This is a series of evaluations that will be done this offseason on every player that closed the season on the 40-man roster for the Minnesota Twins, with one appearing every weekday from now until each player has been evaluated. The plan is to start with Mr. Albers and move all the way through the pitchers, then to the catchers, infielders, outfielders and finally those listed as designated hitters on the club’s official MLB.com roster. That means we’ll wrap it up with Miguel Sano sometime in the first week of December.
- Name: J.T. Chargois
- 2016 Role: Right-handed reliever whose role ascended as season wore on, to the point where he was throwing high-leverage innings in the final month of the season.
- Expected 2017 Role: May not make team out of spring training due to age/service time/options considerations, but should find himself not only in the bullpen at some point, but throwing innings late in games before too long next season.
- MLB Stats: 4.70 ERA (3.36 FIP) in 23 innings, 6.7 K/9, 4.7 BB/9, 55.1 percent GB rate, 0.2 fWAR
- MiLB Stats: 1.54 ERA (3.32 FIP) in 11.2 Double-A innings; 1.29 ERA (1.88 FIP) in 35 Triple-A innings. Combined 1.35 ERA, 10.6 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 1.03 WHIP in 46.2 innings.
- Contract Status: Free agent after 2022 at the earliest.
2016 Lowdown:
From a raw numbers standpoint, it’s hard to look at Chargois in 2016 and get all that excited about what he put on tape for the Twins. His first outing was an obvious dud, and statistically for a reliever those things can be hard to dig out from.
But from a measurables standpoint, Chargois has pretty much everything the Twins could ask for from a modern reliever. PITCHf/x has him averaging 95.8 mph on his two-seamer and 96.6 on his four-seamer. Brooks Baseball goes a step further, saying he only threw four-seamers, and that they averaged 96.9 mph. From a movement standpoint, it sure doesn’t hurt to have your four-seamers mis-classified as two-seamers; it means there’s so much natural movement that a batter has to deal with that it isn’t just straight as an arrow. Those types of pitches tend to get hammered. Michael Tonkin has that kind of movement on his fastballs — which is why the “Tonkin’s fastballs are too straight!” crowd are full of crap — and that’s a big reason he got an above average 9.7 percent whiff rate on it. For a fastball that’s pretty good.
But Chargois isn’t a one-trick pony. He throws gas for sure, but he also has a very, very good slider. PITCHf/x recorded an 18 percent whiff rate on the slider this year, and just a .269 OPS against. In a more easy-to-digest breakdown, 26 of Chargois’ 100 sliders were put into play as fair balls, and just three resulted in hits — one double and two singles for a .115/.115/.154 batting line. Brooks has a 20.4 percent whiff rate, and just a .179 slugging percentage against. Despite the small sample size, it has all the measurables of an elite pitch.
In addition to the velocity and potential for whiffs, Chargois had a well above-average groundball rate (55.1 percent). The league average is around 45 percent every year, and Chargois flashed two pitches (fastball at 56.5 percent and slider at 61.1 percent) that can induce a ton of grounders. Considering Chargois’ changeup is just a show-me pitch — 8.5 percent usage with the Twins this year — it’s clear he has potential to be a strikeout-groundball dynamo moving forward.
The issue with Chargois — as it always has been if/when he’s struggled — is the command. The walk rate of 4.7 BB/9 won’t fly — especially not with just 6.7 strikeouts per nine. But for a guy who missed two full seasons in the minors with arm issues, command was from from a problem this year in the minors for Chargois, who walked just 2.5 batters per nine across two minor league levels before coming to the Twins.
Additionally, most of Chargois’ issues can be sussed out in a before-and-after comparison, as it’s clear there was a point where he was far more comfortable in his own skin on an MLB mound.
Quite frankly, there’s a very good chance this is going to be the best reliever in the Twins’ 2017 bullpen.
It looks as though that line in the sand comes after his first appearance in September, when he allowed three earned runs in 1.1 innings against the White Sox in an 11-4 loss at home. That rocketed his ERA back up to 8.49. It was the Chargois’ seventh appearance out of 10 in a row where manager Paul Molitor put him into a low-leverage spot, but it was also his last rough outing of the season.
Have a look at his splits before and after that spot:
- Up to Sept. 2: 8.49 ERA, 7-10 K/BB ratio in 11.2 innings, .982 OPS against
- Post-Sept. 2: 0.79 ERA, 10-2 K/BB ratio in 11.1 innings, .421 OPS against
Chargois told Cold Omaha late in the season that there wasn’t one specific game where he felt more comfortable than before in the big leagues, but that it was all part of the process over the course of a number of games.
Ultimately and unsurprisingly, Chargois showed much, much better stuff from that point on as well. For one, his velocity was up from that September outing on, as he averaged 97.2 mph after that outing as compared to 96.7 before.
Also, the whiff rates on each on each of his pitches improved by a huge margin:
Before/After Whiff Rates:
- Fastball – 3.5 percent; 9.8 percent
- Changeup – 0 percent; 23.1 percent
- Slider – 18 percent; 23.4 percent
Quite frankly, there’s a very good chance this is going to be the best reliever in the Twins’ 2017 bullpen. Once again, he has everything you look for in a modern-day reliever, and has shown the ability to work kinks out at each level after getting his feet wet, and the big leagues were no exception. It would most likely be a mistake to send him back to the minors to start 2017, but it wouldn’t be a surprise. It’s hard to get a read on the new brain trust, though.
Grade: B+. After some initial jitters, Chargois mellowed out significantly, and should feature prominently in the Twins’ future plans at the back end of the bullpen. He turns 26 early in December, so keeping him down in the minors any longer doesn’t make much sense, even if he has options left.
