June 4th, 2024
Do-Hyoung Park
@dohyoungparkNEW YORK -- With the excitement of Royce Lewis’ impending return soon to permeate the walls of the Twins’ clubhouse, there was also the crushing scene along one of those walls at Minute Maid Park on Sunday, where Edouard Julien sat, blankly staring into his locker after having been informed that he would be optioned to Triple-A St. Paul to make room for Lewis.
Carlos Santana walked over, sat face-to-face with Julien and delivered an animated pep talk, the sort that can only come from a 38-year-old veteran with 15 seasons under his belt. Christian Vázquez approached, knelt and wrapped his arms around Julien’s neck from behind in a tight embrace. Bailey Ober, Willi Castro and Manny Margot approached with words of their own.
“It's hard to see one of your brothers feeling that type of emotions,” Ryan Jeffers said. “There's also nothing we can actually say to him to make him feel better in the moment.”
Julien was one of the Twins’ most valuable players in 2023, a fixture in the leadoff spot against right-handed pitchers, relentless in his work to improve his once-shaky defense to make him one of the team’s best defenders in ‘24. He was one of their best hitters in the postseason and both a clubhouse and fan favorite.
But Julien was also not hitting well enough to survive the difficult roster crunch necessitated by Lewis’ return, given the lack of injuries to otherwise make room. With Julien’s .207/.309/.367 slash line and team-high 34% strikeout rate, the Twins felt he needed a reset and a chance to make adjustments at Triple-A -- and this was the time to do that.
“Eddy knows, too, that he’s going to be honest with himself,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He knows he has real adjustments that he’s going to have to make, and there’s no better time than now to make those adjustments. It doesn’t make the conversation or the situation easy to deal with because it’s also an emotional time. He feels bad. Generally speaking, I feel bad, too.”
It’s all about the offspeed pitches, really.
Julien had been very aware of the notion throughout the season that pitchers were aggressively attacking him with offspeed pitches in the strike zone, knowing he’ll easily lay off anything off the plate, and perhaps take more of those offspeed pitches while hunting the fastballs that he’ll always be able to damage.
That has led to an MLB-leading 34 looking strikeouts and a stark inability to do any damage against non-fastballs. Julien had been frustrated about knowing they were coming -- but still not being able to damage them.
For the season, Julien was 6-for-72 (.083) with only two extra-base hits -- both doubles -- when putting non-fastballs in play. Among the 259 hitters to see at least 500 pitches this season, only 14 saw a higher percentage of non-fastballs. Nearly half of the pitches he saw in the strike zone were non-fastballs.
“You’ve got to do what you know is right for the team, but also for the player, and I think that this is the right thing for Eddy,” Baldelli said. “He’s going to use this time very well and productively and come back a much better version of himself.”
It didn’t help that Jose Miranda established himself as not only the interim everyday third baseman, but, ultimately, too valuable of a bat to send down upon Lewis’ return.
“[Miranda] coming up big in a lot of these games for us offensively, it's been huge,” Baldelli said. “He's been one of the guys that has really stepped up and produced when we've really needed it.”
Miranda’s .280/.311/.469 performance this season with six homers in 44 games represents a needed resurgence from a totally lost 2023 campaign, during which rotator cuff issues caused his swing and throwing mechanics to be thrown out of whack following a promising rookie year.
In the meantime, Castro will assume Julien’s half of the second-base platoon while Miranda and Lewis split time at third base and designated hitter, with Miranda also flexing over to first base.
And Julien will have time to adapt again in the Minors.
“It sucks when it's going on, but the team had to make a tough decision and send down a Major League-caliber player,” Jeffers said. “I think he has confidence and we know he belongs up here. He's a big league player. He'll make it back up here. It's just how the cards fell right now.”
