The Minnesota Twins’ organizational pitching development has come a long way from a decade ago. Last season, their 3.87 team ERA was fifth-best in baseball. Since Derek Falvey took over from Terry Ryan after the 2016 season, Minnesota’s 4.28 team ERA is 14th in baseball. In the seven seasons before Falvey, the Twins were second to last in baseball with a 4.52 team ERA from 2010 to 2016.
Minnesota used a pitch-to-contact philosophy under Ryan, and they didn’t develop many great pitchers during that time. However, Samuel Deduno was an intriguing arm with untapped potential during that era due to the unpredictable break on his fastball. He finished his six-season, four-team career with a 4.38 ERA and 231 strikeouts in 314.1 innings.
Modern baseball emphasizes velocity. Not just heat but also spin to keep hitters from timing up their pitches. The best pitchers like Blake Snell, Spencer Strider, and Gerrit Cole effectively combine spin and heat. Other players like Sonny Gray throw with great break but without the top-end speed. Or there are pitchers like Josh Hader, who throw top heat without the high-end break.
Deduno’s 90 MPH average velocity on his fastball was not even that impactful a decade ago. Instead, the natural break on Deduno’s throws made him unique. Deduno had a fastball so effectively wild that even a multiple-time All-Star like Joe Mauer compared catching his fastball to corralling a knuckleball.
Deduno had a brief career, but he had his moments. His 2013 season was the best season of his career, statistically. Deduno made 18 starts and pitched 108 innings with a 3.83 ERA and 67 strikeouts that season. His pitch makeup primarily consisted of his cutter and curveball. His hard-biting curveball thrived when his fastball had natural movement, even without much speed.
But being effectively wild can be more of a curse than a blessing. Deduno’s command wasn’t clean enough at the beginning of his Twins tenure. A 6.04 BB/9 in 2012 limited him to just 79 innings in 15 starts. But Deduno improved on that with an 8.9 percent walk rate, just off the 8.4 percent league average. But Deduno had a 10.4 percent walk rate in 2014, and the Twins put him on waivers in August that year.
“There are a lot of pitchers like that,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said back in 2012, “a lot of pitchers who have stuff but don’t have command, and that’s what holds them back.”
Command was an issue for Deduno. Regardless of makeup, good pitchers have command. However, it felt like the previous regime didn’t know how to maximize Deduno’s unique command. He didn’t fit that prototypical command-forward pitcher they preferred.
The current regime is better equipped to handle pitchers with more unique makeups than when Deduno was in the organization. Minnesota’s decision-makers didn’t prioritize strikeouts or the velocity, spin, and movement that causes swings and misses. It’s part of why a pitcher with as much natural break as Deduno only recorded a career 16.8 percent strikeout rate under the previous regime.
Modern publicly-available stat databases like Statcast or Baseball Savant weren’t available for most of his career, making it difficult for the average fan to properly compare Deduno to pitchers from the Statcast era. We can still piece together some attributes from the end of his career. For example, an interesting FanGraphs write-up explains how Deduno’s grip and release point on his fastball cause the lack of spin and essentially create a 90 MPH knuckleball.
His fastball velocity (6th percentile) and fastball spin (10th percentile) were towards the bottom of the league in 2015. Pitchers don’t need spin on their fastballs to induce strikeouts; just look at Joe Ryan. His fastball spin rate (45th percentile) is a clear improvement from Deduno’s, but it’s still not at the top level. According to FanGraphs, Deduno’s heater had a 3.7 run value in 2013. As long as Deduno kept the ball close to the zone, it became an effective pitch. That’s especially true when he had the breaking pitch to counter his cutter. His curveball spin rate was in the 71st percentile in 2015. It became the best breaking pitch that he threw over his career.
A pitcher with Deduno’s natural ability shouldn’t have only had a 16.8 percent career strikeout rate, which was well under the league average 19.9 percent rate in 2013. Current Twins coaches would be better able to help him generate swings and misses. More focus on swings and misses rather than pitch-to-contact could have helped reduce his high walk rate. Deduno’s unpredictable movement meant he had minimal command. But having someone who throws a 90 MPH knuckleball would have been intriguing on Minnesota’s current team.
Even though he lacked command, Deduno kept the ball in the ballpark. A 0.86 career HR/9 was impressive, considering the league average at the time was 0.96 HR/9 in 2013. Even if that number didn’t completely hold up in 2023’s 1.23 HR/9 league average, he should still have been able to suppress home runs in today’s game.
The Houston Astros gave Deduno another big-league opportunity during the 2014 season. Houston mainly used him as a reliever, and Deduno allowed a .719 OPS in 39 games.
Even if Deduno couldn’t become a quality reliever with his two-pitch mix, he could have been a productive short-usage reliever. He could have followed a similar path that other Twins pitchers have followed to become impact arms like Griffin Jax, Taylor Rogers, or Jhoan Duran. That way, he could rely on that cutter and curveball mix without worrying about developing a third pitch. He still owned a 10.2 percent walk rate as a reliever in his career, but more time being engrained in modern baseball could have given him more confidence in his offerings.
The previous Twins regime struggled to develop pitching talent. Minnesota implemented modern pitching philosophies too late for most of their arms during the 2010s. Many of their prospects failed to reach the big leagues for various reasons. It’s no guarantee that Deduno could have overcome his lack of velocity or inconsistent command. Still, out of a pitching group with Scott Diamond, Cole De Vries, and Andrew Albers, it feels like Deduno missed an opportunity to develop under the current regime.
