Dodgers: Three Potential Rentals to Snag for the Summer
Disclaimer: Reed is not currently on a major league roster. Or a minor league roster for that matter.
After sustaining an injury earlier this season, the rehabbing Reed allowed 13 hits and 4 home runs in five appearances in Triple-A, leading the Twins to release him from his two-year deal, meaning they would eat around $6 million.
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This is bad for the Twins, but great for the next team to take a chance on the 30-year old, who will likely only have to pay Reed the league minimum on a minor league deal.
The former closer and setup man, Reed was dominant at times, some of those coming as recently as 2017. Two seasons ago with the Red Sox and Mets, Reed saved 19 games (all for the Mets) with a 2.84 ERA and a 72/15 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 76 innings of work. According to Fangraphs, Reed still was sitting in the low-90s in 2019 with his fastball, a fastball which has accumulated pitch values above 10 twice in the last four seasons (2016 and 2017).
The 6’4” hurler could potentially sure up the back-end of the Dodgers bullpen, a la Joe Blanton or Brandon Morrow in recent seasons, all with a low monetary cost and virtually no prospect cost, something which cannot be said for any of the other viable options available to the Dodgers (especially since the Cody Allen signing to the Twins late Saturday night).
Finally, while his splits thus far in an injury-shortened 2019 campaign have been less drastic, and less demonstrative of his skill against lefties, this was not the case a season ago. In 2018, Duke dominated lefties, especially in comparison to how he fared against righties.
https://www.fangraphs.com/statsplits.aspx?playerid=3840&position=P&season=2018
If Duke could find a way to tap into his lefty-on-lefty dominance of seasons past, he could be a valuable addition, like Cingrani and Watson before him.