On August 14, 2024, a switch flipped. It was the last time the local of St. Paul, Minnesota, started a game for his hometown Twins. Louis Varland — starting in place of a scratched Bailey Ober — tossed six innings of three-run ball against the Kansas City Royals.

Brought in essentially to spot start, Varland filled in admirably, posting a quality start, but was on the losing side of a 4-1 effort at Target Field. By the Game Score metric, it was the second-best start of the 2024 campaign.

As a thank you for Varland’s service, the team demoted him to Triple-A the next day to make room for reliever Ronny Henriquez in the bullpen.

Two weeks later, after a pair of starts in the minors, Varland returned to the Twins as a September call-up, but this time was different. He was no longer to be used as a starting pitcher; he would become a right-handed weapon out of the bullpen. And he hasn’t looked back since.

Fast forward to today, and the 28-year-old has been one of the best relievers in baseball this season. He’s tied with San Diego Padres closer Mason Miller with 1.0 fWAR, and Varland’s 0.9 bWAR is tied for third-best in MLB.

Given the success Varland has experienced dating back to last season, it’s incredible to think that two years ago, he was toiling away in the Twins’ starting rotation, only to realize his true potential as a back-end relief pitcher.

Don’t forget, when the Blue Jays acquired Varland at the trade deadline last summer, GM Ross Atkins didn’t close the door on revamping Varland’s career as a starting pitcher. It made more sense at the time for the Blue Jays to keep using Varland in relief in the second half of the season, but keeping him as a starting pitching depth option wasn’t ruled out.

In retrospect, the fact that the Twins dealt away Varland — a player who had five-plus years of team control remaining — was a baffling move on the Twins’ part. Derek Falvey, president of the Twins, explained his rationale for the move that Minnesota was getting a big league-calibre outfielder in Alan Roden in addition to pitching prospect Kendry Rojas.

Roden played a handful of games for the Twins last season but failed to make the Twins’ opening day roster this year, starting the year in triple-A. Meanwhile, Minnesota got the major league-ready pitcher in Rojas, who made one appearance for the Twins but was demoted back to the minors after a brief stint as a reliever.

We’ve seen the Blue Jays tank enough of these trades over the years to realize that quantity doesn’t always beat quality. Who could forget the classic Atkins quote: “We turned 14 years of team control into 42 years of team control.” In this case, it appears the Blue Jays are the ones to come out ahead in the Varland trade so far.

The team never stated this publicly, but they could have experimented with converting Varland back into a starting pitcher heading into spring training. By the opening of camp, the Blue Jays already had eight starters on the depth chart, so adding Varland would have been overkill.

It’s only been one full month of the season, but Varland has been a godsend to the Blue Jays’ bullpen ever since he arrived at last year’s trade deadline. Whether it was his contributions down the stretch to help Toronto capture the division title, appearing in a record-setting 15 games during the postseason, or taking over as the team’s closer last week.

Very few big league pitchers ever start and end their careers without ever taking the bump as a starting pitcher. For the most part, bullpens are often comprised of broken-dream starting pitchers.

There’s failed starter Jeff Hoffman, who was once a top starting pitching prospect for the Blue Jays. Tommy Nance and Joe Mantiply have dabbled with a handful of starts. Only Tyler Rogers is one of the incredibly rare examples of someone who has amassed 435 appearances in his career with no games started, all in relief. Rogers is one of only 13 active players with those numbers (Kenley Jansen has 942 career appearances with 0 GS).

In the short term, it may be viewed as a “demotion” to go from the starting rotation to the bullpen, but it’s worked out for countless Blue Jays players in the past. Brett Cecil comes to mind as one of the most recent homegrown examples of a Blue Jays pitcher who had middling results as a starter for the first three-ish years of his career, only to transform into a lethal left-handed reliever.

In the span of two years, it’s wild to see his Baseball Savant pages change this drastically in a short period. Kudos not only to Varland for reinventing himself, but also to the Blue Jays’ pitching coaches like Pete Walker and assistant coach Sam Greene for kicking Varland’s game into high gear.

Varland has always been a ground ball specialist and effective at limiting damage, but by cranking his K rate up to 43.3% from 25.3% last year, he’s cranked his filth meter up to 11. Practically no opposing hitters are barrelling up his pitches either, so it’s been an abundance of soft-to-medium contact off Varland’s pitches.

It’s only one month into the season, and he may not keep up this torrid pace, but Varland deserves all the flowers. Earlier this season, Blue Jays fans may have navel-gazed around the league and wondered why they don’t have a Riley O’Brien, Jhoan Duran, or a “grim reaper” like Miller to shut down games.

But now they’ve realized the Jays have their own nuke in the bullpen. If things continue to go well, the Blue Jays won’t see Varland start ever again, and that’s a good thing.

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