Saints Bullpen Shapes Up to Help Twins

[Ted Schwerzler]

Last season the Minnesota Twins went through pitchers at a breakneck pace. The result was a franchise-record 39 arms taking the mound. The front office sought to create depth that would avoid a similar outcome this year, and a quick look at the St. Paul Saints bullpen is evident of that.

 

Image courtesy of Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

St. Paul - Rocco Baldelli was constantly needing to shuttle arms back and forth a year ago. While the Saints did employ a handful of arms that could be counted upon, there was also consistent movement on the waiver wire to bring in retread veterans. This season, Minnesota should be more able to trade with Toby Gardenhire’s roster.

It wasn’t long ago that Derek Falvey and Thad Levine rewarded Randy Dobnak’s meteoric rise to starting a playoff game in Yankee Stadium with a $9.25 million payday. Things have not gone well since then for the undrafted free agent, but he’s in a space to put it all behind him.

“The finger feels great. Last year when I was up here it felt achy, but the range of motion is almost all the way back,” Dobnak said. When asking about where he’s at entering the season, you can see a renewed sense of confidence in his abilities. Dobnak knows he has done it before, and he’s ready to show that.

It does sound like the Saints will use the former starter out of the bullpen. With so many guys needing innings, he’s feeling the roster crunch just a bit. “They told me I’ll be a two-to-three inning guy out of the bullpen. I would prefer to start, and I started in spring training. I’m not going to let that affect me. We’ve been down this road before and it didn’t work too well. Then I got DFA’d and became a starter and everything turned out better than when I was relieving.”

Dobnak knows his numbers well. Following his mid-September DFA, Dobnak worked three more games, all as a starter, and owned a 2.38 ERA across 11 1/3 innings. He knows that he can make it work, but the preparation out of the bullpen is a different animal. “Preparing is different because I know when I’m throwing. The bullpen is like, be ready.” For a guy that can go on back-to-back days it’s less about the fatigue than the mental readiness.

Joining Dobnak in the bullpen is a reliever hoping to make the jump to leverage roles in the big leagues this season. Austin Schulfer dominated during year two at Double-A, and while he struggled at Triple-A for the Saints, the comfort in knowing what’s coming certainly should be expected to make a difference.

Schulfer noted, “I started throwing a little harder once I got to Triple-A. It was more of a focus thing, and a routine thing, but I tried to chase velocity maybe. It’s way more business-oriented when it comes to Triple-A and the majors leagues.” Schulfer knows that he can compete at a high level, and being able to showcase wherever he is called upon is something of a focus for him this year.

Although a jump up the ladder can certainly impact focus for a player, reaching Triple-A and knocking on the door to the big leagues is another animal in and of itself. Schulfer knows not to let that moment get too big though. “Baseball is pretty simple when you throw strikes and put yourself in leverage counts. That was a big thing this spring. For me personally, I’m going to keep it simple this year and not worry about the outside factors.”

Being so close to the majors, and knowing that the Twins went through more than their fair share of depth last year, it was a great experience for Schulfer to be in big league camp. For the first time in his career he got to experience that, and that too was something he took in stride. “Feeling like I belonged up there was a big takeaway. Learning from those older guys helped me a lot. Having the veterans be approachable has helped a lot of us take a step.”

Danny Coulombe is no longer with the Twins, but both he and Emilio Pagan were veterans that Schulfer noted as helping him process the game. He did give up a home run to the Phillies Nick Castellanos, but Schulfer knows his stuff can play and he was able to see that first hand this spring.

At some point, it wouldn’t be surprising to see either Dobnak or Schulfer on the bump for Minnesota. In the case of the former it would be a great redemption story, and the latter would represent a Major League debut. The Twins built an organization of depth to allow St. Paul an opportunity for success and supplement. Now they’ll get to see it in action.

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[miracleb]

Schulfer and Dobnik are the Saint's bullpen is "shaping up?"  Just giving you grief Ted!
:)

[LewFordLives]

They're going to miss Coulombe. The Twins bullpen is ok, but if someone gets hurt they're going to find they don't have much depth.

[farmerguychris]

39 arms used last year - yikes!  Wonder what the record for any MLB team is in a season.

[stringer bell]

Dereck Rodriguez is one of the few Saints pitchers to have worked successful multiple innings so far. While he's not on the 40-man roster, in terms of performance perhaps the Twins should be giving him a look. He was also pretty effective in Spring Training for what it's worth.

[Fatbat]

The backups options for the BP is a bit slim. Hopefully we don’t need to tap into the Dobnak’s et al. 

[jkcarew]

Sometimes the article may be on point...but the timing is just unfortunate.

Hopefully that's the case here.

[DJL44]

The optimism here about Randy Dobnak is so bewildering.

[IndianaTwin]

Overall numbers aren't good for DeLeon, but I'm cautiously optimistic. Two of the five runs he's given up came in his fourth inning of work. 

[Althebum82]

While it is still early, it is a little humbling to peek at the team overall ERA of 5.78 placing them near the bottom of the league with that particular stat,  Maybe the I-Cubs are stacked and getting away from them for awhile will balance that number out a bit?

Truthfully, Dobnak is by far the best paid pitcher on the roster.  It would great to see a little ROI with him, but his appearances have actually been starts instead of bullpen action (although they were three innings in duration).

[John Belinski]

Signing Randy to a fairly big contract just did not work out for the Twins. Hope he can over come his injury and come back to pitch with the Twins.