Twins Video
Despite losing their first three games to begin the 2025 campaign, Minnesota Twins starting pitchers Pablo López and Joe Ryan cobbled together respectable starts against the St. Louis Cardinals, netting an 8-to-0 strikeout-to-walk ratio while allowing just two earned runs over a combined 10 innings pitched. The club's fortunes changed Sunday, when a virus-stricken Bailey Ober imploded, allowing eight earned runs over 2 2/3 innings. Ober's truncated outing paved the way for fan-favorite right-handed reliever Randy Dobnak to make his first appearance of the season.
Dobnak entered the game with a runner on first and two outs. He was quickly able to escape the inning, getting designated hitter Willson Contreras to line out to left fielder Harrison Bader. The game would then be delayed for roughly an hour, due to a rain delay. Instead of deferring to a different reliever, however, Minnesota trotted Dobnak out for the bottom of the fourth, suggesting they were prepared to have the 30-year-old eat innings. The former Indy ball star did just that, allowing one run over 5 1/3 innings to complete the contest.
Stretching Dobnak out for 79 pitches allowed Minnesota to rest their seven other relievers. That being the case, manager Rocco Baldelli should have access to most of his relievers as the club seeks their first win of the 2025 MLB season against the Chicago White Sox Tuesday. Minnesota's ability to avoid taxing its bullpen (particularly its high-leverage arms) early in the season was a favorable outcome. That said, Dobnak eating extended innings means he must be sidelined for the next two to three games. If the club had kept him on the 26-man roster, they would have been shorthanded in their upcoming three-game set on the South Side of Chicago. However, they elected to designate him for assignment and select the contract of Darren McCaughan.
Designating Dobnak for assignment makes sense from a roster construction perspective, particularly considering that Chris Paddack lasted only 3 1/3 innings during his start Monday. If Dobnak were still occupying a roster spot, the club would have been forced to stretch out medium- to high-leverage arms like Jorge Alcalá and Louis Varland for multiple innings, which is an undesirable outcome—especially this early in the season. Evidently, that threat was eradicated with the purchase of McCaughan's contract. That said, the decision doesn't sit right from a labor perspective.
Now, to be critical of the Twins themselves would be mildly unfair. Minnesota needed a fresh bullpen arm. Despite Dobnak's laborious, depth-saving performance, league rule permits the club to designate him for assignment. Also, no other club will want to claim the $4 million remaining in the last year of his deal, suggesting he will stay with the organization. Twins decision-makers are acting reasonably, even if their measures are ultimately cold and callous. That said, there is reason to advocate that MLB should implement a rule prohibiting teams from demoting or releasing stretch relievers after tossing multiple innings in a mop-up role.
Quantifying how many innings and/or pitches thrown would make a reliever immune from demotion or being cut would be complicated. Three innings pitched and/or 50 pitches thrown is a rational starting point. Dobnak is a unique case, in that he will continue to earn his salary if he accepts an outright assignment. However, the money earned from staying on the roster for as little as two to three extra days could be life-altering for a journeyman reliever like McCaughan, or young arms yet to make their major-league debut (like Travis Adams or Marco Raya).
More importantly, if there were a protective period after a long relief outing to prevent a team from profiting by casting off a player in the wake of a valued service, they would be less likely to cut or option those players at all. By the time they'd be allowed to part ways with the hurler, that pitcher would be available again. It would apply more pressure to teams to get length from their starters and to manage the workloads of their relievers, but it would also stabilize their pitching staffs by preventing some of the most manipulative churn-and-burn toward which most organizations strongly lean. It would force a plan for using and compensating pitchers that better reflects their value to the franchise, as individuals, and it would eventually be better for the teams, too.
Follow Twins Daily For Minnesota Twins News & Analysis
- mikelink45, nclahammer, glunn and 4 others
-
6
-
1
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now