This is a series of evaluations that will be done this offseason on every player that closed the season on the 40-man roster for the Minnesota Twins, with one appearing every weekday from now until each player has been evaluated. The plan is to start with Mr. Albers and move all the way through the pitchers, then to the catchers, infielders, outfielders and finally those listed as designated hitters on the club’s official MLB.com roster. That means we’ll wrap it up with Miguel Sano sometime in the first week of December.
- Name: Ryan O’Rourke
- 2016 Role: Was an adequate LOOGY in two stints with the big club, but was better in the second go-round after being DFA’d the first time. Was extremely good at Rochester after clearing waivers in a number of roles.
- Expected 2017 Role: In the mix to serve as a LOOGY next year, but may not survive the offseason on the 40-man roster. If used properly he’s very useful, but it may not make sense for a team that just lost 100-plus games to save a spot for a specialist.
- MLB Stats: 3.96 ERA (4.11 FIP) in 25 MLB innings, 8.6 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, 45.3 percent GB rate, 0.1 fWAR.
- MiLB Stats: 1.96 ERA (2.31 FIP) in 28 Triple-A innings; 9.3 K/9, 1.9 BB/9, 1.14 WHIP.
- Contract Status: It looks like he has one more year worth of options in 2017.
2016 Lowdown:
Not many Twins can match O’Rourke’s seven seasons in the team’s system, as the lefty finally made it to the big leagues in year six and then again this season in year seven. When used properly, O’Rourke can have value. Unfortunately for manager Paul Molitor, there wasn’t really an avenue for him to use the lefty properly for a few reasons.
O’Rourke can be a weapon against left-handed hitters. Despite having an MLB ERA of 4.98 through 47 innings, O’Rourke has managed to hold lefties to a .482 OPS. Not surprisingly, righties have hit him pretty well (.740 OPS), but there’s room for guys like O’Rourke in the league, especially in this era of super-specialization of relief pitchers.
However, the Twins didn’t have that need or luxury this season. There weren’t many times when Molitor needed a lefty to come in and protect a tight lead in the seventh or eighth and get a key lefty like Eric Hosmer or Mike Moustakas out. Early in the season, those outs went to Fernando Abad, but even then it wasn’t like it was a routine thing.
So O’Rourke held lefties to a .077/.167/.192 line this season — a .359 OPS that would put him in an elite class among AL LOOGYs. Frankly, the .725 OPS he allowed to righties isn’t that bad, but take a look how it breaks down: .262/.348/.377. Basically speaking, it’s a middling batting average, a worrisome OBP and a fairly low slugging percentage when the ball is put in play. The OBP makes sense, as O’Rourke walked seven of the 70 righties he faced. The math there is easy, as that’s a walk rate of 10 percent, or roughly what Hector Santiago did this season. Santiago isn’t the bastion of control and command, so even if O’Rourke can continue to limit power and contact from righties, there still isn’t a ton of hope he’s going to develop into a late-inning kind of guy. There just isn’t that high of a ceiling.
The rates back up the numbers, however. O’Rourke induced just a 31.3 percent groundball rate off the bats of lefties and a 50 percent rate off righties. Generally speaking, about 45 percent is the league-average mark, so that’s one way for O’Rourke to combat his struggles against righties.
The raw strikes and balls also show that O’Rourke struggled to throw strikes to righties, for whatever reason. O’Rourke threw strikes 62.9 percent of the time to lefties, against just 58.8 percent against righties. Also in the rates is that O’Rourke allowed soft contact 41.2 percent of the time against lefties, and just 16.3 percent of the time against righties. In fact, just 17.7 percent of batted balls against O’Rourke were “hard-hit” according to Fangraphs classifications, while a staggering 32.7 percent were hard-hit off the bats of righties. All told, 83.7 percent of batted balls by righties against O’Rourke were either medium- or hard-hit balls, so the groundball rate there is key for damage control purposes.
From a repertoire standpoint, here’s how O’Rourke attacked hitters based on handedness by pitch percentage:
Against RHH:
- 4FB – 20.2%
- SINKER – 32.6%
- SLIDER – 15%
- CURVE – 3.8%
- CHANGE – 28.5%
Against LHH:
- 4FB – 28.8%
- SINKER – 3.8%
- SLIDER – 63.7%
- CURVE – 2.3%
- CHANGE – 1.5%
There’s nothing too wild here. He gives up a ton of fly balls to lefties because he hardly throws the sinker, which he muscles up on against righties. He also doesn’t throw a same-sided changeup — most guys don’t — but instead throws a ton of sliders. The slider is a huge pitch for him against lefties (27.4 percent whiff rate, .208 slugging percentage against), while righties swing and miss at his change quite frequently (18.4 percent) with just a .150 slugging percentage on it.
Ultimately, the vibe I get here is a guy who knows what he’s able to do, and executes it pretty well. He may get caught in a numbers game in Minnesota — the only organization he’s ever known — but he has the kind of stuff that keeps lefties in the game until they’re in their late 30s.
Grade: B+. He could stand to clean up the walk rate a bit, but for what his skill set allows, O’Rourke is a very useful pitcher. The truth is, he might be a better fit elsewhere, however.
