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I think by now, we all know how great of a prospect Graterol is, so I won’t spend too much time talking about his 1.53 ERA across three minor league levels in 2019, to go along with the 2.74 ERA he posted in 2018, and the 2.70 ERA he posted in 2017. Not to mention his electric fastball that has been clocked as high as 103.8 MPH just last weekend. On Monday he will turn the ripe old age of 21. It is safe to say that Graterol has a promising future. Why can’t the present look equally as bright? Several pitchers have made an accelerated jump between AA and AAA to pitch for contending teams in need of their services, and have done so without that move jeopardizing their careers. One such player is David Price, whose promotion to the bigs in 2008 so far parallels Graterol's year. From their first year in 1998 through 2007, the Tampa Bay Rays were the laughingstock of major league baseball, compiling a meager .399 win percentage across that span. In fact, only once did they reach the 70-win mark. However, before the season, they changed their name from the Devil Rays to the Rays, and instantly went from bottom-feeders to AL East champions, winning 97 games. In September, the Rays made a big move to bolster their pitching staff by calling up their top pitching prospect David Price, despite him having thrown just 75 combined innings between AA and AAA. He was just the spark the Rays needed to take them all the way to the World Series. Price made five appearances (one start) before the end of the regular season. Over those five appearances, Price had a 1.93 ERA, with 12 strikeouts and four walks in 14 innings. During that Rays postseason run, Price made five more appearances, all in relief. In those five games, Price gave up just one earned run in 5 2/3 innings. He did this while pitching in high leverage situations, helping him collect a win probability added of 0.459 in that relatively small amount of work. In 2009, Price was moved back into the starting rotation, and has put together a strong career. It is possible that the Twins are planning on using Brusdar Graterol in a similar manner this season. Ever since he has returned from the shoulder condition that kept him sidelined for two months, Graterol has made seven strong outings, all of which having been two innings or less. In those seven outings, Graterol has pitched 11 1/3 innings without giving up a single run while striking out 12 batters and holding opposing hitters to a staggeringly low .382 OPS. With his recent call up to AAA, it appears the Twins are ramping him up to help out in their bullpen down the stretch. If Graterol is to help the Twins this postseason, he must first be placed on the Twins 40-man roster before the end of August. With the Twins currently having just 39 guys on their 40-man roster, there is already an open spot. For those of us hoping that the Twins can get a spark to jolt their pitching staff down the stretch, Brusdar Graterol might just be that guy.

I wanted to mention Sergio Romo’s postseason experience right away because I think it is an invaluable asset that the Twins are adding to their team. While we can sit here all day breaking down his stats (don’t worry there is plenty of that to come) there is just no substitute for what a calming veteran presence can do for a bunch of young kids who might otherwise be deer in the headlights when they are preparing to get some of the most important outs of their lives. Pair Romo up with Nelson Cruz and Marwin Gonzalez, and all of a sudden, this team has a stable of veteran leaders to take them into Yankee Stadium come October. In addition to the intangible benefits, Sergio Romo is still quite the effective reliever, even at 36 years of age. So far in 2019, Romo is 17 for 18 on save opportunities, and has a 3.58 ERA (3.89 FIP) in 37 and 2/3 innings pitching for the Marlins. However, that ERA is a little deceiving, because with the exception of two bad outings, one of which came in his very first appearance of the year, Romo has a 1.73 ERA in his other 36 appearances this year. While his strikeout numbers are down to 7.9 K/9 this year, Romo put up an impressive 10.0 K/9 just a season ago pitching with the Tampa Bay Rays. So, it is not out of the question that Romo could potentially find that strikeout form from last year and elevate himself to an even better level this year. One thing that many of the critics will point out about Sergio Romo is he doesn’t throw the ball very hard, and this is true. Among the 553 pitchers who have thrown at least 100 fastballs this year, Romo ranks 546th with an average fastball velocity of 86.4 MPH. That’s a velocity that would make Terry Ryan blush. However, don’t get too sucked into this as Romo only throws a fastball just over 26 percent of the time (16.4% sinkers and 9.7% four-seamers). While Sergio Romo doesn’t possess the high velocity fastball that many other backend of the bullpen relievers do this day in age, he does possess a slider that is one of the best in Major League Baseball. One of the more commonly talked about aspects of a pitch, especially a breaking pitch, is its spin rate, and Romo generates a lot of that on his slider. So far in 2019, Romo is averaging a spin rate of 2,852 RPM on his slider, which is the 9th highest among the 252 pitchers who have thrown at least 100 sliders this year. However, we can’t just look at a high spin rate and assume the pitch has a lot of movement, especially with a slider. This is because sliders are often thrown with a lot of gyro spin, or spin that doesn’t create movement. Think of it like the spin of a spiral football, the ball is spinning, but that spin is what is actually keeping the ball from moving, not causing the movement. Gyro spin on a baseball has the same effect. Since we don’t yet have clear, publicly available, metrics separating gyro spin from transverse spin (spin that causes movement) a better metric to look at is the vertical and horizontal movement of the pitch, which like spin rate, is also tracked by TrackMan, and viewable on Baseball Savant. Romo’s slider doesn’t induce much for vertical movement, but it is right up near the top of the charts in horizontal movement across the plate. Here is a graph that shows the vertical and horizontal movement of each pitcher’s slider in 2019. Romo is the one circled in red. As you can see, Romo is quite the outlier in terms of the amount of horizontal movement he generates on his slider. In this case, that is a very good thing. This horizontal movement has helped Romo become so dominate against right-handed hitters over the course of his career. For his career, Romo has held opposing right-handed hitters to a .574 OPS, compared to an MLB average of roughly .750. Here is a clip of Romo’s slider, courtesy of the Pitching Ninja, from 2018. https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1017179078640709634 So, how does a pitcher with this unique skillset fit into the Twins bullpen? Well for starters, he is an immediate upgrade to the backend of the bullpen, and gives Rocco Baldelli another arm, besides Taylor Rogers, that he can trust to get big outs when they need him to. Hopefully, the Twins are able to add another big arm or two before the trade deadline and allow Baldelli to use Romo in the role he is more suited for, which is as a shut down option against right-handed hitters that the Twins are currently lacking. Picture this, it’s the bottom of the 7th, the Twins are currently holding a 4-2 lead in Game 5 of the ALDS at Yankee stadium. The Yankees have runners on the corners with one out, and Aaron Judge is at the plate with Gary Sanchez on deck, and Giancarlo Stanton in the hole. This season is very much on the line in this moment, and the Twins need to get out of a jam with a few of the game’s best right-handed power hitters coming up. Who do you call on? Oh, I know, how about the guy who has made a reputation for making right-handed hitters look foolish for his entire career and has done it in even bigger spots than that one. That is the kind of impact this move for Sergio Romo could potentially have for this Twins team. At the end of the day, does Sergio Romo solve all of the Twins bullpen issues? No. What he does do, however, is give them a great weapon to turn to out of the bullpen that they didn’t previously have. No one player can make a bullpen great, though Taylor Rogers has given it his best shot this year, it takes a collective of pitchers that can get outs when they are needed to the most.

*You're going to see a lot of speculation and analysis on potential bullpen additions at the site over the coming weeks. Cody led things off last night with a great overview of 10 potential trade targets. We'll continue to explore the reliever market by running profiles on specific pitchers each day. Kirby Yates, RHP, 32-years-old San Diego Padres (33-33, 4th in NL West) Under team control via arbitration through 2020 2019: 0.96 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 15.4 K/9, 2.6 BB/9 in 28.0 IP 2018: 2.14 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 12.9 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 in 63.0 IP What’s to Like? Well you gotta like the idea of a guy named Kirby joining the Twins, right? He’s also a frontrunner for fireman of the year right now. If you were looking to ride a hot hand, Yates is among the hottest you can find right now. Yates leads all relievers in saves (23), FanGraphs’ WAR (1.9) and WPA (2.59). Out of the 165 relievers with at least 20 innings, Yates is third in ERA (0.96), fourth in xFIP (1.95) and second in K-BB% (37.7). Opposing batters are hitting just .167/.245/.219 (.464 OPS) against him right now. Yates hasn’t given up a run in his last 10 appearances, yielding just two hits and one walk over that stretch. He hasn’t been taken deep in 2019 and has surrendered just five extra-base hits. Plugging in a set closer to the ninth inning would allow Rocco Baldelli to continue using Taylor Rogers in whatever other high-leverage situations he sees fit. Concerns Diversity is something to aim for in the bullpen, and Yates’ pitch mix is similar to a current Twins reliever. Yates’s specialty pitch is his splitter, same as Blake Parker, though Yates goes to that offering nearly twice as often as Parker does (42% vs. 21.8%). https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1126254140265566209 There’s also some concern that he may be a product of his pitching environment. Yates has posted a 161 ERA+ over 146 2/3 innings with the Padres. He was nowhere near that good with the Rays (73 ERA+ in 56 1/2 innings) or Yankees (83 ERA+ in 41 1/3 innings). What happens if you take him out of San Diego and put him back in the American League? He did develop that splitter while with the Padres, however, so maybe this is for real. The aging curve for relievers can be pretty brutal. Yates is 32 and it’s not like he’s a flame-thrower as it is. His four seamer, which he throws roughly 57% of the time, sits 93 mph. See Also 10 Relievers Minnesota Could Target