PHILADELPHIA — Nearly two months after thinking he’d been traded at the deadline, Joe Ryan spoke about a potentially optimistic outlook for the Minnesota Twins instead of his own future after making his final start of the season Friday night.
Asked if he’d thought about it being his last one in a Twins uniform during the days leading up to it or in the aftermath of a sharp, five-inning start in a 3-1 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, Ryan deflected. Instead, the 2025 All-Star, who temporarily believed he’d been traded to the Boston Red Sox on July 31 after an erroneous social media report, supported some of the positive developments he’s seen since the Twins traded away 10 players at the deadline.
Although Minnesota suffered its 91st defeat Friday and is nearing the end of a lost season that began with postseason aspirations, Ryan identified some recent changes made by the club as positive. Not only is he intrigued by the starting pitching talent acquired in trades for Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax, Ryan also likes the aggressive base-running mentality employed by the Twins over the past six weeks, one that has led to a slight increase in offense.
“At the end of the day, I see the big picture and the decisions they’ve made, and I think they’re good decisions and the trajectory of the organization is positive,” Ryan said. “I think they’re doing a really good job of working with what we have and making the right decisions on the field right now and putting a little more pressure on teams.
“The young guys that are stepping up, obviously, there have been a couple of rocky outings here and there, but for the most part, guys like Taj (Bradley) and Mick (Abel), those guys look really good.”
Whether or not Ryan believes he’s part of the Twins’ future was masked by a good poker face Friday.
Still, it’s only logical for him to wonder what lies ahead for him with free agency two years away. Equally, it makes sense for the Twins to consider trading Ryan this winter.
The Twins took a step back from competing this summer at the trade deadline. Not only did they offload the entire back end of the bullpen, players who were far from reaching free agency, but the team traded Carlos Correa and shed future payroll.
With the offseason upcoming, nobody yet knows what direction the Twins plan to head in 2026. But even if Minnesota suggests it would like to compete, the likelihood that the team will spend enough on payroll to approach the 2025 Opening Day figure of $142 million seems unrealistic.
Working with a reduced payroll for the foreseeable future also makes it unlikely the Twins would try to sign Ryan to a long-term deal. If they don’t plan to extend him, the club would then likely spend time trying to determine whether it can win in the two years it has left with the right-hander whom it acquired in a July 2021 trade for Nelson Cruz.
Though the Twins suggested in the eight weeks since the deadline that the ideal is to be built around strong pitching and athletic position players, trading Ryan or Pablo López doesn’t seem far-fetched.
Whereas the Twins never got close to trading Ryan in July — multiple team sources said Boston made an incomplete offer only 15 minutes before the deadline — it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have considered it. Unlike July, Ryan’s market wouldn’t be limited to teams competing for the 2025 postseason. The offseason also affords teams additional time to fill the holes created by trading away key prospects or players, which almost certainly happens to any club that acquires Ryan.
“You can’t think like that or you’ll be thinking about every hypothetical and possibility,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “The maybes don’t affect me. As a player, you try to do everything you can to disregard those types of things. … The simpler you keep this game, the better you play and the better you pitch.
“I’m not thinking like that right now, and I think all our players are in a better spot to perform when they put that to the side.”
Joe Ryan has noted that his future isn’t in his hands, as the Twins could consider trading him this offseason. (Jesse Johnson / Imagn Images)
If Ryan was thinking about being traded, he didn’t show it Friday night. Rather, he spent the final start of a good season showcasing his skills in front of a 40,000-plus crowd at Citizens Bank Park.
Fueled by the crowd’s energy, Ryan went all out. He threw six different pitch types, and the velocity for each played up anywhere from 1.3 to 2.1 mph.
While he yielded a fifth-inning solo home run to Philadelphia’s Edmundo Sosa, Ryan didn’t allow much other hard contact. He generated 14 swings and misses in 90 pitches and worked around several defensive misplays behind him.
Ryan limited powerful slugger Kyle Schwarber to an infield single, striking him out twice. He threw strikes on 59 of 90 pitches and was his colorful, emotive self every step of the way, making funny faces and sharing a playful back-and-forth with former teammate Harrison Bader after the outfielder reached on a fifth-inning infield single.
“(The Phillies fans) bring good energy,” Ryan said. “But it feels just more like white noise at the end of the day. You get excited, it’s a good team and they’re going to go play in the playoffs, do their thing. You want to get them out to the best of your ability and make good pitches. It’s just more fun.”
Ryan’s experience post-deadline has been all over the map.
Not only did illness impact several recent starts, Ryan admitted after one outing in Toronto that he at times struggled with motivation because there was no chance to reach the postseason.
Following his final start, he acknowledged he was in a strange spot after the deadline, but he also noted his future isn’t in his hands.
“I felt like I was in shock for a couple of weeks after that, and then it kind of settled in,” Ryan said. “(My future) is so far out of my control. But it seems like the team is making good decisions from the front office and coaching staff down to give ourselves a chance to win a couple more ballgames. … I think the team’s going to be in a really good spot going forward.
“Hopefully we’ll make a couple of other moves and see where that goes, but I’m not too worried about that.”
(Top photo: Bill Streicher / Imagn Images)