It’s time to let Craig Breslow go

There were a couple of shakeups earlier in the week, as the Twins brought Dillon Gee into the fold, preparing him for a long relief role. They also added Trevor Hildenberger, and dropped the axe on Nik Turley and Mason Melotakis. There was a great deal of consternation about Melotakis being dropped from the 40 man roster, given his numbers in the minor leagues, but I think after the ByungHo Park DFA, the front office can get a little bit more credit for reading the tea leaves than they had initially. Maybe Melotakis is injured, and at the very best, he a soft tosser with an injury history, already in his mid 20s.

Now we have reached a point where another player will need to go fairly soon. Hector Santiago is coming back from the disabled list, and as it so happens, he is almost certainly one of the best 25 players in the organization. Strange but true. If you haven’t figured out what dirction I think the team should go, then you glossed over the title of this post.

Craig Breslow seemed like a good investment for the first two months of of the season, but he has fallen off dramatically in June. After working to a sub 3.00 ERA in both April and May, he has exploded with a 9.72 ERA, thanks in lare part to the home runs he has been allowing.

At 36, Breslow is not going to get better. He is not a prospect to keep trotting out there to see if he can figure it out. Unlike Matt Belisle, in a similar position. he hasn’t had any recently attained success either, that the Twins could fall back on, hoping that the “real Craig Breslow” comes around. He’s not as bad as he’s been in June, but he hasn’t really been a solid reliever in about 4 years.

There might be some hope that Matt Belisle will return to form. There is untapped potential — or at least unknown potential — among the younger players in the organization. Craig Breslow no longer has any of those attributes. The Twins need to make a roster move to bring Hector Santiago back, and Breslow’s downward trend suggests that he is the player to be jettisoned. For the long term future of the team, it will be better to get young guys reps, and for the short term success, the Twins will need better arms in the bullpen. Letting Breslow go is an obvious cog in both of those plans.