FanGraphs, one of the great places to fall down a baseball advanced statistics rabbit hole, lists 1,133 different pitchers who have worked in relief from the start of the 2021 season until now.
Emilio Pagán is just about the worst reliever in baseball, based on this statistic
Of all 1,133 pitchers who have appeared in relief during an MLB games since 2021, how far do you need to go down the list to find Emilio Pagán? (Hint: He's not at 1,133. That spot is held by a former Twins closer.)
June 12, 2023 at 5:12PM
Of those pitchers, Alex Colomé— the Twins' disastrous closer in 2021 — ranks 1,133 in a stat called "win probability added" during that time. Yes, dead last.
Not far ahead of him? Emilio Pagán, whose nightmarish 2022 season doomed the Twins in much the same way as Colomé's the year before and who, against all odds, was brought back in 2023 with all-too-familiar results. He's sixth from the bottom at No. 1,128.
(Trevor Megill, a Twins reliever who worked 39 games in 2022, is sandwiched between them at No. 1,130, by the way.).
On the bright side? Jhoan Duran is No. 4 on the list, even though he didn't pitch at all in 2021.
Duran's excellence compared to the putridity of other relievers in high-leverage situations is as dramatic as the losses that Twins can't seem to shake — something Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday's Daily Delivery podcast.
I'll back up for a moment in case Win Probability Added needs further explanation. In plain terms, it is the percentage by which a player's performance in a game either raises or lowers his teams' overall chance of winning.
Pagán largely has been used this season in games where the Twins are either trailing or ahead comfortably. So game-by-game, his impact is minimal — generally only increasing or decreasing the Twins' chances to win by a few percentage points even though 18 of his 23 outings have been scoreless.
Success in those moments, combined with a lack of other options, has led manager Rocco Baldelli and the Twins to try Pagán sometimes in close games. The results have been generally awful.
On May 17, he was summoned with two on and two out in the seventh to protect a 3-2 lead against the Dodgers. He walked two batters and then gave up a grand slam in a 7-3 loss for a WPA of -0.63, meaning his outing decreased the Twins' chances of winning by 63 percentage points.
And on Sunday, he was brought in to protect a 6-4 lead in the eighth inning in Toronto. The 7-8-9 hitters went single-single-homer, and poof it was a 7-6 loss.
Pagán's WPA for the season is now -0.81, worst on the team despite often pitching in low- or medium-leverage situations.
Colomé finished with a 4.15 ERA in 2021. Pagán's was 4.43 last year and 4.61 this year. Those aren't great, but they don't tell the real story. When it matters most, that duo has been among the worst in baseball in the past two-plus seasons.
The Twins (and their fans) have suffered as a result. The Twins are a combined 27-41 in one-run games since 2022 started, and another promising start to the season is in danger of being undone again.
Here are four more things to know today:
*After a 4-0 loss to Montreal over the weekend, Minnesota United manager Adrian Heath said this: "We've conceded poor goals — the first two especially — but in between that we played really, really well. I know some people who hadn't watched the game might not think that, but that's the case. I think we had better chances than they had tonight."
While there is some statistical evidence to bolster Heath's point, it's a message more easily delivered in a 2-1 game instead of 4-0. I'd hate to see the final score if the Loons had been on the wrong side of the run of play.
*I have no earthly idea how the Vikings are going to generate a pass rush this season without Za'Darius Smith and possibly without Danielle Hunter.
*If you are scoreboard watching, the 33-33 Twins are now even with the last place team in the AL East (Boston) but still 1.5 games up in the AL Central.
*In better news, it sure looks like P.J. Fleck is working on an impressive 2024 recruiting class with the Gophers.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
