{"id":35762,"date":"2025-07-31T01:40:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T01:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/35762\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T01:40:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T01:40:13","slug":"phillies-acquire-jhoan-duran-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/35762\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Acquire Jhoan Duran – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Phillies have acquired closer Jhoan Duran<\/a>\u00a0from the Twins in exchange for catching prospect Eduardo Tait<\/a> and right-handed pitcher Mick Abel<\/a>. Both teams have officially announced the deal.<\/p>\n

Duran was one of the biggest names on this summer\u2019s trade market. He came in at no. 34 on MLBTR\u2019s list of the top 50 trade candidates<\/a>, but he surely would have ranked higher if it seemed more likely that he\u2019d be dealt. The flamethrowing right-hander is one of the undisputed best closers in the game, with a career 2.47 ERA, 2.48 SIERA, and 74 saves in 83 chances over the past four seasons. Dating back to his rookie season in 2022, he has thrown 233 2\/3 innings in 223 games, racking up 292 strikeouts (seventh-most among relievers) with an elite 63.2% groundball rate. His 9.10 Win Probability Added (WPA) ranks third in that same span, trailing only Devin Williams<\/a> and F\u00e9lix Bautista<\/a>. The 1,284 pitches he\u2019s thrown at or above 100 miles an hour (per Statcast<\/a>) are easily the most in the majors; Mason Miller<\/a> ranks second with 819. Only 27 years old and arguably pitching better than ever \u2013 he\u2019s on pace for career-highs in both the FanGraphs and Baseball Reference versions of WAR \u2013 Duran remains under team control via arbitration through the 2027 campaign.<\/p>\n

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The possibility of the Twins trading Duran began to seem more and more realistic over the past couple of days, with the 51-57 Twins looking to take advantage of a seller\u2019s market and a bevy of contending teams seeking late-inning bullpen help. It was no secret the Phillies were one such club. A few weeks ago, The Athletic\u2019s Matt Gelb<\/a> reported that Duran (and teammate Griffin Jax<\/a>) would be \u201cprized targets\u201d for Philadelphia, noting that, in contrast to past deadlines, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was prioritizing \u201ccontrollable big leaguers\u201d and, in particular, a controllable \u201cshutdown, late-inning reliever.\u201d Since Gelb\u2019s initial report, several more sources linked the Phillies to Duran, including Nightengale<\/a> and the New York Post\u2019s Jon Heyman<\/a>, but the most recent reporting indicated that their refusal to part with top prospect Andrew Painter<\/a> would ultimately prevent them from landing Duran, with both Nightengale<\/a> and Rosenthal and Gelb<\/a> suggesting as much. Evidently, the Twins softened their demands, although there is no doubt the Phillies still paid a high price to acquire their new bullpen ace.<\/p>\n

Tait is widely considered a top-100 prospect, ranked 50th by Baseball America<\/a>, 51st by Baseball Prospectus<\/a>, and 56th by MLB Pipeline<\/a>. As BA notes<\/a>, he is their first top-100 prospect to be traded ahead of the deadline since 2023, and the highest ranked since 2022. Whether or not the Twins achieved their reported goal<\/a> of landing two top-100 prospects in exchange for Duran depends on which lists you\u2019re looking at; Abel is currently no. 92 on MLB Pipeline\u2019s list, but he dropped off BA\u2019s most recent post-draft rankings and fell off BP\u2019s list after 2023. For what it\u2019s worth, neither Tait nor Abel was included on FanGraphs\u2019 latest top 100 update<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Looking beyond the arbitrary \u201ctop 100\u201d cutoff, however, what matters is that the Twins received a pair of highly talented young players, of a caliber rarely seen moved in deadline deals. Tait is a bat-first catcher with big power and a strong throwing arm, but the rest of his defensive game needs significant work. Still, the bat has enough potential that he could succeed in the majors (presumably at first base or DH) even if he doesn\u2019t stick behind the plate. He lit up the competition in the Dominican Summer League and the Florida Complex League in his first two professional seasons, but he hasn\u2019t looked quite as powerful in Single-A and High-A this year. That said, he\u2019s only 18 years old, which is young for his level, and scouting reports matter far more than his numbers right now.\u00a0Dan Hayes of The Athletic<\/a> notes that the Twins have \u201cvery good\u201d internal grades on Tait.<\/p>\n

Abel might not have quite as much upside as he once did, but he has looked much better this year than he did in 2023 or \u201924. He has a 2.31 ERA and 3.56 FIP in 13 Triple-A starts, both his best numbers at any level in any year of his professional career. While he looked overmatched at times in his first six MLB starts for the Phillies, his mediocre overall numbers are the combination of three strong starts and three disappointing outings. He\u2019s not there quite yet, but he showed signs that he could soon become a capable big league starting pitcher. Whether that\u2019s a mid-rotation or back-end starter remains is now up to the Twins, but he has good raw stuff and a deep arsenal for their development and coaching staffs to work with.<\/p>\n

Heading into play today, the Phillies ranked 24th in MLB with a 4.33 bullpen ERA and 15th with a 3.82 bullpen SIERA. Their strong starting rotation has helped to limit the bullpen\u2019s workload (their bullpen ranks last in innings pitched), but still, it\u2019s not hard to understand why Dombrowski was looking for a significant upgrade. Philadelphia\u2019s longest tenured reliever, hard-throwing lefty Jos\u00e9 Alvarado<\/a>, will be out until mid-August serving a PED suspension, and he won\u2019t be eligible to pitch in the playoffs. Jordan Romano<\/a>, the team\u2019s primary bullpen acquisition of the offseason, has struggled to a 6.81 ERA. No one knows what to expect from David Robertson<\/a>, who did not sign with a team until earlier this month. He remained one of the best relievers in baseball at age 39 in 2024, but he essentially started his spring training last week. Orion Kerkering<\/a> and Matt Strahm<\/a> have provided manager Rob Thomson with a couple of reliable back-end options, but as the Phillies battle with the Mets for the NL East crown and look to contend for a World Series, it\u2019s clear to see why they identified Duran as a major difference-maker.<\/p>\n

As for the Twins, there is now no question they are in full sell mode, having dealt Duran and Chris Paddack<\/a>, whom they sent to the Tigers on Monday<\/a>. This makes it seem all the more likely that they will soon trade Willi Castro<\/a>, Harrison Bader<\/a>, and Danny Coulombe<\/a>, all of whom are set to hit free agency at the end of the season. However, MLB.com\u2019s Mark Feinsand<\/a> notes that Minnesota is now far more likely to hold on to Jax, their other controllable relief ace. Bobby Nightengale of the Minnesota Star Tribune<\/a> echoed Feinsand\u2019s statement, writing that the Twins have not \u201cruled out\u201d trading Jax, but their asking price could now be astronomical \u2013 perhaps too high for anyone to meet.<\/p>\n

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic<\/a> was the first to report that the two sides were closing in on a trade, while Bob Nightengale of USA Today<\/a> was the first to report that the Twins would receive Tait and Abel\u00a0in exchange for Duran. ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan<\/a> was the first to confirm the agreement.<\/p>\n

Photo in article courtesy of Isaiah J. Downing, Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phillies have acquired closer Jhoan Duran\u00a0from the Twins in exchange for catching prospect Eduardo Tait and right-handed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,12416,462,82],"class_list":["post-35762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-jhoan-duran","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}