Should the Twins Trust Caleb Thielbar?

[Cody Christie]

Rumors swirled about the Twins needing a left-handed reliever at the trade deadline. Caleb Thielbar showed signs of improvement in recent weeks before a poor performance on Sunday. Can the Twins trust him?

Image courtesy of Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports

As the MLB trade deadline passed on July 30th, the Minnesota Twins made headlines for their inactivity. The Twins stood pat despite speculation and the apparent need to bolster their bullpen, particularly with a left-handed relief pitcher. Many fans wondered how the team would address its late-game pitching challenges as the season progressed. However, one player’s performance was trending in the right direction. That player is Caleb Thielbar.

A Season of Ups and Downs
Caleb Thielbar has struggled through much of the 2024 campaign before recently showing some signs of improvement. After dealing with some early-season oblique injury, Thielbar attempted to rediscover the pitching arsenal that previously made him one of the team’s best left-handed relievers.

Thielbar, now 37, isn’t new to the big leagues. His career began with the Twins in 2013 and has been a tale of perseverance and adaptation. After a few years bouncing between the majors and minors and even spending time in independent baseball, Thielbar rejoined the Twins in 2020, where he found moderate success. But 2024 has been a different story.

Thielbar's significant issues this season are tied to his command. His walk rate jumped from 5.0 BB% last season to 9.5 BB% in 2024. His strikeout rate has dropped by nearly 5% as batters can lay off some of his offerings and get ahead in the count. Batters are barreling up the ball against him at the highest percentage of his career. 

The curveball, which has always been Thielbar’s go-to pitch, has seen an uptick in effectiveness this year. Opponents are hitting just .136 against the pitch, and it has become a reliable weapon for getting out of tough jams. Batters have accumulated a 44.0 Whiff% versus his curveball, a 6.5% jump from last season. His fastball has caused the most issues. In 2023, he held batters to a .197 BA against his four seamer, which has jumped above .300 during the current campaign. 

Entering play on Sunday, Thielbar made some strategic changes to make his fastball more effective. He dropped the usage of his four seamer by 8.0% and started using his curveball more regularly (+5.5%). He was also using them more regularly on his arm side and up in the zone. This location helps his curveball to be more effective because batters see the pitches coming in on a similar plan and have a more challenging time adjusting to the offspeed offering. Since that adjustment, he allowed five earned runs across 16.0 innings (2.81 ERA) while holding batters to a .562 OPS.

 

Filling the Void
When the trade deadline passed without the Twins acquiring any bullpen help, it was clear that the front office had confidence in their existing roster, particularly in Thielbar. While it was a gamble, given his inconsistency earlier in the season, Thielbar’s shown the ability to make in-season adjustments. He must take on a more prominent role, providing the stability and reliability the Twins desperately needed from the left side.

His impact extends beyond just statistics. Thielbar has become a veteran presence in the clubhouse, mentoring younger pitchers and helping to guide the team through the ups and downs of a long season. His experience and leadership have been invaluable, particularly in the stressful post-deadline stretch where every game counts. In a season full of surprises, Caleb Thielbar has the potential to be one of the team’s best stories, and his contributions will be a critical factor in their pursuit of a division title and beyond.

Has Thielbar convinced the team that he can be a reliable left-handed option in late-inning situations? Leave a COMMENT and start the discussion.

 

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[mikelink45]

The argument for Thielbar is fine, but he is being used regularly.  Speaking of Okert - any live arm is better than him, but we have proven we will stick with a lousy RP that the FO deemed worth purchasing.  At least we gave up on Jackson.  But we had to suffer long for Pagan and Luplow and Chi Chi Gonzalez (almost forgot him).

[Doctor Wu]

9 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

The argument for Thielbar is fine, but he is being used regularly.  Speaking of Okert - any live arm is better than him, but we have proven we will stick with a lousy RP that the FO deemed worth purchasing.  At least we gave up on Jackson.  But we had to suffer long for Pagan and Luplow and Chi Chi Gonzalez (almost forgot him).

Lots of arms have gone through our system in the past couple of years. I always thought Jarel Cotton never got a fair shake, plus pitchers like Law, Hamilton. Coulumbe, Megill, Cano, and even Michael Tonkin have gone elsewhere and performed pretty well. What a weird game, huh? As for Theilbar, looks like he's here to stay at this point, and maybe he CAN be more effective and used more effectively down the stretch Any other options for the bullpen right now are slim to none. 

[LambchoP]

Anyone besides Okert would have been the smarter move. Theilbar or Sands would have instilled more confidence if Rocco didn't want Alcala back out there yet. I think he should have gone to him. Sure, they've been getting used a lot all year. But we were set up by a great game by Ober going 6. Jax 7th. Alcala or Sands 8th and Duran closes it. That's how you draw up a by the book win 

[Doctor Gast]

It's good to know that Thielbar's problem isn't his curveball. Thielbar has adapted his FB so hopefully he can return to his dominance. The NL hitters are very familiar with Okert & love to face him. We didn't do anything at the deadline except adding Richards to the valuable 40 man. Hurry up & bring Varland up to better our BP already!

[Craig Arko]

Not much choice, is there?

[Road trip]

Twins are forced to pick between two unappealing lefty options at this point.  You could make an argument for Thielbar being more effective, or you could make an argument for Okert.  Neither has been good this year.  Frankly, I trust neither.  At this point I'd rather just go with the best available right-hander, platoon splits be damned.

[HelmetTip]

What? The whole premise of this article is nonsense. Normally when something contrary to the eye test like this is written, there are metrics & stats to back it up. None here. Because there are none. 

Season ERA: 5.91. Thielbar has been uniformly terrible all year long. Last five games listed on Baseball Reference: 5 1/3 innings, 4 ER. Last complete meltdown: 8/11 giving up a 3 run HR to lose the game. One can make vague statements about his fastball getting better, but the numbers don't lie.

Thielbar has been a great contributor the last four seasons & is now imploding. Okert hasn't been good this season, but at this point it's almost a coin flip which struggling lefty to deploy. 

[August J Gloop]

The Twins are just short on lockdown lefties. If Caleb had blown this we'd be hearing the same thing about Okert. The biggest victim other than the fans in the absurd payroll slashing that the Pohlads are doing is the the bullpen. There's no sensible reason they didn't just buy a couple high priced bullpen arms off some downward facing teams (Tanner Scott comes to mind for some reason). 

Okert and Thielbar have both been pretty unreliable, but Thielbar really has been a little worse. They've pitched basically the same number of innings (34 O, 35 T) and Thielbar has surrendered 4 more runs. It's not really that big of a difference, and really they should probably both be in slightly less leverage roles. Although yesterday was the first time all season Okert gave up more than 2 runs. Bailey's incredibly poor pitch to Machado was just as bad as anything Okert did yesterday. It's just all about the context though. 

I might even argue that really yesterday was more on the entire approach to all the hitters than anything. a bunch of silly mistakes all over the place. Hopefully they grab the game today and go on a little run to get everything back on track but...

The sad fact is that the playoffs really don't help the bottom line of the team owners, so you get a bunch of different responses to them. The Pohlads just like being rich and don't actually care about winning. The Twins are an asset they can borrow against and therefore they prioritize the organization to being cash neutral. We as fans have no power in this, since we can't just take our dollars to a different MLB team. We can't force them to do anything to compete without just taking our attention away from it. The problem with that is, they're more than happy just to slash payroll even more and wait on another natural rise in good players to get the fans back. 

[h2oface]

Okert and Thielbar. Yuk and yuk. And the the funny yuk.

[joefish]

There are not enough numbers to make me feel confident in either one of these 2 lefties. 

Tough to watch Okert's inning of work yesterday. 

[bean5302]

Thielbar had been very good recently, but I'm not sure how much of that was luck. His last few appearances aren't exactly inspiring, especially considering how poorly he performed at the beginning of the year.

His last 20 games 4.21 ERA, 3.21 FIP, 3.35 xFIP.
His last 10 games 5.23 ERA, 2.38 FIP, 2.59 xFIP.
His last 5 games 6.75 ERA, 4.47 FIP, 4.30 xFIP.

I mean, there are limited options. Okert has exchanged his best metric (strikeouts) for HRs this year, which was ill advised. Hope his stock portfolio had better trade decisions.

[Mike Sixel]

3 hours ago, Craig Arko said:

Not much choice, is there?

This. This is the team the FO has given the manager. 

Me? I'd rather roll the dice with better RHP, but that's not likely. 

[USAFChief]

3 hours ago, HelmetTip said:

What? The whole premise of this article is nonsense. 

Heh. 

Bee eye enn gee yo.

[David Maro]

Since the rule change the organization has gone away from LP,why is that.Just because they no longer can come in for one hitter this FO and manager feel they have no value.Thielbar has been a up and down pitcher his whole career.He was on the IL to start the season and needed to be DFA then.At the deadline they could've got Scott and let Okert go,but didn't.Well I guess there's always next year.They only have broken down pitchers and players to finish this season.

[mrcharlie]

Twins pitching in general appears lethargic.  Besides SWR and Ober they don't look confident on the mound.  Confident pitchers go with their best in critical moments. If you're gonna get beat it better be on your best pitch.  All the change ups?! 

[RLTW894]

I was fine with Oekert getting the nod as he had been doing well the last handful of outings. Obviously he didn't do well, but that's the lack of depth in the entire pitching staff, especially the bullpen.

 

My issue is with Rocco. Let's start with the previous inning when the Twins scored 2 runs to break the tie. For a team that isn't known for speed and stealing bases, it boggles my mind how often the coaches send runners a base too far. I haven't looked at the stats, but I see it way too often. It's just fundamental stuff.

Jeffers tries for 3rd and is tossed out. Why? One of the better hitters on the team is up next and it would have been 1 out with runners on 1st and 2nd. Instead, it's 2 outs with a runner in scoring position at 2nd.

Castro is at bat. With 2 outs, he bunts. What? Out 3. It's like Rocco got his 2 runs and then totally gave up. What in the world?

I was already mad at that point and thought to myself with our bullpen you need all the runs you can get. Rocco is the manager and he needs to either make better decisions or reign in undisciplined players and coaches.

My other beef with Rocco is his blind reliance on analytics. Why do we need him if all he does is go by the data? Analytics is a very powerful tool but you still need to interpret the data, know your players and understand the situation you're in. The other team has analytics, too, remember. There is still an element of strategy and tactics.

I believe the rule is, a relief pitcher has to face 3 batters. With that said, Rocco just doesn't know when to pull guys. Sometimes when a win is there, you just got to go get it because you have no idea how tomorrow is going to be. Deal with it then, but get the win in front of you. Not only this game, but a few nights ago.

A few nights ago. Twins blew another game. Single. Double. Double. 4 run lead cut to 4. You need this win after a Cleveland loss. 3 batters faced. Alcala is normally good, but he's been a bit shaky lately. He clearly was not on. Pull him. Nope. Home run. Game tied. Pull him. Nope. Home run. Game lost.

Earlier this year, Kepler was on a tear. You know who killed his momentum? Rocco. Here is your best hitter on a career 14 game hitting streak and staying laser focused. Rocco benches him in favor of Manny, who was not hitting well at the time. Analytics gone wild. Know your players. Know your enemy.

Speaking of Kepler, last year and much of this year, Rocco had him batting 4th. Kepler has spent last two years working on spreading the ball and beating the shift. He's done it. Kepler has worked on his hitting. He's improved. But all this has come at the expense of power. Kepler has not had a power stroke in years. Why are you batting him 4th over and over? Kepler has not shown clutch ability. He needed to be lead off last year and a #2 or a #5 or #6 this year. It took forever for Rocco to figure it out.

To me, Rocco just doesn't have a good strategic mind. There is analytics, a powerful tool to help you make decisions, and analitics. A lazy approach that no longer works on it's own since everyone uses it.