Why Did the Twins Prefer Travis Adams Over Pierson Ohl?

[Dman]

18 minutes ago, Nick Nelson said:

If I thought this was true I'd probably be a lot less invested in this discussion but I currently think Adams is a major odds-on favorite to make the Opening Day bullpen, as would Ohl if he were still here.

For an 8-man bullpen you've got the following 5 semi-locks due to experience: Sands, Rogers, Funderburk, Topa, Orze

Then you've got a pool of starters who could eventually be transitioned to relief, but likely not before Opening Day: Festa, Matthews, Bradley, Abel

And these are the remaining pitchers on the 40-man: Adams, Prielipp, Morris, Raya, Rojas, Klein. Adams is the only one from that group with any MLB experience, or really any relief pitching experience. Do we think it's likely that 3 others leapfrog him?

In terms of overall expected impact in 2025, Adams is fairly low. In terms of immediacy of impact, he's fairly high. And that matters because the Twins have to find a way to avoid digging themselves into irrelevance before others have a chance to step in.

I think those are good points.  The only quibble I would have is Festa.  I don't know how the Twins feel about him, but it seemed to be a pretty epic struggle to get him through 5 innings and then with the shoulder issue I'd think a move to the pen could be in the works from the start as he has the velocity to be a late inning arm.

Still your point stands.  They need rotation depth and Matthews, Bradley, Abel are still on the starter track.  I don't think they want to start the season with any of those arms in the pen.

Prielipp, Morris, Raya, Klein are all fairly new to AAA and or haven't performed all that well there.  Pretty sure they start the season in AAA until they force their way up.

So adding one more right handed reliever via free agency with your group of five makes 6 arms.  Adding Festa would make 7 and that still leaves Adams in the mix.

As mentioned above they might find some camp invite that steps up but would have to find 40 man room for that and they would have to be significantly better than Adams otherwise why not just stick with Adams,

I agree with you that there is a strong chance he makes the opening day roster as things stand right now.

[old nurse]

26 minutes ago, Nick Nelson said:

 

Then you've got a pool of starters who could eventually be transitioned to relief, but likely not before Opening Day: Festa, Matthews, Bradley, Abel

And these are the remaining pitchers on the 40-man: Adams, Prielipp, Morris, Raya, Rojas, Klein. Adams is the only one from that group with any MLB experience, or really any relief pitching experience. Do we think it's likely that 3 others leapfrog him?

 

2 of the 4 starters in the bullpen. One of the other 4 will leapfrog Adams. The other real possibility is what players they sign in the next 2 months. Adams and Raya from the list would be the DFA candidates unless they decide to remove another position player. When the price gets low enough there will be a couple ore signings. 

[Cris E]

1 hour ago, terrydactyls said:

Maybe Ohl just needs to switch hands?

One of the great bar league softball insults: "Are you sure you're right handed?"

[Cris E]

1 hour ago, Danchat said:

To add on to your list, there will probably be some minor league deal vets gunning for those last spots in the pen (Dobnak surprised us by cracking the starting pen last year, Daniel Duarte in 2024, etc). We've seen them make the team right out of the gate before.

I think the point is Adams will be the Dobnak of this spring: experienced but not really that talented and a bridge to the young/injured guys when they are ready.

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, Nick Nelson said:

Adams is the only one from that group with any MLB experience, or really any relief pitching experience. Do we think it's likely that 3 others leapfrog him.

Considering how bad Adams was, I certainly hope so. If the others can't beat a 7.49 ERA, then why were they added to the roster?

Putting Adams on the 40-man roster to avoid the Rule 5 draft looks like a mistake.

[Cris E]

42 minutes ago, old nurse said:

Adams and Raya from the list would be the DFA candidates unless they decide to remove another position player.

They aren't DFAing Raya without giving him a full chance in the pen, not with redundancies like the army of corner OF, both Grey and Kreidler, and a guy like Jackson who would very likely pass through waivers.

[nicksaviking]

3 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Considering how bad Adams was, I certainly hope so. If the others can't beat a 7.49 ERA, then why were they added to the roster?

Putting Adams on the 40-man roster to avoid the Rule 5 draft looks like a mistake.

Adams can go for all I care, they have enough of these kinds of guys they can experiment with.

But just about every one of the good bullpen arms they've developed over the last couple of decades didn't pop in relief until after they stopped dabbling with starting or being a 'long man' all together. The year(s) they spend straddling the fence at the majors or in AAA almost always were bad. Jax, Varland, Sands, Perkins, May, Duffey. I want to see what these guys look like one full year after completely giving up pitching extended innings. 

[Jim H]

This discussion highlights the situation the front office put themselves in with the bullpen selloff. Unless you are willing to sign expensive established free agent relievers, you have to find them thru trades or from your own farm system. Most relievers are failed starters. Since major league starters are more valuable than relievers, teams want to give promising pitchers enough chances to prove they are unlikely to succeed as starters.  That is precisely where the Twins are with a whole raft of young pitchers.

In the case of Ohl and Adams, the Twins may of waited too long to convert them to one inning relievers. They ended up releasing/trading Ohl before finding out if he could succeed in that role. That could happen with Adams as well.

[Cris E]

Ohl had reached his peak and it wasn't going to play in MLB. The number of guys with only a change and no other offerings is vanishingly small. You can name them (Doug Jones, Jamie Moyer) because they're so unusual.  Adams still has to condense his repertoire down to a solid core and focus on throwing his best 20-25 pitches in each outing, but he's already stopped thinking about the second time through the lineup. @nicksaviking has a point in that going to the pen really does involve a head shift and some actual learning of what does and doesn't work in that role. It's going to take a little time to guide Festa or whoever though that process.

[Coach Wheels]

4 hours ago, Jeff K said:

Neither are difference makers.  And "Iron Glove" Julien won't be missed either.

100% agree with this. This is not even a "lesser of 2 evils" conversation. 2 average minor league guys with extremely limited major league promise. Ohl's reliance on the change up makes him only a bullpen guy in my opinion. Adam's might get 12 outs to start a game but.....

[JD-TWINS]

8 hours ago, Nick Nelson said:

If I thought this was true I'd probably be a lot less invested in this discussion but I currently think Adams is a major odds-on favorite to make the Opening Day bullpen, as would Ohl if he were still here.

For an 8-man bullpen you've got the following 5 semi-locks due to experience: Sands, Rogers, Funderburk, Topa, Orze

Then you've got a pool of starters who could eventually be transitioned to relief, but likely not before Opening Day: Festa, Matthews, Bradley, Abel

And these are the remaining pitchers on the 40-man: Adams, Prielipp, Morris, Raya, Rojas, Klein. Adams is the only one from that group with any MLB experience, or really any relief pitching experience. Do we think it's likely that 3 others leapfrog him?

In terms of overall expected impact in 2025, Adams is fairly low. In terms of immediacy of impact, he's fairly high. And that matters because the Twins have to find a way to avoid digging themselves into irrelevance before others have a chance to step in.

Absolutely think that 3 guys will leapfrog him.

Of the FOUR depth starters (#5-#8) Festa seems like a very probable guy to be in the PEN, controlled innings coming off injury, prior to Opening Day.

If the Top 4 guys are healthy, I think the Team chooses to be competitive and they move Matthews to the Closer role.

This leaves Bradley & Abel along with Morris & Rojas for starter depth.

I think Prielipp needs innings monitoring for another year with his fragile health…. can monitor his innings and get “production” from the PEN.

By adding Raya & Klein to the mix, there are 5 total guys that have a solid chance to be in front of Adams. Then there’s the unknown of additional FA’s and n the PEN?