One Year After Duran and Jax, the Twins May Have Their Replacements

We all knew coming into the season that the Twins’ bullpen was going to be the biggest question mark on the roster.

After last year's trade deadline saw Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Louis Varland , Brock Stewart and Danny Coulombe all shipped elsewhere, there simply wasn't much left behind. With the front office doing very little over the winter to replenish that group, it felt inevitable that the bullpen would take a step back. That's exactly what's happened.

Minnesota's late-game arms have struggled to consistently protect leads, putting additional pressure on a team that has already dealt with its fair share of inconsistency. The Twins' bullpen currently ranks 26th in baseball with a 4.92 ERA and 29th with a 1.52 WHIP. They've also issued the sixth-most walks of any team, and they haven't generated nearly enough strikeouts to offset all of the extra traffic. It's been a difficult season for a unit that, just one year ago, was viewed as arguably the organization's biggest strength.

One of the more surprising parts of last summer's fire sale was that the Twins didn't just trade one elite reliever; they traded both Duran and Jax. Considering both pitchers were among the very best late-inning arms in baseball and would’ve remained under team control through 2028, it seemed far more likely that they’d move one while keeping the other as the anchor of the bullpen moving forward. Instead, both were gone. That decision left the Twins without proven options in the eighth and ninth innings, and replacing pitchers of that caliber was never going to happen overnight. But while the bullpen as a whole has struggled, it's becoming increasingly clear that Minnesota may already have the foundation of its next dominant late-inning tandem.

Andrew Morris and Yoendrys Gómez aren't there yet. Comparing them to Duran and Jax today would be unfair. Still, it's hard to ignore what both pitchers have done this season, and even harder to ignore the potential that's still ahead.

Gómez, in particular, has transformed into exactly what the Twins desperately needed after arriving in Minnesota. He's posted a sparkling 1.78 ERA across 30 1/3 innings with the club while converting all 12 of his save opportunities. Every time Derek Shelton has handed him the ball with a lead in the ninth inning, Gómez has delivered. For a bullpen that has struggled to consistently close out games, that reliability has been invaluable.

The underlying metrics aren't quite as enthusiastic as the traditional numbers, but there's important context there. Much of the damage to his expected statistics came earlier in the season during his brief stint with the Rays, before landing with the Twins. Since arriving in Minnesota, Gómez has looked like a completely different pitcher. His sweeper has emerged as a legitimate weapon, comparable to the devastating breaking ball that made Jax one of the league's premier setup men. It's the type of pitch that can carry a reliever through high-leverage situations, and Gómez has leaned on it with tremendous success.

The rest of his arsenal still has room to develop, but that's what makes his performance even more encouraging. He's only 26 years old. There are still adjustments to make and refinement left to come, giving the Twins reason to believe there's another level he can eventually reach.

Morris has followed a different path, but his rookie season has been every bit as encouraging. In fact, there's a strong argument that he's been Minnesota's best reliever over the course of the year. Unlike Gómez, Morris has built success through a deep arsenal and an impressive ability to avoid hard contact. Few pitchers in baseball have been better at generating weak contact this season, and that's allowed Morris to consistently work out of difficult situations despite not having a traditional wipeout offering.

What's especially exciting is that the swing-and-miss ability is already beginning to show up anyway. All six of Morris' pitches have generated whiffs on at least 20 percent of swings this season. That speaks to the quality and deception throughout his entire repertoire rather than relying on one dominant pitch. If he eventually develops a true put-away weapon to pair with everything else, his ceiling rises considerably.

The building blocks are already in place. Just like Gómez, Morris feels like a pitcher whose best baseball is still in front of him. Together, they've already become two of the most dependable relievers in the Twins’ bullpen. Blown leads and bullpen meltdowns have become all too common, yet Morris and Gómez have consistently been the exceptions. They've earned meaningful roles, and both have looked comfortable handling them.

Again, suggesting they've already replaced what Duran and Jax were would be getting ahead of ourselves. But saying Morris and Gómez are incapable of becoming that kind of duo feels just as premature. Both pitchers remain under team control through the 2031 season, with two years of pre-arbitration eligibility remaining before entering arbitration for three seasons. That gives the Twins a long runway to continue developing both arms while keeping them together during what should be the prime years of their careers.

For an organization that suddenly found itself searching for a new identity in the bullpen after last year's deadline, that's an encouraging place to start. The Twins still have plenty of work to do before their relief corps returns to being one of the league's strengths, but if Morris and Gómez continue progressing the way they have, Minnesota may already have the next great late-inning duo sitting right in front of them.

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