At first glance, Justin Lawrence is merely the latest reliever to stroll through the Twins' revolving bullpen door this season. And maybe he'll prove to be little more than another short-term pickup, like so many flawed arms claimed off waivers or acquired in low-wattage trades for cash considerations before him.
Lawrence will be the 19th reliever used by the Twins in a little over two months, and this story is familiar: He's a 31-year-old right-hander with mid-90s velocity, poor control, and a five-something ERA across parts of six MLB seasons, arriving Tuesday in a swap for cash after being designated for assignment by the Pirates.
That's often a recipe that requires immediate success to stick around past a few weeks (like Yoendrys Gómez has), and sometimes even then the churn-and-burn nature of the bullpen makes a small-sample performance a relative afterthought. But there are two off-field factors with Lawrence that hint at more patience.