Griffin Jax is one of the best relievers in baseball but while an offseason report suggested the Minnesota Twins believed that he could be a frontline starter, the right-hander isn’t making the move ahead of the 2025 season.
This could be a case of not fixing what isn’t broken and keeping one of the top relief duos in baseball intact alongside Jhoan Duran. But there’s another reason that could involve the favorite offseason topic of Twins fans: payroll.
Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors theorized that the Twins may have decided to keep Jax in the bullpen to keep his arbitration price down ahead of next season. While Jax has been an effective pitcher, moving him to the rotation may have increased his value and put the team in a bigger payroll crunch heading into next year.
“Jax, who is entering his age-30 season, is in his first of three arbitration years,” Franco explained. “Pitching in a setup role in front of Jhoan Duran comes with less earning power via arbitration than he’d have if he were a starter or had a crack at the ninth inning.”
The Minnesota Twins payroll situation may have kept Griffin Jax in the bullpen
Franco’s article isn’t directly accusing the Twins of keeping Jax’s price down but the thought makes sense. The Twins are trying to operate with a $130 million payroll for the second straight season and most of the offseason has been built around who they are going to get rid of than acquiring talent.
Part of that puzzle was solved when Jax agreed to a one-year, $2.365 million deal to avoid arbitration on Thursday and if the Twins believed Jax could be a starter, they could move him to the rotation and have a bargain behind Bailey Ober, Pablo López and Joe Ryan.
Unfortunately, agents are much smarter than this. Clay Holmes hasn’t started a game since 2018 and was an All-Star reliever for the New York Yankees last season. But the Mets signed the 31-year-old to a three-year, $38 million contract this winter that would be the baseline for a player like Jax, who hasn’t started since 2021 and turned 30 last November.
Slapping an extra $10 million on top of the payroll would have given the Twins a projected payroll of $150 million according to FanGraphs and sent the front office into a more desperate effort to ditch payroll that could have seen the Twins trade López or Carlos Correa if they found the right offer.
Griffin Jax gives the Minnesota Twins one of the best bullpen duos in baseball
Keeping Jax in the bullpen isn’t a bad door prize for the Twins. While Jax’s traditional stats look great, he also saw big gains in his analytics including a 34.4 percent strikeout rate that ranked 10th among relievers with 50 or more innings. He also was able to generate a career-high 18.4 percent whiff rate that trailed Houston’s Josh Hader, Atlanta’s Dylan Lee and Mason Miller of the Athletics for the best in baseball.
“Obviously, he was tremendously valuable in 2024,” Twins general manager Jeremy Zoll said on the team’s Inside Twins show this week. “We feel like he’s one of the best relievers in the game and feel really good about that role and plan for the upcoming year and know Griff is excited about that as well.”
Zoll kept the door open for Jax to become a starter down the line and that may coincide with a day the Twins are sold to an owner with more leniency toward the payroll. But for now, Twins fans can rest easy toward the back end of games as Jax and Duran form a lethal combination heading into next year.