Leading up to the trade deadline, the Twins had already added three pitchers to help the staff. Bringing in Jeff Hoffman from the Blue Jays, though, was a different kind of swing.
Minnesota has made plenty of aggressive deadline moves before, but it had been a while since the front office landed an established late-inning reliever with Hoffman's kind of track record. Just one year after a 33-save season, the Twins paid a steep price to get him in hopes of locking down the back end of the bullpen for a playoff run. On paper, the appeal is obvious.
The stuff is as good as advertised. Among qualified major league pitchers this season, Hoffman’s whiff rate, chase rate and strikeout rate all sit in the 98th percentile or better.
When he’s around the zone, hitters chase, they swing through strikes, and they don’t square him up very often. That’s the profile contenders hunt for in July.
But the numbers that live beneath the surface have long told a different story.
In 49 innings with Toronto this season, Hoffman put up a 3.86 ERA and a 1.35 WHIP. That’s not a disaster for a reliever by any means, but it does raise the same question his entire profile keeps asking: how does a pitcher with elite swing-and-miss stuff keep ending up with results that look so ordinary?
The answer has been inconsistency.
At his best, Hoffman can look like one of the nastiest relievers in baseball. At his worst, the command slips just enough to wreck everything.
That pattern showed up right away in 2025. He opened with 15 1/3 innings of dominance, posting a 1.17 ERA while striking out 22 batters and walking only one.
For a stretch, he looked every bit like a shutdown closer.
Then May arrived, and it all went sideways. Over 10 innings that month, Hoffman gave up 15 earned runs, allowed five home runs and handed out six walks.
The strikeouts were still there, but the mistakes piled up because he wasn’t consistently putting pitches where he needed them. Free passes put runners on, bad locations got punished, and the damage came fast.
That wasn’t just a one-month hiccup, either. The rest of the season kept swinging between extremes.
Hoffman had a 6.00 ERA in August, then finished with a dominant 0.84 ERA in the final month. Those numbers look like they belong to two different pitchers, but the same issue kept showing up: the walks came and went, and the command never settled in.
The difference late was that the extra-base hits weren’t landing with the same force as they had in his rougher stretches.
The same storyline followed him into 2026. He opened the year back in Toronto’s closer role, but by the end of May he was sitting on an ERA north of 6 over 25 2/3 innings.
Again, the problems were familiar: too many walks, too many extra-base hits. Eventually, Blue Jays manager John Schneider made the change and moved former Twins pitcher Louis Varland into the ninth inning.
That demotion may have helped Hoffman more than hurt him. Since the start of June, he’s been excellent, allowing just three earned runs over his last 23 1/3 innings.
The biggest change hasn’t been the stuff or the strikeout rate. It’s been the command.
He’s walked fewer hitters and kept opponents from doing real damage when they put the ball in play.
That’s what makes Hoffman such a tricky evaluation. The peripherals are real.
The arsenal is real. When everything is synced up, he can dominate anyone.
But the surface results matter too, and over the last two seasons they’ve reflected the same problem again and again: enough lost command to create ugly stretches, and ugly stretches are brutal for a one-inning reliever asked to protect narrow leads.
That’s the version of Hoffman the Twins are betting they won’t get.
In Other News...
Twins Trade With Rays Suddenly Looks Even Better For Minnesota
The trade that sent Taj Bradley to Minnesota and Griffin Jax to Tampa Bay was already looking like the kind of deal that can age well for the Twins, and now it has another twist. Bradley has given Minnesota a strong return and brings control through 2029, which makes the front office look pretty savvy in the short and long term, especially in the context of the other recent Twins-Rays swaps.
Jax, meanwhile, had settled into a starting role with the Rays and was performing well after the switch, so his progress had become part of the appeal on Tampa Bays side. The next step is less clear now, and it is another reminder that even trades that seem balanced in the moment can tilt quickly once health enters the picture. [Read more 🡒]
Twins Return In Jorge Polanco Deal Looks Worse After Latest Setback
Justin Topas season took another turn when the Royals cut ties with the right-hander after signing him to a minor-league deal in July, continuing a frustrating stretch for a pitcher whose year has bounced from organization to organization. Topa had already been designated for assignment and released by the Twins after struggling, then spent time on a minor-league deal with the Blue Jays before Toronto let him go in early July.
For Minnesota, it is another unwelcome reminder of how the return from the Jorge Polanco trade with Seattle has aged. Topa came to the Twins in that offseason deal and was expected to be part of the pitch mix, but his performance never stabilized enough to make the move look like much of a win. The latest release does not close the book on his career, but it does add another dent to the value Minnesota was hoping to extract from that transaction. [Read more 🡒]
Luke Keaschalls Bat Looks Ready But Twins Still Face One Problem
Luke Keaschall has given the Twins plenty to like with the bat, and for a young player trying to carve out a long-term role, that counts for a lot. But Minnesota has spent much of the 2026 season sorting through a tougher question around him: where exactly does he fit on the field? He opened at second base, only to run into defensive trouble that forced the club to rethink the plan and look at other spots.
The move to the outfield has not solved the issue so far, which leaves the Twins still weighing how to balance Keaschalls offensive upside against the defensive growing pains. For a team trying to build around young talent, the appeal is obvious, but so is the need for a cleaner answer before his role becomes set in stone. Until then, the bat looks ready, even if the glove keeps the conversation going. [Read more 🡒]