Minnesota Twins 2025 Position Analysis: Relief Pitcher

As I see it, we have the elite, the elite when they can stay healthy, the potentially elite, and the........hmmm.........the depth?  In other words the shuttle bus guys.  If the top 8 on your list stay healthy and live up to their potential, yes, we may have the best bullpen, at least one of the top 2 or 3.  If anyone goes down, or if two go down, or just plain don't pitch well, then the top 4 better have rubber arms, because I fear the depth may not be that deep.  

Let's go with glass half full this time; the top 8 are going to see us through.  Please.  😳

I think if we end up needing some bullpen depth guys like Prelipp, Morris and Raya could make their debuts in the pen and be a big help this year, before going back to starting next year. Our bullpens effectiveness is going to be directly related to how deep our SP can go.

I am 100% in agreement on Duran.  He is looking like Eddie Guardado out there:  pitching himself into trouble and then (hopefully) pitching himself out of it.

Even with Duran's velo decrease, he should still be a top-level RP.  He needs to make the necessary adjustments if he wants to regain an elite level status.  As I said elsewhere, he looks like a player that the Twins may want to trade while his value is high and the bullpen looks deep.  Better a year too early than a year too late, especially for a RP.

Nick, what's your opinion on Castellano?  Your depth chart includes Topa and your first depth piece is Tonkin so there may be a place for him. Do they try to keep him? Should they?  This is the bullpen piece, take a swing.

If Castellano is good enough that the Twins want to keep him, then he is good enough to trade for him and get him in the minors where he belongs this season.

10 hours ago, LambchoP said:

I think if we end up needing some bullpen depth guys like Prelipp, Morris and Raya could make their debuts in the pen and be a big help this year, before going back to starting next year. Our bullpens effectiveness is going to be directly related to how deep our SP can go.

IMO our true wild cards are Prielipp, Morris & Raya. Alcala & Varland are true high-leverage RPs if managed properly. Keep Alcala at 1, nonconsecutive innings & Varland in the BP. I shared on Castellano before. I was disappointed with losing Canterino & Duran will remain a good RP but how good? RPs aren't very high on the totem pole but in the Twins case, it could be pivotal.

There's a lot of good in the Twins bullpen. I am concerned about Duran's loss of velocity, but it may well be that he's able to manage it just fine without needing to hit 102-104 consistently on the gun with the fastball. Especially since he has the excellent curve and "splinker" to rely on. (the curve has been his best pitch for the past 2 years anyways) but it's fair to be worried. Him being the primary 9th inning guy may actually help the Twins in this regard, putting him in some easier situations at times.

Jax is a monster. Sands did very well last season; it will be interesting to see whether he drops back and becomes one of those fungible relievers when you don't really know when his next good season will be, but even an average one makes him a fair option in the 6th-7th inning. Stewart's health is a huge issue, but his arm seems healthy and his stuff is filthy. That gives you 4 guys who at least from the start of the season you should feel confident in for the last couple of innings. That's a really good base.

Coulombe is another guy whose health needs to be monitored, but he's been very effective the past 3 seasons and gives you a LHP who can shut down LH hitters without giving it all back to the RH pinch hitter. He's got flexibility of use. 

Alcala is a guy I like more than most it seems; he's not consistent enough to be a real weapon, but he's also not filler. Right now he's maybe 6th in the pecking order, which is pretty great, IMHO. I feel pretty good having a guy like him being up in the 6th-7th innings, and his stock could rise again if he finds consistency again. he had a couple of bad blowups late, but he was really good last season outside of the August Implosion. 

I'm excited to have Varland transition to the bullpen full time. I think he can be really good there, and has the stuff to be a back-end guy, not a middle relief/long man. If he's able to stay refined with his fastball/cutter combo at max effort, he'll be a weapon...and he's going to start the season as likely the 7th man.

I'm fine with them giving the last slot to Castellano; he's got the stuff to hang and the last man in the bullpen isn't going to pitch very much anyways. I'd prefer the Twins make a deal on him so they can send him down as needed, but especially while we're waiting for Topa/Tonkin to get healthy.

I assumed going in to the season that the Twins would have 1-3 injuries i the bullpen either coming out of spring training or very early in the year, and that's tracking. The good thing is, none of them look too serious, and none of them are impacting our top relievers. Right now, our depth looks capable of managing through this.

things do start getting a little thinner if we have to go much beyond this; Blewett is Just Another Guy, Ynoa is still coming back from a major injury really, etc. Prielipp is an exciting arm, but hasn't thrown an inning above A-ball yet and only 30 innings as a pro. That said...he seems to be healthy, finally and the stuff is incredible. Hopefully he's starting at AA; more A-ball seems like a waste.

It's a good bullpen with the ability to be great.  Considering how deep the rotation is, this could be one of the better twins pitching staffs in a long time. here's hoping they get decent health.

The big question mark for me is Duran. It would not surprise me if he is losing some fastball velocity just due to age and use rather than injury or other factors. How will he adapt if he can't throw at 103 MPH anymore? Does that make his other pitches less effective? 

Overall, bullpens and relief pitching are so hard to predict and project. One or two bad mistakes can wreak havoc on the stats of a reliever for quite some time. If you are only going to throw forty or fifty innings in a season, that increases the chance that fluky things can impact your overall performance.

I'm concerned about the Duran , rookie year was sensational  , 2nd year had some hiccups  , 3rd year injured to start the year , velocity down the rest of the season  , another eye test is he is better as a ninth inning guy than coming in the 7th or 8th inning against the opponents heart of the order ...

Use Duran correctly and it should be a good season for Duran  ...

Yes Jax was exceptional last year and I see no reason the righthander can't repeat  , such a bull dog when he shuts down an opponents inning  with 15 pitches or less , any more pitches and he's not on his game ...

Sands , can he establish himself with a quality season again this year ...

Rest of the staff needs to perform  and stay healthy  , are we a number 1 bullpen , TIME WILL TELL  ...

5 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

That would be awesome, and they will sometimes. Lopez did eight times, Ober seven, Ryan five, Paddack twice and SWR once. So almost a quarter of the time with the top three and then a couple more. There were also a dozen or so other times when the starter was given a shot, but didn’t get through the seventh. 
 

Realistically, however, I don’t see them getting past an average of 5.5-5.7 in today’s game, but that would be well above average.

 

I have two sons that are polar opposites in a lot of ways.  The 31 year old is a sports nut across the board, and we kick stuff around all the time for hours.  The 29 year old is not into sports much at all except for the NCAA tournament (he is loving this month).  Last year he heard me and his brother talking and actually asked what a complete game was.  I explained it to him and told him if he lives to be the same age as me or older he might live to see one someday.  😉

I believe the stats you listed for the 5 guys.  And I have to think that 23 times out of 162 games is not enough to keep a pen from overworking, and that is only 7 innings.  I still remember Bert talking on TV about the "quality start" stat when it first started to be a stat.  One got the impression he hated it, and he certainly made fun of it.  6 innings or more and 3 earned runs or less; and that is earned runs.  You can have all the unearned runs that come across.  Now 6 innings of any kind is considered a great start.  I might have to tell my son that if he lives long enough he will have to explain to his son someday what a "starting pitcher" used to be back in the day.  🙃

15 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

Wait -- do you know something about my sons that I don't know? Mine have the exact same ages and similar dispositions. 😀

I was skeptical about the "quality start" at first, but have come to feel less so. As long as I define "quality start" as "kept my team in the game" as opposed to "Cy Young worthy," I think it means something. Not everything, by any means, but one of those quick-and-dirty stats that lets you look at a guy and say, "Yeah, he gave our team a chance to win."

Most any time a starter gets through six and gives up only three runs (not distinguishing between earned and unearned runs), I've got some chance of winning. If my offense has scored no runs or only one, I'm generally sunk, period. If they've scored even two, I'm a solo run from tying. And as we've seen above, six innings also means that he's gone longer than average.

The list of last year's leaders correlates pretty well with successful seasons.

QS also has a way of softening the effect of outlier games in a pitcher's ERA when the manager leaves him in after getting shelled because the bullpen is depleted, etc. Ober had 18 quality starts out of 31, which is pretty good, for example, but his ERA was only 3.98 thanks to having given up 17 of his 79 earned runs in two starts. Without those, two starts, he's a spiffy 3.18. 

I found Jose Quintana as a guy who had a virtually identical ERA+ (105 compared to Ober's 104) in a similar number of innings (170.1 to 178.2). But Quintana only had 12 out of 31 QS compared to Ober's 18 of 31. That suggests Ober kept his team in the game in a bigger percentage of his starts. I'd rather have Ober's season on my team than Quintana's.

An argument I've heard against the QS start is that it's only a 4.50 ERA, which it is for that individual game. But to keep using Ober as the example, only two of his 18 QS were exactly that figure. Every other combination in a QS, even three earned runs in 6.1 innings, lowers the ERA. I didn't do the math, but Ober's ERA in his 18 QS is likely well below the 3.18 referenced above.

I'm not advocating for this, but I do wonder if, given that starts are getting shorter, someone will start advocating for a QS starting to include two runs in five innings or more.

Isn't it neat watching two brothers, so totally different from each other, spend time with family and blend right in as though they were twins?  🫠