Top reliever among Twins to start season on disabled list

1:39pm: There’s concern that DeSclafani could require season-ending surgery, president of baseball operations Derek Falvey tells Nightengale and others.

1:00pm: Twins closer Jhoan Duran, lefty reliever Caleb Thielbar, and rotation hopeful Anthony DeSclafani will open the season on the 15-day injured list, tweets Bobby Nightengale of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Duran is dealing with a “moderate” oblique strain, while Thielbar will head to the IL with a strained hamstring. DeSclafani has a more ominous forearm strain and is slated to meet with Dr. Keith Meister for further evaluation.

Beyond that trio of surefire big leaguers, the Twins will also see prospect Matt Canterino and roster hopeful Zack Weiss start on the injured list, tweets Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Canterino, long one of the organization’s most promising arms, will be on the Triple-A injured list after suffering a subscapular strain in his shoulder. Weiss, a waiver claim out of the Red Sox organization, has been rehabbing a teres major strain and will be on the major league injured list.

Losing Duran even for a short spell is painful for the Twins, given the flamethrower’s emergence as one of MLB’s premier relievers. Since making his big league debut on Opening Day 2022, Duran has pitched 130 innings of 2.15 ERA ball with 35 saves, 19 holds, a 33.2 percent strikeout rate, a 7.9 percent walk rate and a massive 63.4 percent ground-ball rate. 

He averaged a ludicrous 101.8 mph on his heater last season and 98.4 mph with his splitter/sinker hybrid (“splinker”). The good news for the Twins is that a moderate strain shouldn’t result in excessively lengthy absence, but even Grade 1 strains have been known to sideline players for upwards of a month. The team hasn’t formally announced a timetable for Duran’s expected return just yet.

With Duran sidelined, it’ll likely fall to Griffin Jax and Brock Stewart to handle save situations early in the season. Jax has become one of Duran’s top setup men in recent years and offers an above-average strikeout rate and strong command of a slider-heavy arsenal. Stewart returned from a yearslong MLB absence and multiple arm surgeries brandishing an upper-90s cutter that helped him punch out nearly 36 percent of his opponents while pitching to a 0.65 ERA in 27 2/3 innings for the Twins last saeson.

The 37-year-old Thielbar has flown under the radar since returning to affiliated ball following a five-year absence in 2020, but he’s quietly been one of the team’s most important relievers in that time. Over the past four seasons, the Minnesota native has given his hometown club 174 innings of 3.21 ERA ball, piling up 45 holds while punching out 30.2 percent of his opponents against a 7.4 percent walk rate. 

He struggled against right-handers last season, yielding a .258/.319/.621 batting line, but Thielbar didn’t have glaring struggles against righties from 2020-22. As with Duran, they’ll hope for a relatively brief absence, but the team hasn’t given any specifics on how long he’s expected to miss just yet.

Word of DeSclafani’s injury is the most concerning of the three. Acquired from the Mariners (who’d picked him up from the Giants previously) as part of the trade sending Jorge Polanco to Seattle, DeSclafani had been in the running to open the season as the Twins’ fifth starter. He was slowed early in camp by some discomfort and is now headed for evaluation with one of the sport’s more notable surgeons.

DeSclafani has struggled to stay healthy throughout his career. He missed the entire 2017 season with a UCL sprain that never required surgery, pitched a mostly healthy year in 2018 and enjoyed one of the best seasons of his career with the Reds in 2019. A teres major strain hobbled him in 2020 and limited him to 33 2/3 innings of 7.22 ERA ball, however. DeSclafani bounced back with a bit 2021 season in San Francisco, working 167 2/3 frames of 3.17 ERA ball over a mostly full slate of 31 starts.

DeSclafani re-signed in San Francisco on a three-year, $36M deal that hasn’t at all gone according to plan. An ankle injury that eventually required surgery limited him to 19 frames in 2022. Shoulder fatigue and a pair of flexor strains capped him at 99 2/3 frames in 2023. He’ll now be slowed to begin the 2024 season, though a timeline won’t be known until that appointment with Dr. Meister has taken place.

The Twins are only the hook for $4M of DeSclafani’s $12M salary. The Giants sent $6M to the Mariners in their original trade involving DeSclafani, and the M’s sent that plus another $2M to Minnesota in the Polanco swap. With DeSclafani headed to the injured list, right-hander Louie Varland should have the fifth spot in the rotation all but locked up. 

He’ll follow Pablo Lopez, Joe Ryan, Chris Paddack and Bailey Ober in what should be a solid Twins staff if everyone can remain healthy. However, the Twins will undoubtedly feel the losses of Sonny Gray and Kenta Maeda, particularly now with their top depth option shelved. In the event of additional pitching injuries, Minnesota would likely turn to one of Simeon Woods Richardson, Brent Headrick or yet-to-debut top prospect David Festa.

As for the others, Canterino is still working his way back from 2022 Tommy John surgery. Injuries have regularly slowed him since being selected in the second round of the 2019 draft. Between shaky health and the scrapped 2020 minor league season, he’s still pitched only 85 professional innings. They’ve been excellent — 1.48 ERA, 39.2 percent strikeout rate, 10.5 percent walk rate — but his persistent injury troubles have undercut his considerable upside. 

As for Weiss, he’s pitched just 27 1/3 MLB frames but has a history of strong strikeout totals in the minors. He could be a bullpen option for the Twins at some point, but for now, he’ll collect MLB service and pay while rehabbing. For a 32-year-old with just 91 days of big league service to this point in his career, that’s not insignificant.

It seems unlikely that the Twins will go outside the organization to boost their depth — at least in term of significant salary additions. Owner Joe Pohlad all but declared his team out on top names like Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery earlier in camp when stating that his team was not going to “go out and spend $30M on a player right now.” The Twins shocked baseball with a pair of Carlos Correa signings that came together under similar circumstances, but it doesn’t seem there’s another splash of that magnitude up their sleeves. 

Minnesota was reportedly interested in Michael Lorenzen earlier in the offseason, so it’s possible they could still circle back on that front. More likely is that they’ll just ride things out with internal options, perhaps adding a veteran on a minor league deal. A particularly lengthy absence for DeSclafani could create some extra urgency, so the results of his evaluation are worth tracking with a close eye for Twins fans.