Projecting the 2024 Minnesota Twins Opening Day Roster: Version 2.0

[Doctor Wu]

15 hours ago, DocBauer said:

The pen is the deepest and probably the best I've seen in years.

Several others --- actually MANY others, based on these posts --- have shown enthusiasm about our bullpen this season. But I'm still not sold on the idea of having ---, what was cited? --- the number one bullpen in the league? Really? Okay, we've added some interesting arms via trades, but are any of them truly elite or even trustworthy arms they we can count on when the game is on the line? I'm not trying to be a naysayer, but I'm just skeptical that all of sudden our bullpen is going to strike terror into the hearts of opposing teams. Yeah, Duran is still a weapon, but are we really that strong otherwise?

[Mike Sixel]

4 hours ago, Doctor Wu said:

Several others --- actually MANY others, based on these posts --- have shown enthusiasm about our bullpen this season. But I'm still not sold on the idea of having ---, what was cited? --- the number one bullpen in the league? Really? Okay, we've added some interesting arms via trades, but are any of them truly elite or even trustworthy arms they we can count on when the game is on the line? I'm not trying to be a naysayer, but I'm just skeptical that all of sudden our bullpen is going to strike terror into the hearts of opposing teams. Yeah, Duran is still a weapon, but are we really that strong otherwise?

Have you compared it to other teams? How many shut down guys do they have? How deep are they? I mean, websites that look at every team are quite bullish.... You can't look at this team in a vacuum and compare it to other teams. 

[DocBauer]

6 hours ago, Doctor Wu said:

Several others --- actually MANY others, based on these posts --- have shown enthusiasm about our bullpen this season. But I'm still not sold on the idea of having ---, what was cited? --- the number one bullpen in the league? Really? Okay, we've added some interesting arms via trades, but are any of them truly elite or even trustworthy arms they we can count on when the game is on the line? I'm not trying to be a naysayer, but I'm just skeptical that all of sudden our bullpen is going to strike terror into the hearts of opposing teams. Yeah, Duran is still a weapon, but are we really that strong otherwise?

I understand your concern. Pens, or perhaps we should say relievers themselves, are a fickle and volatile lot. An arm can be great one year, bad the next, and vice versa. Sometimes, you can be a Jax and have every bit of bad luck and weird thing that could possibly happen for a month...and then there is regression to the norm and you are pretty much excellent the whole rest of the season. ( I know he had a rough couple of weeks at the end, but my point stands).

And we've all seen, over and over, that many/most times you trade for or sign a pen arm to a large deal, it usually backfires. Not always to be sure. But often if not a majority of the time. I've always said, never apologize for winning. Well, never apologize if you find a good player as a diamond in the rough. The Twins have a couple of guys who have performed well for a few seasons, and we should feel good about, both our own and newly acquired. And they have a couple recently added guys that had injuries and didn't arrive until late. One went to Japan to get his career back on track and has seemed to do so. So it's a mixed bag of "already have", "just added", and "hoping they can transition to the pen". So yeah, there's some projection involved here. But a number of good, and different, arms allows for a lot of maneuvering to find the right mix. 

And frankly, I think almost ever team begins every season with some kind of question about their pen. You look for quality and depth and options and hope you did right. There's just a lot of people who think the Twins have done right.