Jeremy Zoll Admits the Bullpen Fell Short. Will the Twins Spend to Fix It?

[jmlease1]

16 hours ago, MeleMouth said:

Serious question: Minter was worth 0.1 fWAR this year and Abreu was worth -0.3. Their K rates were at multi-year lows and, in Abreu's case, he walked more than 5 per 9 and his pitch quality rated below Orze's, while Minter's fastball was at a career low. They could both be looking for raises on their 2026 salaries of $5.85M (Abreu) and $11.0M (Minter). Would it be a good idea for the Twins to sign two pitchers who were worth a collective 0.2 fWAR to more than $17M in annual salary?

Parallel: bWAR rated them both 1.0 WAR - would it be good for the Twins to pay $17M for two pitchers who produced a total of 2 WAR?

The best reason to do so would be if you couldn't find cheaper innings eaters within your organization and on the market.

Well, I prefer bWAR for pitchers, as the fWAR model for pitchers tries to describe what they think should have happened and bWAR more accurately describes what actually occurred on the field. So yes: I'm fine with paying $17M for 2 experienced relievers who collectively put up a 2 bWAR in 2026.

Abreu has 5 straight seasons of a bWAR of 1 or more, has thrown 60 innings or more in all of them, with a K/9 of at least 11 in all of them. Orze has never done any of those things and is only a year younger.

Minter's velocity was down this year (we'll see if it comes back up at all after a healthy offseason) but he adjusted his pitch mix and remained effective. He's been a quality reliever for years. I'd also suggest that he's unlikely to get a raise on his $11M AAV with his injury history in a market where there are plenty of LHP relievers on the market.

I'm not looking for inning eaters here, I'm looking for guys you can trust with medium to high leverage situations from the jump. Both pitchers have the track record of success to show they're not just fungible relievers and raise both the floor of your bullpen by pushing less proven guys down the pecking order and the ceiling with their history of being able to step into roles late & close.

If you want different guys, I'm open to it. But we shouldn't be looking at the Eric Orze's of the world to step in to cover the 7th or 8th inning next season out of spring training just because he had an ok FIP and his theoretical pitch quality looks good when his actual results are pretty meh. Want Orze back as the 7th guy in the bullpen? I'll listen. But not interested in him being looked at as the second or 3rd RHP out of the bullpen coming out of Spring TRaining.

[MapleGroveTwinsFan]

Don't really understand the hype about the bullpen, the twins started 2025 with what some said was going to be one of the top bullpens in the majors, maybe the best the Twins have had in decades.

A rotation that looks awful similar (Lopez, Ober, Ryan, Kremer for Paddack, Prielip for SWR, Matthews, And a offense that has swapped out Correa for Culpepper, Jenkins for Bader, moved Lewis from 3B to 1B (removing France) and swapped out the back end of roster with other guys that should be a the back of the roster.  That team won 70 games. Some other small changes but as it sits the team looks quite a bit like the team the last few years. 

Not saying they shouldn't sign somebody to replace Rogers or add around the edges, but signing bullpen players to big money doesn't really move the floor much. (also I am not saying to not sign players to save money, not at all)

All Money spent, all trades made should based on 2028 and beyond. 2027 should be about getting Jenkins, Erod, Culpepper, Houston as much playing time as possible, it should be figuring out who among, Matthew, Prielipp, Rojas, Abel, maybe Adams/Gallagher can replace the soon to Free Agents or traded away pitchers. Because the Twins minor league pitching is barren as hell. (Quick soon to be 23 will pitched 81 innings and was brutal in AA, Soto (21) and pitched 2.2 innings in A, Bohorquez (will be 22) and pitched 59.2 innings, unless I am wrong those are the Twins top 3 pitching prospects) 

That is why they should have or still should trade Ryan, Jeffers, Larnach, Wallner, Lewis, 

[darin617]

20 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

I understand that you apparently want a cap and floor system. I can respect that opinion. The negotiations and agreements made eventually really don't make much difference to me. I don't understand at all why people root for billionaires but recognize it happens. I just enjoy baseball.

On a practical matter, the Dodgers, as one example, start right now about $120M above the owners' suggested ceiling. They would have to trade Ohtani, Tucker and more. How would that work? Do no trade contracts get broken? 

Owners make significant money on their MLB ownership. They are not likely to cancel games and lose the media contracts. The 1994 strike took 10 years to recover from. Franchise values are at an all time high. Rich owners know this stuff. They are not looking to lose billions. There will be a ton of posturing and some changes. Most likely there will be additional and steeper taxes on higher payrolls and some requirements regarding spending of revenue sharing funds. I really doubt that MLB owners open their books like NBA, NHL, and NFL owners do to satisfy the agreements in those leagues. Baseball is different.

We may just disagree on this entire topic, which is certainly acceptable and normal.

There must be a hard cap. You can't simply let teams like the Dodgers buy anyone they want and just get taxed hard because of it.  But the Dodgers may be technically destroyed because their owner already sold the Lakers because he needed the money and he has a end of the year deadline to come up with a very large sum so he could be forced to sell the Dodgers as well.