In the seemingly endless conquest to add pitching, the Minnesota Twins have reportedly added right-handed pitcher Dillon Gee on a minor-league deal, with the expectation that he’ll head to Triple-A Rochester.
Darren Wolfson of KSTP first reported that the Twins and Gee were working on a deal, with Jon Heyman of Fan Rag Sports being the first to confirm.
The 31-year-old Gee was designated for assignment by the Texas Rangers on June 16, 10 days after making a spot start for A.J. Griffin while allowing three home runs in just 3.1 innings. Gee signed with the Rangers in the offseason, but exercised an opt-out in his deal at the end of Spring Training when he found out he wasn’t going to make the Opening Day 25-man roster. Gee re-signed with the Rangers three days later, getting a 40-man roster spot while agreeing to be optioned to Triple-A Round Rock to bide his time until he was needed on the big-league roster.
In all, Gee made four appearances with the Rangers this year, with the three relief outings coming in low-leverage, long relief-type situations.
Gee’s best years came in the National League with the New York Mets. His top season was probably 2013, when he posted a 3.62 ERA (4.00 FIP) in 32 starts (199 innings) with 6.4 K/9, 2.1 BB/9 and a WHIP of 1.28. Gee spent 2016 with the Kansas City Royals, but was largely ineffective, tossing 125 innings of sub-replacement-level ball with a 4.68 ERA (5.25 FIP, minus-0.3 fWAR).
Gee underwent surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome — the same issue that has plagued Phil Hughes and Matt Harvey as well — last October, but was cleared to begin throwing in January and was reportedly full-go in Spring Training this season.
Velocity can be a worry for pitchers coming back from thoracic outlet syndrome, but Gee is actually throwing harder than ever this time around — albeit in a limited sampling. In Gee’s 13 MLB innings this season, he’s averaging 91.1 mph on his fastball — mostly two-seamers but he’ll mix in some fours — which is 1.5 mph ahead of his MLB average (89.6). Also — again, small sample size caveats apply — he has relied more heavily on a cutter this time around. He threw it 20.8 percent of the time with the Royals last year, and was throwing it more than a quarter of the time with the Rangers. Fangraphs classification system PITCHf/x calls it a cutter/slider hybrid, and in limited doses this year it has a whiff rate in the neighborhood of 20 percent.
Ultimately, it’s a no-risk signing for a guy who could help the MLB team, and is at worst a fallback option who is better than Adam Wilk and perhaps Chris Heston if the Twins end up needing an extra arm in the future. With two more doubleheaders scheduled this season, that’s a distinct possibility. There are some avenues where he could be helpful as well, as he’s been decent at inducing grounders in the past, and the added velocity with a pretty good slider/cutter might give him a different look in the past. There’s also always the potential that they might look at him as a reliever, which is a breeding ground for iffy starters to turn into something more.
Ultimately, it’s a no-risk, “we’ll see” kind of signing.
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