Tyler Duffey, Minnesota Twins
The Twins were once again eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Yankees, but it was still a successful season in a number of ways. Minnesota’s younger players stepped forward in a big way, and one of those includes Tyler Duffey out of the bullpen.
The 2019 campaign was Duffey’s third either pitching exclusively in relief or close to it. His first two years weren’t anything worth writing home about (4.94 ERA in 71 innings, 7.20 ERA in 25 innings), but this past year was pretty darn impressive (2.50 ERA in 57.2 innings). This also included a significant jump in strikeout rate when looking at the past three seasons (21.6%, 17.8%, 34.5%).
Duffy’s was already on his way to a solid year out of the bullpen in the first half (3.49 ERA in 28.1 innings), but it was what he did after the All-Star break that took things to another level (1.53 ERA in 29.1 innings). He dropped his homers allowed per nine innings from 1.91 to 0.61 over this period of time, and his strikeout rate jumped from an already-high-for-him 27.8% to an even-higher 42.0%.
The righty’s pitch usage didn’t change much, but the effectiveness of his curveball did. Duffy tossed his curveball at a 45.4% clip in 2019, the fourth-highest among qualified relievers. On a per-100-pitch basis, the value of this offering went from -1.11 prior to the All-Star break to 0.84 following it (his fastball also went from 0.20 to 3.56).
About Matt Musico
Matt Musico currently manages Chin Music Baseball and contributes to The Sports Daily. His past work has been featured at numberFire, Yahoo! Sports and Bleacher Report. He’s also written a book and created an online class about how to get started as a sports blogger. Check those out and more helpful tips on sports blogging at his website.
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