The Minnesota Twins were looking to bolster their bullpen at last year’s trade deadline. It had become a unit that was required to pitch more innings than most bullpens across the league. Outside of rookie flamethrower Jhoan Durán and newly converted reliever Griffin Jax, the team was in desperate need of high-leverage relief pitchers.
The Twins decided to take a big swing and trade for Jorge López from the Baltimore Orioles. López may not have been the biggest name on the market, but he was in the middle of a career season. He had a 1.68 ERA, 2.99 FIP, a 27.6 percent strikeout rate, and only 3 home runs allowed in 48.1 innings before Minnesota traded for him at the deadline. But López had a 4.37 ERA, 17 percent strikeout rate, and 4.35 FIP in the 22.2 innings he pitched for the Twins last season.
The most basic principle of trading stocks is to buy low and sell high. Players are human beings and not commodities, but their perceived value to a baseball team can fluctuate at any given moment.
López spent the first six seasons of his career as a starter, recording a -1.5 career bWAR before Baltimore turned him into a reliever. A full-time move to the bullpen in 2022 turned him into an All-Star. Every team’s bullpen is full of failed starters, but the Twins saw instant success switching Durán and Jax to bullpen roles. Why couldn’t López have the same success? Furthermore, he was seen as a plug-and-play closer who didn’t need development to take on the role. Minnesota maintained team control until 2025, making it seem like López stock could go to the moon.
The Twins probably thought they were buying Apple stock. But after he recorded a 9.00 ERA in June, he feels like GameStop stock after everyone on Reddit got bored. Staying power determines value. The Twins were banking on López’s new trajectory in July of 2022 to be the new rule and not the exception. Instead, it looks like López is trending back toward the mean of his career productivity.
López’s 2023 numbers from Baseball Savant are looking more similar to every season other than 2022. The biggest red flag for López is that his fastball usage has shot up from 4.5 percent last year to 20.1 percent. It’s also a pitch that has an extreme amount of gas – a 97.4 MPH average fastball velocity.
It also has virtually no spin, meaning minimal movement. Therefore, players can lock in to face pitches instead of having issues timing it up if there is no movement to throw them off. His pitches have decent horizontal movement, but his fastball especially has below-average drop, which helps the hitter identify where the pitch is going to be. Balls hit off of Lopez have a 91.3 average exit velocity and 9.6 barrel percentage, both are the second highest of his career.
However, he is getting more hitters to chase pitches outside of the zone this season, with a 31.4 percent chase rate that is five percent above his career average. That might be because hitters are becoming more aggressive against López. Opposing batters are swinging 48.4 percent of the time against him, which is above league average and a two percent jump from a season ago. Or it could be a result of his trouble finding the strike zone lately. Not only is that impacting his stats, but it’s also having a negative effect on his confidence. His walk rate has shot up to 14.1 percent since May 1. López is struggling mightily, and he knows it.
I’m not criticizing every aspect of the trade. It made sense on paper. The Twins needed a closer to help in a playoff push and having additional years of team control adds an extra level of value. Trading for a reliever like López wasn’t the problem; it was the underlying issue that he might revert back to his career numbers as he pitched more innings.
There was optimism over the winter that a full offseason in the Twins system would help López properly acclimate. López showed some promise early the season. He recorded a 0.00 ERA, a 2.12 FIP, and no home runs allowed in his first 12 innings in the first month of the season. But things have once again unraveled for López, who owns a 9.00 ERA with six home runs allowed over his last 12 innings in May.
The return Baltimore got seemed modest last summer. But Yennier Canó, 29, is having a breakout season, throwing 31 innings in 25 appearances with a 0.87 ERA and a 2.67 WPA. He has already racked up 2.0 bWAR. At first glance, it seems that the Orioles followed the golden financial rule to perfection. They sold high on López while buying low Canó. As a result, the Twins let another good player get away.
Sometimes buying high is justifiable if the return you get is valuable enough. If López showed the results he had in Baltimore last season, or even in the first month of the 2023 season, would anyone really care that Canó is doing well? And how do we know for certain that Canó isn’t having his own Jorge López moment? That’s not to say anyone can’t be frustrated about the trade 10 months later. But it’s also why discussing trade return is hard to quantify until someone’s value has already been fully documented.
There is a path where López can turn himself around. That process is going to start with finding a way to add more spin to his pitch arsenal. It’s not the easiest fix, but it could help prevent those hitters who are gearing up to hit a pitch that is headed for the strike zone. Especially considering his barrel percentage has nearly doubled from 4.8 percent last year to 9.6 percent in 2023.
The other path is to rely less on his fastball. It pairs with the spin argument because López isn’t going to magically change his spin rates in a season. He could then try and rely more on his slider and curveball, both of which have above-average pitch values this season. He can use his slider more throughout the count, something the Twins seem to be in favor of, generally.
López has lacked a good put-away pitch, so maybe leaning more into his curveball to do that will help. López’s curve is his best knock-out pitch with a 41.2 percent put-away rate. It does have the highest hard-hit rate of his arsenal, so a slight increase of the curve might be the best way to go.
Jorge López’s stock is becoming increasingly less valuable the more he pitches this year. Deciding to buy high on López can still be salvaged if he can return to the form he showed last season in April.
