Once all the jacks are in their boxes and the clowns are all in bed, you can discuss the performance.
Underperforming players are usually very polarizing. On TD we have a lot of heated debate about Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton and Pablo Lopez (pre-All-Star break). Even overachieving players like Emilio Pagan can sometimes come under scrutiny, especially in the heat of the season when fans and media overreact to one or two poor performances.
Now that the media clowns have gone to bed, we can (hopefully) approach these discussions with cool heads. In 2023, Joe Ryan was expected to emerge as a starter on the front line, after a fantastic rookie season. In the first 2.5 months that expectation was exceeded, he was a top 10 pitcher in baseball, increasing his K%, lowering his BB% and maintaining his excellent stats (xBA, xwOBA, etc. .). In his first 15 starts, he went 8-4 with 93.2 IP, 2.98 ERA, 100 K, which, if he had stayed at that level, would have looked like this in 33 starts: 18-9 record with 206 IP, 2.98 ERA, 220K; which would probably be good enough for 2nd place in AL-Cy Young. Unfortunately, a groin injury suffered after that stellar start made his final line look like a much less impressive 11-10 record with 161.2 IP, 4.51 ERA, 197 K in 29 starts. He had major problems throwing pitches to the heart of the plate; his meatball % on the year was 8.5, well above the MLB average of 7.3%, and hitters swung his meatballs 4.1% more often than others launchers. His lack of precise control hurt him down the stretch, and he had a whopping 3.18 HR/9 after the groin injury after posting an excellent 0.77 HR/9. His ERA then jumped to 6.62 after the injury, and I can comfortably say that the Joe Ryan we saw in the second half was not indicative of the caliber of pitcher he is.
Now if 4.51 turns out to be 3.53, I don’t mind, I don’t mind spirit.
Even with his horrible second half, Joe Ryan was still phenomenal at retiring batters without walking them. His BB rate of 5.8% is in the 92nd percentile and his K rate of 29.3% was higher than Max Scherzer’s this year. Even with his horrible stats after his injury, Ryan posted a 3.53 xERA and 3.76 xFIP for the year. These expected stats can sometimes be misleading – Shintaro Fujinami had a 7.80 ERA with a 4.80 xERA, but he was horrible at damage limitation with RISP, as his -19.89 RE24 was one of the worst in the baseball. xERA and xFIP don’t account for pitchers that deal a lot of damage in small groups, so it’s hard to say Fujinami was unlucky with poorly hit balls falling. However, Joe Ryan’s RE24 was positive at 1.30, which isn’t great but is above average. This suggests that he was the victim of some bad luck and that his ERA probably should have been between 3.00 and 3.00 if he had neutral luck.
Fastball, soft fastball, wish I could throw less.
Much of the narrative around Ryan revolves around his less-than-elite sideline stuff and how it holds him back. While I agree that he tends to rely almost exclusively on his four-seamer in tough times, he has completely overhauled his arsenal, and his splitter/sweeper has the makings of excellent strikeout pitches. When Ryan first came into the organization, his arsenal consisted of a fastball, slider, changeup, and slow curveball. Now it uses a splitter, sweeper, and slider as three secondary offerings, with the splitter and slider being introduced this year. This is his first year using this arsenal, and he will likely improve with more experience.
His splitter travels 0.6″ further than the average splitter at his arm slot, and hitters couldn’t do much with it (less than .300 xwOBA against). He had value of negative run in ’23, mainly because he wasn’t getting many chases and wasn’t digging it with his four-seamer, which was primarily used at the top of the zone. If he can start working more East/West with his fastball, he can set up his splitter, which has done a great job of staying at the bottom edge of the zone.
His sweeper offers a lot of drop, making it a great complement to his fastball, as they have almost opposite breaks. He collected a 36.5% whiff rate and only a 32.4% hard hit rate. In the small sample of batted ball events, batting average, OPS, etc. against considerably exceeded the expected statistics; in a larger sample it should have better numbers. If he continues to work on his sweeper, this could be a great deal.
You’d be better off sticking your dagger in someone else.
It’s not advisable to gauge fan sentiment based on a few stray posts, but I’ve seen far too many posts describing Ryan as a “backend” starter or a “#4 or #5.” Maybe I just looked at posts from seven to thirteen people who only look at box scores, but to me that’s like calling Carlos Correa a bottom-of-the-order hitter, Byron Buxton a 4th outfielder, or Griffin Jax. a middle reliever based on the last 23 seasons. Joe Ryan is not an ace, and the Twins should certainly look for a replacement for Sonny Gray, but a strikeout pitcher who eats innings and doesn’t walk people is a certified No. 2 starter. He’s better than anything the Red Sox, Nationals, Tigers, Royals, White Sox, Cardinals, Reds, Angels, Athletics and Rockies currently have on their roster (or will once free agency has begun): a guy who would be the opening- The one-day starter for a third of the league is an asset that should be highly valued and not insulted.
There are many questions about whether Thielbar, Stewart and Paddack will be able to pitch at a high level for a full season. The first goal is a huge question mark, considering injuries to Miranda and Kirilloff. A number of hitters are candidates for regression. Joe Ryan is the type of guy who can be slotted into the second or third spot in the rotation without much thought. I hope he can go into the season without a cloud of doubt and disrespect hanging over his head, because he doesn’t deserve this. depending on its performance.
No reason to be excited
The 2023 season was great, the Twins won three playoff games and the division, we had an incredible rookie class and tons of exciting games. 2023 is a great building block for this team to firmly establish itself among the elite teams in the American League for the foreseeable future. The Twins have high expectations and aspirations for 2024, and Joe Ryan is a big reason why. To summarize:
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He was among the top 5 pitchers in baseball before his injury.
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According to several expected stats, he would have been the victim of a very bad fate.
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He introduced two new courses this year which should improve over time.
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He has the talent to be a star pitcher.
Some of you have selective or short memories and will choose to focus on his HR-prone second half or the fact that Rocco only trusted him to pitch two innings in a playoff game. I can’t wait to see Joe Ryan prove his doubters wrong and realize his potential as a co-ace on this magnificent Twins pitching staff.
