullpen arm coming out of spring training.  I would imagine he will get released after his second poor outing........

[Whitey333]

I hope he does well.  But I just don't see it.  The fact that they are already giving him a spot in the bullpen is troubling.  Surely they must have some better candidates.  The pitching staff is still a mess and keeping Thorpe doesn't make the staff any better, just desperate.

[RJA]

I hope he responds, but I fear I am skeptical.  If Wes Johnson hasn't been able to crank up his velocity, I am not sure moving to the bullpen will help.  But, that is the beauty of the sport--you never know what's going to happen and players can rebound.

[rv78]

The Twins hang on to under-performers way too long. Thorpe is one of them. Instead of giving the next player on the depth chart a chance they'll go with Thorpe, He'll perform average at best and the guy who should have gotten a chance to pitch in his spot will spend the year in AAA ball racking up good numbers. At some point all AAA players who don't get the call have to wonder why they aren't considered good enough to get the call, especially when the player they could replace isn't performing well.

[mikelink45]

Are they hoping for another Liam Hendriks?  Maybe Aussies develop late and bloom into great RP.  Since we have not exactly filled the pen with new and exciting arms it is worth a try.  But I prefer using Duran there for this year. 

[wabene]

The weird thing not mentioned is when the season started in 2020 Thorpe was hitting 94, as in the above video clip, and it appeared we might have something. Then the velo dropped, he said he had a dead arm, then was shut down. Maybe Wes got him growing harder, but his body couldn't take it. The mystery of Lewis Thorpe may be solved this year.

[roger]

Began following this kid during his 16/17 year old winter when he was one of the best pitchers in the Australian Winter League.  Kid was fantastic.

Since then he has missed so much time, including a couple years ago when everyone was thinking he was part of the team's solution and ended up taking time away during spring training.  The result, as you said, is that he is on his last chance with the Twins.

If this is to be a Cinderella year for the Twins, they need a couple pitchers to step up and be wonderful surprises.  No one could end up being that more so than Thorpe.  I don't know if anyone is expecting it to happen, but it would be wonderful if it did.  And yes, it will begin with his fastball getting up to 92 or better.

[chpettit19]

3 hours ago, Whitey333 said:

I hope he does well.  But I just don't see it.  The fact that they are already giving him a spot in the bullpen is troubling.  Surely they must have some better candidates.  The pitching staff is still a mess and keeping Thorpe doesn't make the staff any better, just desperate.

Define "already giving him a spot in the bullpen." Sounds like you're suggesting he's got an opening day spot locked up already. I haven't seen that anywhere. They're moving him to a bullpen role, but that doesn't mean they're giving him a bullpen spot. I'd say the chances are higher that he's DFA'd than he makes the opening day roster at this point. But the bullpen is his best chance at a ML career at this point.

[Doctor Gast]

That you Cody for bringing up this subject. In the past pitchers pools were much smaller and simpler. A lot of stress was put on arm strength, if a pither couldn't give you 8 good innings, you were gone and velo wasn't as important.

Now we have a lot more teams and it's hard to find those strong arms. Pitching has become much more technical and velo is everything. It's very hard to find a pitcher that can pitch 8 good innings and have high velo and even those will have arm problems.

In near past when the Twins gave importance to long relief the Twins and those pitchers did very well. Recently we've put a lot of stress on short relief, pitchers that come in to pitch 1 inning and completely ignore long relief. For this you need a lot pitchers available and on their game. Unfortunately this is impossible to maintain throughout the season. Therefore you over-use those that are on their game and they get burned out. Combined with the fact that nobody in your rotation can give you 5 quality innings on a regular basis, except Berrios. Then you over extend the rotation and they burn out. As you can see this is a recipe for disaster. There is no wonder that when we do get to post season games we lose because all our arms are dead, not able to give their premium effort.

Solution that I've long advocated is focus on a large strong rotating long relief corp. Especially now that we don't have Berrios and have young unseasoned arms and Bundy that can't be expected to pitch very many innings. That'll help take the burden off the short relief and rotation and can give much needed experience to young pitching prospects, where we can do better job develping and evaluating. Then if we can even get to the the post season, our arms should be fresh not dead. Then maybe we can win a post season game.

I think Thorp and many more can flurish under this concept.

[Twins33]

I was for Thorpe staying a SP last year but then he just never got his velocity back. He couldn’t get above 90 for one inning as a starter so I basically have no faith that he’s a major league pitcher anymore. This isn’t the usual case of a slow pitcher moving to the bullpen and ramping up to faster. This is a case of a guy who used to have the stuff to pitch and has lost it all completely. Hope I’m wrong  

[The Mad King]

I don't have much confidence in him panning out. The loss of velocity is definately a huge concern. But lefties seem to get longer leashes when it comes to development.