Twins

2016 Minnesota Twins Report Card: Pat Dean

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: Pat Dean
  • 2016 Role: MLB swingman
  • Expected 2017 Role: Triple-A rotation depth, may or may not remain on 40-man roster
  • MLB Stats: 6.28 ERA (5.20 FIP) in 67.1 innings, 6.7 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, 1.65 WHIP, 0.0 fWAR.
  • MiLB Stats: 5.56 ERA (4.26 FIP) in 87.1 innings, 5.1 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 1.51 WHIP.
  • Contract Status: Free agent after 2022 at the earliest.

2016 Lowdown:

Dean was off to a fairly good start when the Twins summoned him from Triple-A Rochester in early May. He’d made six starts, with a 3.00 ERA, 20-7 K/BB ratio (36 innings) and an OPS against of .599.

Things went sideways after that — and quickly — for Mr. Dean.

Things didn’t look immediately bad for Dean in the big leagues. In fact, after four MLB starts, Dean had a 3.43 ERA, a 20-5 K/BB ratio in 21 innings and was coming off allowing just two earned runs in seven innings in his first MLB win over the Mariners. But there were clear underlying signs that Dean couldn’t keep it up. Prior to the Mariners start, he was allowing an OPS in excess of .800.

After the Mariners start, he made four more appearances with the big club, and got absolutely rocked to the tune of an 8.00 ERA, a 1.043 OPS against and just eight strikeouts in 18 innings with 10 walks. Maybe the worst part was Dean was doing this despite not seeing a single team more than once. Sure, scouting reports get out, but sometimes it also takes a team seeing a guy the second time around for things to really click. Dean didn’t even have that luxury. After a terrible start against the Yankees on June 17 — seven outs recorded, seven runs allowed, the Twins sent him back to Rochester.

Whatever positive mojo Dean had put together earlier in the season at Triple-A — or even in 2015, when he had a 2.82 ERA in nearly 180 innings there — completely vanished as he was completely destroyed by International League hitters. Seriously, Dean made 10 appearances before ultimately returning to the Twins, and he allowed a stunning 80 hits in 51.1 innings — a .357 batting average against. But whether he was shellshocked from a rough go in the big leagues or something completely different altogether, he just never got it going with the Red Wings again, and when the Twins brought him back up, he’d pitched to a 7.36 ERA and a .944 OPS against in that second stint at Rochester.

To say he hadn’t deserved the call-up was absolutely true, but the Twins were hurting for arms, and had room to give him a spin in the bullpen.

Dean didn’t fare much better in the bullpen the second time around, posting a 7.31 ERA and .938 OPS against. Overall, across two levels, opposing batters smoked Dean to the tune of a .314/.356/.500 hitting line — or roughly what Wilson Ramos provided the Washington Nationals this year before tearing his ACL. It wasn’t pretty. But maybe the worst part for Dean was that he didn’t have a platoon split. Ordinarily that’d be a good thing, but it means lefties crushed him (.847 OPS) almost as thunderously as righties did (.858), which doesn’t leave a ton of potential for the 27-year-old to grow into. He’ll turn 28 early next season (May 25).

Most likely, Dean unfortunately does not have much of a big league future, as a reliever or a starter.

The one saving grace for Dean might be that he’s never really worked exclusively as a reliever, so maybe there’s something more in his repertoire that can still be extracted. Glen Perkins and Brian Duensing had unremarkable stuff as starters, and both saw significant velocity increases when they moved to the bullpen. Some guys (Perkins) develop elite-level stuff, while some guys become more like a specialist (Duensing). The trouble is, with Ryan O’Rourke and Buddy Boshers already on the roster, the odds aren’t high that the Twins are keeping too many of those kinds of guys.

Dean only averaged 90.4 mph on his four-seam fastball this year and about a tick lower on his sinker. That’s for the full season, which accounts his starts and relief appearances. Month-by-month, Dean averaged as high as 91.3 mph on his fastball in September, which was also a month he worked exclusively out of the pen, but was also the last month of a long season. So maybe it isn’t unreasonable that he could tick up to 92 as a reliever? Is that enough to tip the scales and give him a look as a left-handed reliever? It’s hard to say. On an individual game basis, Dean only reached 92 once all season — against the Mets on Sept. 16. And even at 92, or even 93 mph is he really going to be any more effective than Duensing ever was? Maybe, but again that might not be enough to convince the new braintrust to keep him around.

If there is hope for Dean, it’s looking back to his 2015 season. He spent the whole year with Rochester, and in doing so threw 179 innings. But what’s important is how he neutralized left-handed hitters, as they had just a .506 OPS against on him throughout the whole season. Still, even then he only had a 24-5 K/BB ratio in 196 plate appearance, which is basically a modest 12 percent whiff rate against them — roughly the same he had against righties last year as he held just a 4.9 K/9 overall.

Most likely, Dean unfortunately does not have much of a big league future, as a reliever or a starter.

Grade: F. Even despite modest expectations, Dean got throttled this year. With pitching guru Derek Falvey taking over the team’s operations, Dean may not survive the offseason on the 40-man roster, frankly.

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