Jhoan Duran is a Dominican baseball player who is currently playing for the Minnesota Twins as a pitcher. He is the closing pitcher and is one of the most dominant closers in the MLB right now. 

Duran was born in Esperanza, Dominican Republic in 1998 where he started playing baseball. In the Dominican Republic you just play baseball, eat, sleep, and play baseball. There’s no days off, which usually always pays off because more than 10% of the MLB players are Dominican. He threw very hard at a young age which led him to sign with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2014 at 16 years old. This might sound crazy, but it is normal for players coming out of high school to sign with MLB teams. In the Diamondbacks Organization he would play from 2014-2018 and make it all the way up to High-A where he played for the Hillsboro Hops.

Jhoan Duran was then sent to the Minnesota Twins Organization on July 27th, 2018 in exchange for Eduardo Escobar. Escobar spent 3 seasons with the D-Backs and had a mediocre career for them. Now back to Duran, he started his career with the Cedar Rapids Kernels and Fort Myers Miracle (now the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels) in 2019.

Then a ton of struggles happened causing 2 of his seasons to be canceled and shut down for him. In 2019, Duran flew through the Twins minor league system as he made the active roster. Although he didn’t play, and then in 2020, covid-19 happened and his season was shut down. Then there was a terrible setback for Jhoan Duran, he had an elbow strain which shut down his whole season. Now he was tired of never actually getting to play so he knew he had to work 10 times harder. This led him to make the opening day roster for the 2022 Minnesota Twins where he made his MLB debut on April 8th, 2022. In Duran’s debut he would pitch 2 innings, give up 0 runs and strike out 4 batters. This showed his potential of how good he could be.

In his rookie season he showed how good of a closer he can be as he posted a 1.86 ERA and 89 strikeouts in 67.2 innings pitched. He had solidified himself as the permanent Twins closer for the next upcoming years. In 2023 he was a little bit worse with a 2.45 ERA and 84 strikeouts in 62.1 innings pitched. With his 102-105 mph (miles per hour), his 90 mph curveball, and his nasty splitter, he was clearly one of the best closers in the game and is always going to be trusted. In the 2023 playoffs he was a huge part of the Twins team as he closed out both games in the wild card round against the Toronto Blue Jays. He had 2 saves to get the Twins first playoff win in 18 years and the first playoff series win in 22 years. He is nicknamed the Durantula because he is feared by many hitters in the MLB with his stifling fastball.