Hamilton comes to Minnesota

For the last couple years, Hamilton has been delighting fans on Broadway and Disney Plus. Lets hope that the Hamilton the Twins just acquired is as big of hit as the brainchild of Twins’ prospect Jose Miranda’s cousin. In this case, I mean Ian Hamilton, a (stop me if you’ve heard this before) slider-dependent reliever.

Hamilton was claimed off waivers from the Phillies, but actually picked up all his MLB experience with the White Sox. Yes, that means we picked up two of their former relievers in the last 72 hours. Lets hope these guys are up for a revenge tour. Hamilton pitched for the dread hosiery in both 2018 and 2020. He ended both campaigns with a 4.50 ERA, and generally pedestrian peripheral numbers. The notable thing about Hamilton though is his pitch mix.

Fangraphs has him throwing a fastball roughly 70% of the time, and a slider another 25%, with the remainder of his arsenal being a rarely-utilized changeup. The fastball clocks in about 96 mph while the slider comes in at about 87 mph. He fits exactly into the profile of a guy like Matt Wisler, a type of pitcher that the Twins and pitching coach Wes Johnson have helped succeed and unlock their next level. Hamilton also has minor league options, so he may log some miles up and down I-94 this summer.

Welcome to the Twins Cities, Ian, whichever city you end up playing in.