Fun with Player Comps: Closers

In "Fun with Player Comps" I look at player comps for 30 current Twins who figure to play a role in 2023, starting with their closest age player from Baseball-Reference.com before 2022. Based on each player's general vibe, I then move into the best and worst-case scenarios. Previous installments: middle-infield, centerfield, corner guys.

Jhoan Duran
(No comparables available, but so far I’d go with a more consistent Jeurys Familia)

Worst case: John Rocker
Also see Powers, Kenny. Sometimes flamethrowing relief aces burn out quickly. Sometimes they turn into Craig Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen, or Joe Nathan. Given Duran’s injury history in the minors, it wouldn’t be surprising for his 2022 season to end up being his best. Any significant injury to Duran would likely torpedo the Twins’ chances in 2023. Rocker embodied all the risk and reward a high-octane closer can give you, starting out unhittable for the Braves in the late 90s, losing a couple of ticks off his fastball, and turning into an ineffective distraction. By all accounts, Duran seems like a more level-headed guy than Rocker.

Best case: Jonathan Papelbon
Papelbon came on the scene similarly to Duran, posting a 5.3 WPA in his rookie season as the Red Sox closer. That wouldn’t be the only year that Papelbon eclipsed Duran’s stellar 4.6 WPA in 2022, underscoring just how amazing Papelbon was in the late aughts and early 2010s. When his career ended, Papelbon had twelve largely healthy years and a career 177 ERA+. Papelbon was a fastball splitter guy and Duran usually goes with a fastball curve mix, but any sort of relative health with 90% of the stuff for Duran over his career will put him in Papelbon’s company.

Jorge López
Baseball-Reference best comparable through age 29: Julio Santana
I’m not sure Santana was considered much of a prospect coming up with Texas in the mid-90s, as his minor-league numbers are pretty mediocre. But he made quite a few starts in the majors and wasn’t terrible, despite averaging only 5.8 strikeouts per nine innings for his career. He battled injuries, had a nice relief season with the Tigers, and then faded into obscurity. The Twins certainly hope López meets a better fate.

Worst case: Bad Jim Johnson
Bad Jim Johnson was a holy terror to Orioles fans during their last contention window in the early 2010s. His groundball-heavy approach allowed for a lot of BABIP-related variances. He floundered in the playoffs in 2012 and posted an ERA over seven in his first year away from Baltimore. He ended up with an 87 ERA+ for the rest of his career. López also emphasizes ground balls, which has long been a cardinal sin among closers since ground balls have a higher BABIP than fly balls, and ground ball pitchers tend to amass fewer strikeouts (López struck out under twenty percent of batters as a Twin, which is well below league average).

Best case: Good Jim Johnson
Good Jim Johnson posted a 139 ERA+ from 2006-2013 with the O’s with a 56.7% groundball rate. He also led the league in saves in 2012 and 2013. López also pitched for the Orioles, you may recall. The Orioles actually had a nice run of successful ground ball closers, as Johnson was eventually replaced with Zack Britton, who for a brief time was historically effective. If López can relax and focus on his location he has a chance for a similar career.

Jorge Alcalá
(No comparables yet)

Worst case: Matt Wisler
Wisler was a highly regarded starting pitching prospect with the Padres prior to them flipping him to Atlanta for Craig Kimbrel. He ended up starting 49 games for the Braves, then had injury issues, bounced around, and the Twins signed him in 2020 with the intention of him only throwing his one effective pitch, a regular old slider. That worked fairly well and he hasn’t deviated from that approach since, only increasing his slider usage in the years since. He’s still a fringy guy for most forty-man rosters as a one-pitch guy, and if Alcalá doesn’t regain his velocity following his elbow issues, he could follow a similar path, as he threw his own slider nearly as often as his fastball in 2021.

Best case: Juan Rincon
Rincon’s run as a highly effective eighth-inning setup man was brief but spectacular. Like Alcalá, he featured a firm fastball and a hard slider and posted a 156 ERA+ from 2003 to 2006. Then his stuff regressed and he started walking guys and was never a useful reliever again. But if Alcalá can give the Twins a couple of years of even 140 ERA+ type of production, they would feel pretty good about a guy who was somewhat of a throw-in to the Ryan Pressly trade. To do that, he would need to continue developing his change-up to neutralize lefties, which showed promise in 2021. If that happens, and López doesn’t turn his Twins career around, we could see Alcalá get some save chances, since I would imagine the Twins brass would love to keep Duran in more of a utility role.

Stay tuned for comparables for the Twins’ catching tandem, in which one gets compared to Brad Ausmus and the other to Salvador Perez.