The Minnesota Twins entered the penultimate week of the Major League Baseball regular season clinging to a 2.5-game lead over the Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners.
That made the team’s acquisition of left-handed pitcher Cole Irvin on Monday afternoon understandable.
But it also made it clear that they’ve entered desperation mode.
What to know about Irvin
Most baseball fans are plenty familiar with Irvin by now.
Now 30 years old, Irvin is in his sixth MLB season and is already on his fourth team.
Though he did have an impressive 2022 campaign with the Oakland Athletics (3.98 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, and 2.1 WAR over 181 innings), he’s been a fringe starter at best over the majority of his career.
The Baltimore Orioles traded for Irvin before the 2023 season to shore up their rotation, but he made it just three disastrous starts before earning a demotion to the minor leagues.
Back then, it was looking like his 2022 season was a breakthrough, but it's now merely looking like an anomaly, and his stuff backs that up.
Irvin ranks in the bottom 20 percent of MLB pitchers this season in expected ERA, expected BA, fastball velocity, average exit velocity, chase percentage, whiff percentage, strikeout percentage, and barrel percentage per MLB Statcast.
How Irvin fits for the Twins
Irvin was designated for assignment by Baltimore last week and will be added to the 40-man roster on Tuesday, with right-handed Randy Dobnak being designated for assignment to make room for him.
However, he will not be postseason eligible for Minnesota because he was claimed after the Sept. 1 deadline.
That means that Irvin is being only brought in to add pitching depth for the next two weeks — at least as far as this season is concerned, as he has two years of arbitration control left.
The fact that Minnesota might need him to contribute substantial innings to hold onto its American League Wild Card spot is a risky gamble.
The rotation has been shaky behind Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober, with the 3-5 starters (Simeon Woods-Richardson, David Festa, and Zebby Matthews) each owning an ERA north of 4.00 this season.
At the least, Irvin is likely to be better than Dobnak (5.00 ERA and 1.40 WHIP in 37 career games), but it might not be by much.
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