St. Paul – Justin Topa wasn’t too surprised about what was going to happen when he stepped into Derek Shelton’s office following a 6-3 win over the Houston Astros on May 18.
The Minnesota Twins were about to designate him for assignment. He owned a 20.25 ERA, .476 BABIP, and allowed five walks and three home runs through six outings in May. He had allowed all three runs to the Astros that night. Even with the writing on the wall, being DFA’d still stung for Justin Topa, who’d spent the last two-plus seasons in a Twins uniform.
“Obviously, it stinks, being with an organization for the past couple of years and having relationships with guys that go further than the field,” Topa said at CHS Field on Wednesday. “I think that’s the part that a lot of people don’t see is those relationships, family, and stuff like that. You go from seeing everybody every day to not seeing anybody, but yeah, it was a weird process, something I’d never gone through.”
Topa returned home and waited to hear from his agent on his next opportunities. The Toronto Blue Jays were one of the first organizations to reach out. Fortunately for Topa, he had a friend already on their Triple-A squad, Conor Larkin, who could give him the details on the org.
Larkin was Toronto’s ninth-round pick in the 2021 draft out of Penn State. He had been a slower riser through their farm system and just reached Triple-A Buffalo on May 20. Larkin and Topa have been working out together every off-season since the Jays drafted Larkin. Once the possibility of them playing together looked like a reality, Topa reached out to get the details from him.
“He texted me, he’s like, ‘Hey, you know, this is a possibility, I may come over here,’” Larkin recalled. “He asked questions about the org; I helped him out as much as I can. I felt I was providing the favor, and when he first got here and told me a couple days later he’s coming here, it was an awesome feeling.”
Topa signed with Toronto only 12 days after the Twins released him. The Jays first brought him down to their complex in Dunedin, Florida, to work on some of the issues that had hindered the end of his tenure with the Twins: His mechanical issues and his slider were not up to par.
“The slider wasn’t great at the beginning of the year and was trying to figure out why,” Topa said. “I was diving into video and stuff like that, trying to compare to years past and see where everything kind of went wrong.
“Obviously, once you get out there in the game, you try not to think about stuff and try to think about getting outs. I think it just snowballed with the slider especially, not being able to throw that first strike or get that much chase on it.”
A few days after reviewing what went wrong and getting notes and practice on those issues in Dunedin, Topa joined the Buffalo Bisons – Toronto’s Triple-A team – in Worcester. It was a thrilling time for Larkin to finally have a mentor away from the field joining him in the bullpen each night as he finally got a Triple-A opportunity.
“He’s been a really good mentor to me,” Larkin said. “I call him the team Dad. But no, he’s been really helpful early in my pro career. Now, when I was first getting into pro ball and not really knowing the ins and outs, he still helped me out in the off-season with different pitch feels, what to expect when I get into pro ball. Each year, our relationship grows more and more.”
“It makes it easy,” said Topa. “It’s an easy transition; you get to pick the brains of those guys and see how the org is from a player standpoint instead of kind of going in ‘blind.’ They had nothing but great things to say, so it was a pretty easy decision for me to come over here.”
Unfortunately for Larkin, the Blue Jays granted Topa his release on the 4th of July. He had only made eight relief appearances, had a 3.38 ERA, walked three batters, struck out four, and had a .314 opponents’ batting average over eight innings of work with the Bisons.
Still, off-season workout partners in baseball can go their whole careers without playing together at any level in pro ball. Even though Topa and Larkin were only teammates for a month in Triple-A, it’s still a time that either won’t forget, given how much Topa has helped Larkin on and off the field to this point in his career.
“He’s really allowed me to understand, from the personal side of things, that there’s more to life than baseball, too,” Larkin said. “Like a lot of our conversations are not even about baseball. He brings the best out of me in the sense of come to the field and smile every day, being the same person every day. But he’s taught me a lot about how to still maintain a good attitude and enjoy it while you have it.”
