Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports reported late Wednesday morning that the Minnesota Twins had agreed to a minor-league deal with left-handed reliever Craig Breslow. The team has not yet confirmed the signing.
Breslow told Rosenthal that he was impressed by Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey, who told him he could do more than just sign with the team, but have a much bigger impact.
Here’s the full statement from Rosenthal’s Facebook page:
“The thing that resonated the most with me was the idea that I could impact the culture and impact the direction of the organization for longer than potentially my stay there might be,” Breslow said.
“I think Derek is a really engaging and bright guy with a great vision for the organization. I’ve got no doubt that he’ll be able to be able to bring sustained success. The opportunity to be part of that at this stage of my career is one that is really compelling.”
Breslow was with the Twins for parts of the 2008 and 2009 seasons. The Twins claimed him off waivers from the Cleveland Indians on May 29, 2008 and lost him to the A’s on waivers nearly a year later (May 20, 2009).
Breslow was solid for the Twins down the stretch in 2008 with a 1.63 ERA (2.56 FIP) in 38.2 innings, but got off to a slow start in 2009 with a 6.28 ERA (6.79 FIP) in 14.1 innings before the team opted to go with Sean Henn as its bullpen lefty instead of Breslow. Breslow went on to post a 2.60 ERA over the final 55.1 innings with the Oakland A’s after he was claimed.
Over his career, Breslow has thrown 535.1 innings in 539 games, working mostly as a short reliever and a left-handed specialist. He turned 36 in August and is coming off posting a 4.50 ERA in 14 innings with the Miami Marlins this season, but has re-worked his delivery and reportedly added velocity as he looks to re-invent himself in his mid- to late-30s.
Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald breaks down the changes Breslow has made in excellent detail. The short version is this: Breslow now throws from a lower arm slot, which has added significant run to his two-seam fastball.
Breslow has primarily been a four-seam fastball guy in his career — 49 percent four-seamers, 12.1 percent two-seamers — with the pitch residing mostly in the high-80s and low-90s (90.2 mph career average). His primary pitch mix recently has been fastball-slider-change, though this reinvention could completely throw that pitch mix out the window.
For his career, Breslow hasn’t been markedly better against lefties (.693 OPS against) than righties (.705), but it’ll be interesting to see if that changes at all with his new repertoire. In Breslow’s best years, he’s been a tough nut to crack from either side of the plate, routinely posting OPS against marks in the .500-.600 ranges.
It’s a low-cost, small-risk move for a team that can use the help in the bullpen. Beyond that, Breslow is regarded as one of the smartest men in the game. The changes he made to his delivery came after crunching PITCHf/x data similar, but not the same, as what can be found on BrooksBaseball.net. According to Drellich, Breslow crunched his figures on a program called Rapsodo which grabs raw PITCHf/x data, which is a bit different than what Brooks has to offer.
If anyone can break that sort of stuff down, it’s Breslow, who studied Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale.
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