How Can the Twins Front Office Avoid More Bullpen Landmines?

[ashbury]

30 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. 

The Angels' 2021 draft is an interesting experiment.  They invested all 20 of their picks in pitching - 19 college arms and one high schooler in the middle of that draft for some reason.  A little soon to declare it a failure, but so far it has not paid off for them.

[Brandon]

58 minutes ago, ashbury said:

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?"

Landmines are perfect … front office has bullpen acquisition PTSD…

[Western SD Fan]

IMO, the bullpen was the last part of the ship to sink.  Early and at the end of the season, the tepid offense cost us more games than the bullpen as a whole.  It is tough to blame a bullpen coughing up the game when you only score 3 runs or less.  A bullpen is the NFL version of the game-manager quarterback.  You expect them to manage the game and hopefully not cost you the game.  The lack of pitchers able to go more than one inning of effective work was always troubling to me.  Unfortunately, all we had in LH pitching were LOOGY's and could have been deployed that way.  Then Rocco does what Rocco does bringing that LH for the next inning and was shockingly shelled.  The FO/Ownership did not address a solid LH option all year and did not try for a starter when Ryan went down.

As for 2025, Jax needs to stay in the bullpen.  I can see why he wants to convert back to a starter as he sees free agency approaching and knows that even bad starters are given $10-$15 mil vs stud relievers getting in the $7-$11 mil range.  A core of Duran, Jax, Sands, Alcala (if they don't abuse him like they did this year), Winder (?), maybe Varland as a fireman that can go 2-3 innings.  Consider Topa and Stewart as one pitcher since that will probably be all you will get out of them.  That is 7 of 9 bullpen guys.  Go get 2 good lefties and that looks like a nice bullpen.

[Fred]

2 hours ago, LambchoP said:

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.

I know, I know. "Cheap Pohlads", but one of the reasons they wait until the dregs are left is because of payroll constraints. Terry Ryan kept doing the same thing trying to find free agent starters.

[jmlease1]

3 minutes ago, Fred said:

I know, I know. "Cheap Pohlads", but one of the reasons they wait until the dregs are left is because of payroll constraints. Terry Ryan kept doing the same thing trying to find free agent starters.

I do think that the FO doesn't see putting big money into relievers as being a good investment, and I tend to agree with them.

[Fred]

1 minute ago, jmlease1 said:

I do think that the FO doesn't see putting big money into relievers as being a good investment, and I tend to agree with them.

I don't expect them to go after top-of-the-line guys, but the dregs are the dregs for a reason.

[nicksaviking]

1 hour ago, tborg said:

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?

The Twins chose to keep Stewart over Hoffman. They picked the wrong guy, but really because of injury not performance.

[mluebker]

4 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

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.

Agree 100%. There’s a whole lot more to building a successful bullpen (and team, for that matter) than numbers on a spreadsheet.

[Cap'n Piranha]

In the world of 21st century baseball, you can no longer staff your pen exclusively with OIOG (One Inning Only Guys)--it's just way to commonplace to need your pen to cover 12-18 leverage innings in a 48 hour period, and that's just not possible for 8 guys if they're only pitching an inning at a time, with one caveat; if all 8 are actually high leverage quality arms.

Since having 8 guys you trust in high leverage situations on your MLB roster at the same time is nigh impossible, it becomes an imperative to have guys who can throw multiple innings 2-3x a week.

What I would propose is to go even a step further in getting creative--move to a 4 man rotation and a 9 man bullpen.  It would work as follows

1. 4 Primaries (Lopez, Ryan, Ober, SWR)
2. 4 Secondaries (Matthews, Festa, Varland, Paddack)
3. 5 OIOGs (Duran, Jax, Sands, Stewart, Topa)

Your Primary starts the game, with a pitch limit of 80ish--the goal is to get through 4 innings every time, and ideally 5.  The Secondary comes in next, with a pitch limit of 50ish--the goal is to get through 3 innings, with 4 a huge bonus.  The OIOGs come in last (if needed), and finish out the game.

Your rotation goes from pitching 32/33 times a year to 40/41.  However, since they are throwing fewer innings, and therefore warming up fewer times, the total number of pitches should be either equal or less (80 pitches times 40 starts is 3200 pitches, compared to 100 pitches times 32 starts is also 3200 pitches).

The biggest advantage to this system is it lets you keep your rotation depth in the majors contributing, as opposed to wasting bullets in AAA.  It should hopefully allow pitchers to be a little more max effort, since they don't have to throw as many pitches in an appearance.  And because there are 20+ off days in every regular season, even when excluding the AS break, your primary pitcher will regularly get to pitch on 4 days rest anyways.

As it stands, using my plan above allows Matthes, Festa, and Varland to all appear in the majors on opening day, taking the place of 2025's version of Jackson, Okert, and Staumont--that's a huge upgrade in my opinion.

[bean5302]

12 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

In the world of 21st century baseball, you can no longer staff your pen exclusively with OIOG (One Inning Only Guys)--it's just way to commonplace to need your pen to cover 12-18 leverage innings in a 48 hour period, and that's just not possible for 8 guys if they're only pitching an inning at a time, with one caveat; if all 8 are actually high leverage quality arms.

Since having 8 guys you trust in high leverage situations on your MLB roster at the same time is nigh impossible, it becomes an imperative to have guys who can throw multiple innings 2-3x a week.

What I would propose is to go even a step further in getting creative--move to a 4 man rotation and a 9 man bullpen.  It would work as follows

1. 4 Primaries (Lopez, Ryan, Ober, SWR)
2. 4 Secondaries (Matthews, Festa, Varland, Paddack)
3. 5 OIOGs (Duran, Jax, Sands, Stewart, Topa)

Your Primary starts the game, with a pitch limit of 80ish--the goal is to get through 4 innings every time, and ideally 5.  The Secondary comes in next, with a pitch limit of 50ish--the goal is to get through 3 innings, with 4 a huge bonus.  The OIOGs come in last (if needed), and finish out the game.

Your rotation goes from pitching 32/33 times a year to 40/41.  However, since they are throwing fewer innings, and therefore warming up fewer times, the total number of pitches should be either equal or less (80 pitches times 40 starts is 3200 pitches, compared to 100 pitches times 32 starts is also 3200 pitches).

The biggest advantage to this system is it lets you keep your rotation depth in the majors contributing, as opposed to wasting bullets in AAA.  It should hopefully allow pitchers to be a little more max effort, since they don't have to throw as many pitches in an appearance.  And because there are 20+ off days in every regular season, even when excluding the AS break, your primary pitcher will regularly get to pitch on 4 days rest anyways.

As it stands, using my plan above allows Matthes, Festa, and Varland to all appear in the majors on opening day, taking the place of 2025's version of Jackson, Okert, and Staumont--that's a huge upgrade in my opinion.

No teams in MLB do this (probably for a host of reasons), and the commissioner is actively trying to implement rules to prevent this from ever happening. Having less than 5 days of rest for starters has also been correlated as a risk factor for injury. Considering the injury concern environment for MLB and pitching right now, I think this would be a very hard sell, before even considering the potential gains or losses in performance from the implementation.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39292010/
Conclusions: Starting pitchers on MLB teams averaging > 5 rest days between starts spent less time on the IL for MSK injuries than MLB teams averaging < 5 rest days from 2022 to 2023. There was no clinically significant difference in pitch count and no significant difference in the number of IL assignments for MSK injuries.

 

[weitz41]

I'm in the boat of bring in 1 or 2 low-cost veteran's and if they don't pan out DFA and replace with Dobber, Henriquez, Winder and Headrick. If they still need answers MAYBE Canterino of Prielipp are ready for the BP, more likely Raya or Morris can break in there. There could be others like Stewert and Blewitt out there on minor league deals. Seems like a numbers game. The more options the better.

One thing I been looking at is once Ryan went on the IL and Matthews, Festa and SWR were all starting it seems the BP got worn down. I looked at Sept starts for those three and not one start over 5 innings. Although the offense was atrocious, I feel that played a part in the falling apart of the season.

[chpettit19]

The Twins seem to be quite good at targeting college arms they can add velocity to in the draft. I'd like to see them apply the same strategy to pro starters when it comes to bullpen arms. It's what they've done internally for their best relievers and it's what I'd like to see them do with outside pitchers they bring in.

Their strategy to this point of "he has 1 dominant pitch so we'll bring him in and have him throw the crap out of it" hasn't been successful most of the time. Let's bring in failed starters with the same strategy they use on college arms in the draft. I'm not smart enough to know what they look for in mechanics to believe they can add velo to those arms, but I have to believe they can look for certain things in pro arms as well. Find guys who you can pull a Jax or Sands with and just keep converting starters to relievers. With both external and internal starters. If you have too many starters in MLB and AAA turn some of those AAA starters into multi-inning relievers who you can turn back into starters down the road instead of bringing in the Jay Jackson's of the world. Let them learn the ropes in short stints. I'm hoping they're getting to this point with their development and we can stop seeing all the washed up, mid-30s vets with no ceiling signings and start seeing some young athletes come up and throw filth.

[Rigby]

6 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

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.    

  

 

Yep, a little more attention to bullpen construction and everyone will be dancing in the street.

[Hubie29]

Quit signing reclamation projects and rejects other teams don't want. Pretty simple. 

[DocBauer]

A great OP as usual Nick. And I'm appreciative of the "wins" you included. But you did fail to include Duffey as an internal win.

EVERY SINGLE SEASON fans simply dismiss random FA under the wire additions as a "meh" signing. But every team does it. And if you're smart about it, you sometimes get a Clippard, or a Wisler. SOMETIMES you get a Thielbar or a Stewart, who can be part of your pen for more than one year.

I'm sorry, memory fades, a decade or so ago, the Twins signed a Martinez who was a 30yo former stater who they converted to a RP who was really good for a couple of seasons. (Really wish someone could refresh my memory). 

Falvey, with a limited budget, bet on inexpensive quantity vs quality. He lost. Odds were he would he hit on ONE option, but he didn't. Duarte was the one potential win, but his elbow went to pieces, and every option went to bunk.

How does the FO move forward in 2025 to build a better pen? 

Internal scouting is a part of that. Two years ago they had BOTH Stewart AND Jeff Hoffman signed on MILB deals. They kept Stewart, which was smart. They let Hoffman go, which was stupid. I can't even remember now who was kept vs a veteran having a good ST over him.

The past is the past at this point. The FO should ABSOLUTELY look to arms coming off poor seasons either as starters or pen arms that have been good previously but failed on MILB deals and invites.

But INTERNAL scouting should be paramount! Headrick has the previous experience as a SP and some decent pitches that you'd like to believe he could thrive as 1-2 IP option in the pen. Funderburk has already shown what he CAN do. But can he do it consistently? I'd like to hope he can.

I'd like to think, even on a small budget, we might sign a LH that might surprise. But even without, from the RH side, we look really good at this point, with depth, and potential depth.

Duran, Jax, Stewart, Alcala, Varland, Sands, Topa from the RH side, where is the LH help? NO LOOGY need apply. But are there LH options the Twins already have on hand? Or is that a top addition that might be hard to add?

[Fatbat]

7 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

The Twins chose to keep Stewart over Hoffman. They picked the wrong guy, but really because of injury not performance.

Seems like they could have kept Hoffman also and left someone else off the 26man

[Althebum82]

I'm sorry, memory fades, a decade or so ago, the Twins signed a Martinez who was a 30yo former stater who they converted to a RP who was really good for a couple of seasons. (Really wish someone could refresh my memory). 

DocBauer, I tried to help you on this one but according to the all-time Twins roster the only Martinez to pitch for the Twins was Tippy in 1988 when he concluded his long relief role-only career.

[bean5302]

28 minutes ago, Althebum82 said:

I'm sorry, memory fades, a decade or so ago, the Twins signed a Martinez who was a 30yo former stater who they converted to a RP who was really good for a couple of seasons. (Really wish someone could refresh my memory). 

DocBauer, I tried to help you on this one but according to the all-time Twins roster the only Martinez to pitch for the Twins was Tippy in 1988 when he concluded his long relief role-only career.

Dennys Reyes? That's the only name that comes to mind.

[Mark G]

My question is (and I apologize if it has already been brought up and I just missed it) are they truly good at recognizing potential in low end starters and turning them into high end relievers, or are they just bad at developing top end starters and trying to salvage something by putting them in a relief role and just getting lucky once in a while?  As bad as their track record has been at bringing in established relievers, one has to wonder; at least this one does.  

[South Dakota Tom]

The key to having a strong 8-man bullpen is to have a 12-man bullpen.  Because the team is using a short leash on starters (across baseball), your team needs more than 8 guys to fill in the remaining innings.  The only way to accomplish that is to have at least 4 members of your bullpen be guys that have options and can be rotated up and back from St. Paul (even 2 or 3 would be better).  How many times last year were we stuck with a guy that was signed to a guaranteed contract where our only option was to release him or play him? 

I'm not staring at a list of players with options remaining, but that's where we need to look, within our own organization.  If we can rotate the Canterino, Funderburk, Varland, Henriquez, Winder, Alcala (as well as potential future starters getting their feet wet in a stretch role) contingent and keep Jax, Duran, Sands, Topa and Stewart utilized in a reasonable manner, you can build a pen.  It is when you have no flexibility and a bullpen usage chart (a feature of the daily rundown I really appreciate) that is littered with red and yellow and the only fresh arms are guys you don't want to pitch leverage innings that you are in a corner. 

It's going to happen regardless at points in the season, but the knowledge that if you have to pitch a guy 3 innings on Tuesday to clean up a game that you can have a fresh arm from across the river for the next night.....that keeps a gutter from becoming a gully.

[DJL44]

14 hours ago, Hubie29 said:

Quit signing reclamation projects and rejects other teams don't want. Pretty simple. 

I think every season some "reclamation project" becomes another team's All-Star reliever.

[DJL44]

13 hours ago, DocBauer said:

I'm sorry, memory fades, a decade or so ago, the Twins signed a Martinez who was a 30yo former stater who they converted to a RP who was really good for a couple of seasons. (Really wish someone could refresh my memory). 

-----------------------

Internal scouting is a part of that. Two years ago they had BOTH Stewart AND Jeff Hoffman signed on MILB deals. They kept Stewart, which was smart. They let Hoffman go, which was stupid. I can't even remember now who was kept vs a veteran having a good ST over him.

-----------------------

But INTERNAL scouting should be paramount! Headrick has the previous experience as a SP and some decent pitches that you'd like to believe he could thrive as 1-2 IP option in the pen. Funderburk has already shown what he CAN do. But can he do it consistently? I'd like to hope he can.

I'd like to think, even on a small budget, we might sign a LH that might surprise. But even without, from the RH side, we look really good at this point, with depth, and potential depth.

Duran, Jax, Stewart, Alcala, Varland, Sands, Topa from the RH side, where is the LH help? NO LOOGY need apply. But are there LH options the Twins already have on hand? Or is that a top addition that might be hard to add?

You're not thinking of Terry Mulholland, are you?

They had Stewart, Hoffman and Danny Coulombe in camp and kept Stewart, Tyler Duffey, Jharel Cotton and Trevor Megill. Megill got better with the Brewers but Duffey was bad and Cotton is out of baseball. They also had Ian Hamilton who has done fairly well with the Yankees. It just goes to show how many of these "fringy" relievers without options there are.

I would throw Ronny Henriquez on the list from the RH side. He was okay this season and is still young enough to add upside.

For lefties you mentioned Funderburk and Headrick. I wouldn't count out a reunion with Thielbar since he should be pretty cheap to sign as a free agent. There's also Jovani Moran who was out this season due to ligament replacement surgery. None of those names are as exciting as if they move Prielipp quickly through the system to the major league bullpen.

[Fatbat]

11 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Dennys Reyes? That's the only name that comes to mind.

Joe “Martinez” Nathan 🤣

[TopGunn#22]

It was truly a "team" meltdown for the Twins this year.  Starters (Lopez) were not nearly as good as we anticipated.  Hitters we expected a lot more really regressed.  Injuries had a profound effect on the eventual collapse, and finally with three rookie SP's in the rotation by the end of the season and a BP operating on fumes things just fell apart.

It's true that the BP actually had a decent year statistically, but Duran was clearly less than we expected, although if he had been used exclusively as a closer, his stats would have been just what we had expected.

I thought Cap'n Piranha had a really interesting idea, going to a 4-man rotation and keeping the pitch count to 80 or so.  He laid it out nicely with what each RP's "role" would be and how the innings would be allocated.  Just yesterday, Tony Clark, the President of the Players Union was commenting that pitchers nowadays are doing what their told, with Max Effort on each pitch. 

There is a reason SP's regularly went over 200-250 innings in the 60's and 70's, with some even topping 300 IP.  Pitchers were taught to "pitch" not just throw it as hard as they could.  Clark was pointing out how the "Max Effort" philosophy was leading to far more Tommy John surgeries and wasn't really in the players best interests.  It's not that Tom Seaver or Bob Gibson didn't throw hard back in the day.  They cranked it up for certain, high leverage situations, but their goal was not only to pitch effectively, but to get through the 7th inning or beyond.

When it comes down to it though, I just don't think Rocco is capable of managing a bullpen no matter what the philosophy would be.  He's never had clearly defined roles for his BP and the inconsistent usage of Duran is the best example.  

I think the Twins do far too much dumpster diving for pitchers AND hitters.  The excuse is always budget constraints but what could they have done with the roster if they hadn't paid Farmer over $6 million?  If the Twins picked a preferred target, one hitter and one pitcher, instead of "flooding the zone" with long shot relief pitchers I think they'd have more success.

This shouldn't blow the budget up completely, but let's say they can make a few moves and trim a little budget.  What if they targeted Tyler O'Neill as their RH hitting OF target.  He can play all 3 OF spots and has 20 HR 20 SB talent.  What if they targeted AJ Puk as the premium LH pitcher for the BP?

I'm not sure what either player would be expected to make for 2025, but add those two players to the roster, put Miranda at 1B fulltime and Lewis at 3B fulltime, and add a gloveman like Jose Iglesias to cover innings at SS, 2B and 3B.  We too often go for QUANTITY over QUALITY hoping we might catch lightening in a bottle.  That strategy doesn't give you much of a chance for success and frankly it hasn't worked very well.  

[Rosterman]

First off, Jax would like to start again - Shades of Rick Aguilera.

I remember Frankie Rodriguez hgetting so mad when he was switched to the bullpen from the rotation, dreaming of the Biug Money a starter makes compared to msot relief pitchers.

And there are always relief pitchers. Guys who are almsot there, but still having a bad season, suddenly out of options, passed by others. You can only keep so many.

But the flip side is you can only sign so many minor league free agents and have to own up to a couple of rotating roster spots to see if someone clicks.

The Twins were wise with Staumont this season, squeezing a bunch out of him and cutting him when it was time. They might've stuck with Okert too long with the up-and-down, but shows the need of a lefty, who can pretty much name their price and pitch until age 40.

This season the Twins signed less that a couple of dozen minor leaguye free agents. A first from the past decade plus. We had Blewett, Bowman, Boushley, Castillo... but no one else necessary to resign.

Someone else mentioned those that have got away. Jeff Hoffman, Danny Coulombe, Ian Hamilton, Trever McGill, Yennier Cano, Derek Law (for a moment), Vinny Nittoli, Total crapshoot. You win some, you lose some. You stcik with Thielbar and Stewart because.....

But you end up cutting guys. Liam Hendriks anyone? Carefully evaluate your talent. You got a gem in Jax, moving him to the pen. Can the same be done with Varland. Is Headrick a possibility. Festa or Matthews better for an endgame. Canterino and Raya should see action, but fewer innings better than throwing 100 pitches an outing? 

The 40-man makes you deal some (Gipson-long, Povich, Hajjar). It is all a numbers games. But relief pitchers are the first to go when roster spots close, or opetions disappear.