Well, the fanbase wanted the Minnesota Twins to make a move at the trade deadline. Just like the previous season with the Jorge López for Dylan Floro swap, Minnesota’s only offseason addition was adding depth to the bullpen with a low-leverage right-handed reliever. They acquired Trevor Richards on Tuesday afternoon in a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays.
Acquiring the rental reliever came at a relatively low price. They sent Jay Harry, a 21-year-old infield prospect the Twins drafted in the sixth round of the 2023 draft, to Toronto. Harry only had a .655 OPS in 82 games for High-A Cedar Rapids, and experts didn’t see him as a big prospect.
Trading for Richards, who has a 4.51 career ERA in seven seasons, will not excite the fanbase for a stretch run. The pessimistic perspective says it’s a lateral move that fails to keep up with the Kansas City Royals or the Cleveland Guardians, who made multiple additions at the deadline.
The optimist can look at this trade as the Twins doing something to help the relief corps because you can never have too many bullpen options, right? However, he’s not going to be pitching in the 8th inning of a close ballgame against the Guardians. But what does the baseline level of production for Richards need to be for us to consider the move a success?
The lowest level of the production spectrum would realistically be similar to Floro’s role for the Twins a season ago when they traded for him on July 26. Since coming to Minnesota last July, Floro had a 4.82 ERA, 1.55 WHIP, 23.2 percent strikeout rate, and a -0.28 win probability added over 18.2 innings pitched in 20 appearances. The highest realistic outcome for Richards’ time in Minnesota is making the impact that Michael Fulmer had on the Twins bullpen in 2022.
Trading for Fulmer was one of the smallest moves of a busy 2022 trade deadline for the Twins. Instead, he outperformed López and Tyler Mahle down the stretch that season. Fulmer had a 3.70 ERA, a 1.56 WHIP, and a 20.6 percent strikeout rate. He also produced a .309 opponent batting average and a 0.66 WPA in 24.1 innings over 26 games. It wasn’t a dominant run, but it is a productive stretch from someone who isn’t expected to pitch in many high-leverage situations. Fulmer had a 1.63 average leverage index, below the 2.0 league average leverage index.
Fulmer is a good barometer for what an impactful, low-leverage reliever trade can look like. Despite his underwhelming surface-level stats, Richards has a couple of underlying numbers that indicate a potential turnaround. His 3.28 expected ERA (xERA) is an entire run better than his current 4.64 ERA and 4.51 career ERA. His .202 expected opponent batting average (XBA) is close to his .186 opponent batting average.
Fulmer’s pitch mix differs from Richards. As a former starter, Fulmer maintained a 5-pitch arsenal. Conversely, in the past two years, Richards narrowed his pitch arsenal to his 4-seam fastball and changeup. Over the last two seasons, he has leaned into the changeup as his primary pitch, throwing it 56.8 percent of the time in that span. He uses it as his primary pitch to finish an at-bat, but he’s been unproductive this season. Fulmer used his 95.4 MPH average exit velocity to blow by hitters for a 14.1 percent career whiff rate. However, Richards has a 91.8 MPH average exit velocity with a 12.6 percent whiff rate.
Richards’ home run and batting average numbers are in a good spot, so why has he been so unproductive in 2024? His lack of command with either pitch.
Richards’s 11 percent walk rate is meaningfully worse than the 8.4 percent league average clip. His 46.1 percent zone percentage is below the 48.6 percent league average mark. That snowballs into a 1.15 WHIP, and opposing lineups have haunted Richards when he allows walks. However, Richards can turn his rental run in Minnesota into a similarly successful one like Fulmer’s by limiting his high walk numbers.
Control over his two pitches in different situations can help. Richards can provide something that Fulmer was not able to do. Although the Twins didn’t acquire a left-handed pitcher, Richards can help somewhat fill that gap because he has reverse splits. He has a .506 OPS against lefties compared to a .685 OPS against right-handed hitters, where Fulmer had more traditional splits in his career. That alone won’t earn him more high-leverage situations, but it helps a bullpen with Steven Okert as their top lefty reliever.
Adding a middle relief arm like Richards creates some meaningful depth, especially for a bullpen that has many injured or fatigued pitchers like Minnesota’s. Since returning from the All-Star break, the team’s relievers rank 25th in baseball with a -0.3 fWAR. They also rank 26th with a -1 WPA, and their 8.33 bullpen ERA in that span ranks 30th. The problem with adding just one low-leverage reliever is that all of the deadline production is going to fall on someone who isn’t going to turn the unit around, especially because Richards comes into Minnesota with a -1.23 WPA and a 0.92 average leverage index.
Richards will not be taking the workload off of Griffin Jax or Jhoan Duran for the final two months of the regular season. Still, there’s a path where he provides value to the Twins as an average reliever, even if it isn’t in a high-leverage role. Richards needs to keep his walk rate in check and find life in his changeup to be a reliever on par with someone like Fulmer. He needs to be a stable presence for a unit that needs productive arms, the same way Fulmer was for the Twins a couple of seasons ago.
