How Can the Twins Front Office Avoid More Bullpen Landmines?

[Nick Nelson]

You can't fault their creativity or willingness to try different things. But no matter how they go about it, the front office's attempts to secure veteran, trustworthy relief help have repeatedly fallen flat. 

Can they figure out a path to a different outcome this offseason?

Image courtesy of Brad Rempel, Brian Bradshaw Sevald, Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

I want to start by saying that the Twins front office under Derek Falvey has shown an impressive ability to identify and develop quality relief talent internally, and even from other organizations. They drafted Griffin Jax and Cole Sands, then turned them from non-prospects into high-end late-inning relievers. They acquired Jhoan Durán as an unrefined hard-throwing starter from Arizona's system and turned him into a top closer. Even Brock Stewart, despite his health woes, could be mentioned among this collection of developmental successes. 

Clearly, Falvey and the Twins have some idea of what it takes to create an effective relief pitcher. Which makes their astonishingly bad track record in acquiring established ones so difficult to comprehend. 

Signing or trading for relievers is an inherently uphill battle — there are so many variables and so much volatility at play with these sample sizes and roles — but even through that lens, the consistent level of failure we've seen with high-stakes relief pitcher acquisitions is pretty extraordinary.

In 2024, the Twins signed two relief pitchers to major-league deals (Jay Jackson, Josh Staumont) and acquired three in low-wattage trades (Steven Okert, Justin Topa, Trevor Richards). Four of those relievers were so bad that they got cut midseason, including Richards less than a month after being added. The other, Topa, threw two total innings in garbage time.

The Twins were more active on the bullpen front than anywhere else last season, and out of all these moves, they didn't come up with one pitcher who was so much as usable and non-disastrous. The toll this took on the 2024 team is nauseating

Consider this: The Minnesota Twins ranked second in the American League this year in relief FIP (3.65) and fWAR (5.9). They trailed only the historically great Cleveland bullpen in both categories. Yes, you read that right. They did so in SPITE of the above five players collectively contributing negative-0.2 fWAR. And we all saw in real-time how this progressive erosion of planned bullpen depth contributed to a complete unraveling toward the end of the season, culminating with The Cole Irvin Game.

In attempting to diagnose what went wrong with this batch of pick-ups, a simple explanation comes to mind: you get what you pay for. The Twins invested very little in money or trade capital to acquire these arms, who were clearly not in high demand. 

But in tracing back the front office's long history of failed relief acquisitions, the story isn't quite so simple. They've tried just about everything and come up empty. To try and figure out a way forward, let's take a quick look backward.

It's easy to forget now that one of Falvey's most assertive and eye-opening moves at the helm was to make an unprecedented investment in free agent relief help. In January of 2018, coming off Falvey and Thad Levine's first full season in charge, the Twins signed Addison Reed to a two-year, $16.75 million contract. It was the first multi-year guaranteed contract Minnesota had ever given an FA reliever. 

Reed had all the qualities of a safe bet. Excellent track record of effectiveness and durability, including plenty of time as a closer. Postseason experience. Still under 30. Despite all of that he flopped, burning out after 56 mediocre innings and never pitching again in the big leagues. It was an experience that seemingly soured Falvey's front office on targeting high-priced relief talent in free agency.

So they tried other things, but couldn't manage to avoid landmines everywhere they stepped. In 2019 they brought in Blake Parker as a waiver claim from the Angels and gave him an Opening Day job. Kaboom. That deadline they traded for a seemingly capable reliever in Sam Dyson. Kaboom. In 2021 they went back to the free agent well, albeit at a lower scale, with the signing of Alex Colome. Kaboom. In 2022 they traded for Emilio Pagan, hoping to turn around his run of home-run struggles. Kaboom. The front office upped its ambition at the deadline, trading for an All-Star closer in Jorge Lopez. Kaboom.

Under Falvey, the Twins have taken plenty of high-risk and low-risk gambles, but the outcome has almost always been the same, save for a modest success here and there like Sergio Romo or Tyler Clippard. So in a sense it's hard to blame the front office for taking fliers on a bunch of inexpensive wild-cards this year with hopes that at least a couple would pan out. But it didn't work. In fact it blew up in their faces magnificently, sabotaging the highly effective bullpen core that they'd put in place through what they do well.

So, what's the path forward? Even with the limited resources at hand, I don't think the Twins can afford to take the same bare-bones approach in the coming offseason. Whatever route they go, it's difficult to feel confident based on past experiences, but with the pressure heightened following the late-season collapse, maybe now they'll finally show they can learn from their mistakes.

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[Karbo]

It seems to me like they have better luck with converting minor league starters to major league relievers. That may be the best path forward, either from their own draft picks or from another teams minor league starters that just don"t have what it takes as a starter.

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

They can avoid the landmines by NOT jumping right on top of them.

Okert. Staumont. Richards. Jackson.

Those guys pretty much had flashing neon signs on their forehead that said - DO NOT SIGN.

Until the Twins treat the bullpen as something other than a necessary inconvenience, we'll see more of the same struggles.

[Major League Ready]

34 minutes ago, Nick Nelson said:

 

Consider this: The Minnesota Twins ranked second in the American League this year in relief FIP (3.65) and fWAR (5.9). They trailed only the historically great Cleveland bullpen in both categories. Yes, you read that right. They did so in SPITE of the above five players collectively contributing negative-0.2 fWAR. And we all saw in real-time how this progressive erosion of planned bullpen depth contributed to a complete unraveling toward the end of the season, culminating with The Cole Irvin Game.

In attempting to diagnose what went wrong with this batch of pick-ups, a simple explanation comes to mind: you get what you pay for. The Twins invested very little in money or trade capital to acquire these arms, who were clearly not in high demand. 

Why not examine how Cleveland built a "historically great" BP.   Are their practices better than the Twins or is it execution.  That would seem to be the pertinent question.

[Captain18s]

I am a pretty big baseball fan but when you are going to use FIB and fWAR, please don’t assume we all know what those terms mean off the top of our heads

[Whitey333]

Yes indeed.  Twins under Falvey have not done well overall with the bullpen.  But when you continually shop for relief pitchers at the dollar store you should expect poor overall bullpen performance.

[Doctor Gast]

It appears to me that many times these bad acquirees were the result of scrambling around after not able to find or finalize on deals that the Twins needed. So to say that they did something they threw together a deal with very little research & without concern about medical records, with worse results as if they had done nothing. 

So how can we avoid this? Get a different FO !?

[Hrbeks Divot]

This article cements my belief that they should not even consider moving Jax back to a starting role. He went from a failed started to a great relief pitcher. Cole Sands is another example. I’d like to see them do that more. I’m not entirely sold on Varland just yet but think he could be another success in the same vein. I’d prefer they look internally at more of those options. At least they have a strong history with these types of players from both development and medical.

[Doctor Wu]

Finding the "right" pieces for a bullpen almost seems like a game of throwing darts. Take Staumont, for example. He seemed lights out the first 2 months of the season, not even giving up an earned run, but there were obviously some peripheral stats that suggested he might not be so lights out after all, and sure enough, he quickly imploded and was duly released by mid-season. But hey, he performed well for a short time and it was worth the risk I suppose. I'm sure the Twins will sign similar reclamation projects over this coming off-season. 

[Doctor Wu]

16 minutes ago, Captain18s said:

I am a pretty big baseball fan but when you are going to use FIB and fWAR, please don’t assume we all know what those terms mean off the top of our heads

Hey, I've been a baseball fan since the late 1960s and I still have a very hard time getting my head around all these new stats too. 

[Major League Ready]

Add a high leverage LH RP to Jax / Duran / Sands / Alcala / Stewart / Topa and either Varland or Winder and the BP will look pretty darn good.   

[Fatbat]

We should all get a huge case of PTSD from these signings that when kaboom. Gaaaaah. The FO has to do something different. No idea what they could possibly do tho. 
After Colome, pagan &Lopez, I was hoping their luck would change but it got worse. Probably because the track record of their signees was sketchier.  
we better get 2-3 more in house high end RP’s developed for 25/26 or we will be in perpetual almost just outside the playoffs type trouble. 

[Trov]

So we had the second best bullpen in AL, behind a historically great bullpen, but we still need to talk about how terrible our bullpen was?  The bad pen performances is not limited to just the Twins clearly.  Every team has issues with having great pens, and really just have a few they can count on, and the rest they just hope do not implode too bad. 

The article also highlights, but does not really address, how volatile pen guys are.  Some of our guys that did terrible had great runs, and then terrible runs.  Addison Reed was one of best pen guys in the game at time we signed him, then he was terrible and out of baseball. 

The writer also addressed prior success stories, but did not talk about Thielbar who was out of baseball had not pitched in majors for 5 years when they brought him in 2020, at age 33 and had 3 great years, 1 good year, and then this terrible year. 

Lets talk about Cleveland pen real quick.  Their closer was crazy good this year.  Last year, he cost them 10 blown saves.  The year before he was amazing. Even the best in the game you cannot count on to be amazing each year.  

What sucked about this year was all the guys seemed to implode all at the end of the year in big ways that resulted in big losses. However, still having the second best pen in the AL is nothing to be upset at, it was our terrible offense at the end of the year that really cost us, because the pitchers could never have an off night. You cannot expect every pitcher to be on and pitch well every day. 

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, Doctor Wu said:

Finding the "right" pieces for a bullpen almost seems like a game of throwing darts. 

This is true, and I'm not sure any front office is really that good at it. The best way to have a great bullpen is to develop more young pitching than you have room for in the rotation.

44 minutes ago, Fatbat said:

The FO has to do something different. No idea what they could possibly do tho. 

There probably isn't anything they could do better. Relievers are volatile and tend to have short runs of effectiveness before they get injured or the league figures them out.

[mluebker]

2 hours ago, Karbo said:

It seems to me like they have better luck with converting minor league starters to major league relievers. That may be the best path forward, either from their own draft picks or from another teams minor league starters that just don"t have what it takes as a starter.

“Grow your own.” I like the idea, particularly since they seem to know how to do it. On the other hand, whatever analytics they’re looking at when they shop elsewhere don’t seem to be working so well.

[Riverbrian]

It's Martha and the Vandela's in the Bullpen. You can't hide players in the bullpen. Stop trying to hide players in the bullpen. Bullpens are utilized to point of nowhere to run nowhere to hide. Most games are not blowouts, the guy you are trying to keep out of high leverage are going to find themselves the only option frequently because 3 bullpen guys are unavailable and there are still 4 innings to play in a tie game.    

Stop committing valuable roster space to specialists. Managers typically don't stack their left handed batters back to back to back so a left handed specialist can just come face three left handers and sit down. Managers don't have the luxury of holding a specialist for perfect opportunity moments because 3 bullpen guys are unavailable and there are still 4 innings to play in a tie game. 

That Steven Okert dude who is tough on lefties is going to have to face right handers. In 2024 before he was released in crunch time. He faced 95 right handed batters to the tune of a 2.00 WHIP compared to 65 left handed batters faced to the tune of a 0.94 WHIP. He did his job against the lefties... he just can't be manipulated to the point of only facing them and he couldn't get right handers out.

I don't recommend trying to Okert your way through a 162 game schedule. Get bullpen serious stop with the specialists.  

 

[Fire Dan Gladden]

1 hour ago, Doctor Wu said:

Finding the "right" pieces for a bullpen almost seems like a game of throwing darts. Take Staumont, for example. He seemed lights out the first 2 months of the season, not even giving up an earned run, but there were obviously some peripheral stats that suggested he might not be so lights out after all, and sure enough, he quickly imploded and was duly released by mid-season. But hey, he performed well for a short time and it was worth the risk I suppose. I'm sure the Twins will sign similar reclamation projects over this coming off-season. 

This is not a Twins issue, this is an MLB issue.  For some reasons, consistent year-to-year relievers are extremely uncommon.  This has been an issue since forever.  I do not think it will ever be resolved and teams will continue to hit and miss on relievers.

Personally, I think one of the main issues with this is sample size.  RP throw maybe 60 innings a year.  3-4 bad outings will ruin an entire years worth of numbers.  They get 1 inning to be perfect.  A bad day, being a little off, there is no chance to figure it out (like SP are generally afforded).  It is a recipe for failure.

[jmlease1]

I think it's hard to add bullpen pieces through free agency because most relievers are pretty fungible from year to year. Only the elite guys are consistently great (and even they will have dips), which is why it's often bad business to spend significant money on relievers.

I think the Twins are on the right path for the their bullpen, building primarily from within. Duran and Jax are clearly guys you can count on in high leverage situations. Sands did very well this year and appears to have made changes that can hopefully hold up (in other words, it's not just luck and a small sample). Alcala has increased his velocity and looks healthy; despite his implosions he was a quality reliever overall and no longer gets lit up by every LH hitter who can hold a bat.

I think they need to end the experiments with guys coming off significant injuries and waste fewer roster spots on aging veterans that may have little left. That alone probably improves things.

Topa & Stewart are both talented, but an injury risk. Let's not expect more than one of them to be healthy. Adding Varland should help; he's shown he can be effective as a reliever, despite the bumps this season. Going into the year knowing what his role will be should help him adjust.

Finding another LHP who doesn't get murdered by RH hitters is the biggest need. I'm ok with bringing back Thielbar for one more round (he's not expensive, the stuff was still good) but he should be the 2nd lefty now. Okert is not the answer: he destroyed LH hitters, but got annihilated by the righties, and you can't have a LOOGY any longer.

Duran, Jax, Alcala, Sands, Varland, Thielbar, LHP To be Named Later, and Topa/Stewart is a good bullpen. Hopefully the offense can give them more 3-5 run leads rather than 1-run leads to protect.

 

[nicksaviking]

12 minutes ago, mluebker said:

“Grow your own.” I like the idea, particularly since they seem to know how to do it. On the other hand, whatever analytics they’re looking at when they shop elsewhere don’t seem to be working so well.

With relief pitchers the sample sizes are just too small. It's forever been the most unpredictable position on the baseball field.

More than the other positions, I think successful relief work comes from routine, familiarity and comfort level, with the team, manager, coaches, stadium, catcher, culture, atmosphere, etc. Can't really analyze that and it could be why the relievers who came from the organization are doing fine and the ones that don't, aren't.

[LambchoP]

Signing one,maybe two reclamation or Injury return projects is ok. But when that is all you do and are actually relying on these projects to be THE guys in your pen, you're setting yourself up for disaster. If we are going the free agent route, then we need to get in there and grab our targets before everyone is snatched up. It seems we wait until the last minute every year, then say we had to grab dollar store arms because that's all that was available. I think we need to sign a veteran lefty at a minimum. As for the other spots, maybe give some of our AAA or AA starters a shot at a bullpen spot to make their debuts. We're going to have to get creative with seemingly no money available to upgrade the team.

[DJL44]

3 hours ago, Karbo said:

It seems to me like they have better luck with converting minor league starters to major league relievers. That may be the best path forward, either from their own draft picks or from another teams minor league starters that just don"t have what it takes as a starter.

I have advocated taking another team's castoff major league starters and trying them in the bullpen. Cole Irvin isn't a bad gamble but it helps to be able to start these guys in AAA to give them time to see if adding velocity in the bullpen actually helps their stuff. They won't be immediately successful in relief.

[Parfigliano]

Finding good relief pitching is a crap shoot.

[AKTwinsFan]

I think investing future draft picks in starting/relief pitching will return more success. Unless you got the $$$ to aquire decent tested arms then this is the safest bet. 

[LA Vikes Fan]

2 hours ago, Trov said:

So we had the second best bullpen in AL, behind a historically great bullpen, but we still need to talk about how terrible our bullpen was?  The bad pen performances is not limited to just the Twins clearly.  Every team has issues with having great pens, and really just have a few they can count on, and the rest they just hope do not implode too bad. 

The article also highlights, but does not really address, how volatile pen guys are.  Some of our guys that did terrible had great runs, and then terrible runs.  Addison Reed was one of best pen guys in the game at time we signed him, then he was terrible and out of baseball. 

The writer also addressed prior success stories, but did not talk about Thielbar who was out of baseball had not pitched in majors for 5 years when they brought him in 2020, at age 33 and had 3 great years, 1 good year, and then this terrible year. 

Lets talk about Cleveland pen real quick.  Their closer was crazy good this year.  Last year, he cost them 10 blown saves.  The year before he was amazing. Even the best in the game you cannot count on to be amazing each year.  

What sucked about this year was all the guys seemed to implode all at the end of the year in big ways that resulted in big losses. However, still having the second best pen in the AL is nothing to be upset at, it was our terrible offense at the end of the year that really cost us, because the pitchers could never have an off night. You cannot expect every pitcher to be on and pitch well every day. 

Agreed. What we're really talking about here is the back end of the bullpen - pitchers 5-8. 

We actually may have the top 4-5 for 2025 in Jax, Duran, Sands, and then a healthy Topa, bullpen Varland, and roughly 30 innings of Stewart. What happened last year is everything we tried at the back end basically didn't work or if it did, it only worked for a few weeks. Frankly, I think that's pretty typical of every team's experience in MLB with the exception of those occasional years were one team seems to get a great run from everyone.

My view would be that going forward we should either populate those back ends with either (A) starters from our own system simply couldn't seem to handle the heavier workload or five innings plus outings; (B) pitchers that we specifically develop as relievers in the minor leagues; and (C) failed starters from other systems who might be available. I think we should stay out of the "I was once a good reliever but I'm coming off a down year" market because that seems to almost always fail. Everything is a complete crapshoot in this market and will be every year.

[ashbury]

I don't think landmines are the metaphor to describe the Twins bullpen philosophy, unless landmines that don't go off are the intended mental image.  "How Can the Twins Front Office Avoid More Bullpen Duds?"

[DJL44]

23 minutes ago, AKTwinsFan said:

I think investing future draft picks in starting/relief pitching will return more success. Unless you got the $$$ to aquire decent tested arms then this is the safest bet. 

This team does acquire college starting pitchers in the middle rounds of the draft. That's how they acquired Jax and Sands.

[jorgenswest]

Topa can not be counted on in the major league pen. He has exactly one healthy major league season entering his age 34 season. He missed virtually all of last season and had 2 injury setbacks in each of 2021 and 2022. Even if he is healthy his primary pitch (sinker) was at 92 last year as opposed to 95 in 2023. His velocity was also reported to be down last spring and in AAA. 

I argued last year that they could not count on him. They can’t count on him next year. He will have to overcome both injuries and decline. If they want to offer him arbitration planning for him to be the shuttle reliever from AAA that is fine.

[bean5302]

I don't have any real issue with the Twins' bullpen over this season. The Twins went with a very talented core. Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, and Brock Stewart. Stewart was predictably injured, but the talent was there at the top. Behind them is middle relief.

I'm not sure how good people expect "middle relievers" to be as they're a dime a dozen out there as evidenced by how they get paid.

The aging, but as reliably solid as a lefty reliever could be, Caleb Thielbar, was brought back in case Kody Funderburk didn't pan out. Fortunately, it was a good call to protect against a Funderburk meltdown. Unfortunately, Thielbar melted down in a way nobody expected. Coming off his previous 4 years of 179 games pitching 174.0 innings, Thielbar owned a very good 3.21 ERA and 3.16 FIP. A span of years where his ERA had never been above 3.49, and his FIP had never exceeded 4.46 over a full season.

The bullpen was universally praised despite being very cheap. The entire bullpen cost about $13.5MM out of the gate. Minor roster shuffling throughout the year probably had the bullpen close to $15MM, and they delivered 6 WAR for that.

The bullpen was not the problem last year. Lopez being terrible for 1/2 the year, and other rotational gambles by Falvey along with a manager who lost the team and a inconsistent hitting were the issues. It's delusional to expect an overworked bullpen to pitch 4 scoreless innings to win a 2-1 game because the starters can't pitch deep (or even throw a baseball hard once they wear out at 100 innings on the year), and the offense certainly isn't going to plate any more runs, 

[tborg]

Another aspect of this that hasn't been mentioned is that the Twins had guys like Jeff Hoffman and Trevor McGill in their system.  Those guys have been very successful after the Twins initially signed them but let them go.  What did the Phillies and Brewers do to harness what the Twins clearly recognized as potential?

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