The Minnesota Twins Bullpen Has a Left Handedness Problem

[nicksaviking]

28 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Well even with 4 LH relievers, that still leaves 4 RHers. As we should know, watching Rocco get outmanaged time after time, PHing for the platoon advantage in the 6th inning has a way of coming back to bite you in the, uh, upper backside of your pants.

I'm not going to worry about too many lefties. However, I AM terrified of the Twins pen.

I don't like that Funderburk and Sands look like the only relievers that will be on this team come 2027. So basically the only guys who were on last year's team that weren't quite good enough to trade.

How did they build than trade a stable full of good, young, in-house relievers and then not think to themselves, 'We should probably try that same thing again!'? Instead they're running with a bunch of bottom-dollar cast offs from other teams.

[USAFChief]

3 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I don't like that Funderburk and Sands look like the only relievers that will be on this team come 2027. So basically the only guys who were on last year's team that weren't quite good enough to trade.

How did they build than trade a stable full of good, young, in-house relievers and then not think to themselves, 'We should probably try that same thing again'. Instead they're running with a bunch of bottom-dollar cast offs from other teams.

Well I certainly agree that dumping thr top 2/3rds of your bullpen isn't smart. I spent approximately 37000 words here complaining about it. Moronic decision with zero reasons forcing it. The pen wasn't even expensive. 

And now, having done so, I too would rather see them restock with great young arms rather than castoffs and cheap FAs.

The problem, though, is NObody has enough great young arms to do that. Certainly not the Twins.  Who are they not using?

Despite what some fans write, a bullpen isn't "the easiest thing to build."

 

[nicksaviking]

3 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Well I certainly agree that dumping thr top 2/3rds of your bullpen isn't smart. I spent approximately 37000 words here complaining about it. Moronic decision with zero reasons forcing it. The pen wasn't even expensive. 

And now, having done so, I too would rather see them restock with great young arms rather than castoffs and cheap FAs.

The problem, though, is NObody has enough great young arms to do that. Certainly not the Twins.  Who are they not using?

Despite what some fans write, a bullpen isn't "the easiest thing to build."

 

Converting their starters to relievers has worked well over 50% of the time. It is literally the gamble that pays off most often for this franchise. 

Count Duran, Jax, Varland, Sands, Rogers, Pressly, May, Duffey, Duensing and Perkins in the positive column of converted starters for the Twins. And most of them were already written off as busts before the conversion. They should have stuck with Ronnie Hernandez and Liam Hendricks too. 

In the same time period, so since Perkins' successful conversion, on the negative side we have Josh Winder, Fernando Romero, Anthony Swarzak and Jeff Manship. Jordan Balazovic if someone wants to argue that he got a real chance in the pen.

Now, it tends to take a full season of committing them to the pen before it pays off, but that's why they should be doing that now, this year when everyone and their grandmother is pissing and moaning about this team. They should be picking some combination of Festa, Matthews, SWR, Prielipp, Adams, Morris, Bradley, Raya and Klien and telling them that this is their job now. 

 

[Riverbrian]

We spent 2023 and 2024 doing everything humanly possible to keep every single left handed hitter away from left handed pitching. In one game against the Giants. We pinch hit before they had their first AB in the game because of a dreaded lefty following an opener. The caution exhibited toward left handed pitchers was beyond anything the other 29 teams were doing. It became so extreme that you couldn't be blamed for thinking it was the central philosophy of the organization for those two years. 

Despite this incredible effort to avoid the left vs left platoon disadvantage on the offensive side. The platoon advantage didn't seem to matter on our own mound. 

In 2023 148 innings out of 1451 total innings were thrown by a lefthanded pitcher. Left handers (while almost impossible to do)threw less innings in 2024.

We desperately couldn't let the pitching staffs of our opponents utilize this platoon advantage like it was Kryptonite but we had little to no interest utilizing this platoon advantage for our pitching staff. for our advantage. 

I don't care anymore. As long as everybody is looking at left or right like they can math this thing together they are missing the real point. 

The real point? That would be ...talent.