The Minnesota Twins Project to Have Baseball’s Best Bullpen, With Room to Improve

Oh please!  Did anyone actually watch this bullpen?  Last year Duran lost 9 games.  When you are labeled as a top reliever, losing 9 games in the bullpen is disastrous.  Also the Bullpen had the worst record in all of baseball by far in letting inherited runners score.  Not much of an endorsement.  The bullpen, like most other areas of the team is very fragile

17 minutes ago, Whitey333 said:

Oh please!  Did anyone actually watch this bullpen?  Last year Duran lost 9 games.  When you are labeled as a top reliever, losing 9 games in the bullpen is disastrous.  Also the Bullpen had the worst record in all of baseball by far in letting inherited runners score.  Not much of an endorsement.  The bullpen, like most other areas of the team is very fragile

Hader and Bednar each lost eight games. I quess they are disasters as relievers

San Diego might want a little international bonus money. Maybe the Twins can poach one of Jason Adam, Bryan Hoeing, or Robert Suarez from the Padres for a reasonable return. That would strengthen the bullpen from good to better.

They're very deep. Varland doesn't look like he will make the roster out of spring training.

Hasn't a version of this article been written prior to the last 3 seasons or so? Smacks of familiarity 

1 hour ago, Vanimal46 said:

It gets more difficult by the day to take Twins Daily seriously with baseball content. 

Years ago I heard a guy n Common Man talk baseball with him. Entertained, informative. Gave out his web site, Seth Speaks. It does seem like a time when they all formed this site it was about the game itself and how it was played. Now it feels like a site for would be GMs and people to complain about everything. The site seems to be clickbait city. Get them arguing so they get more clicks 

51 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Don't top bullpens also not lead the majors in inherited runner scoring percentage with 41% the year before?

Does that number include the extra innings phantom double to lead off?

1 hour ago, Danchat said:

Yeah, I don't get the hype. They have two studs and a quality middle reliever in Sands, and then a bunch of question marks. Stewart when healthy last year had a whip of nearly 1.5 and had a WAR under zero, Alcala is mystery, and Topa has only ever pitched in 8 or more games a season once in the majors. I like Varland as a reliever, but he's no sure thing. And they don't have a single serviceable lefty... this isn't a blueprint for the best bullpen in baseball.

The Zips projection for wins and losses for the pitcher’s record total somewhere around a 200 win season for the Twins as well as more loses than wins.  They also have Scott Blewett pitching 77 innings.  So the hype is someone trying to write a positive story for a change 

Duran is a competent reliever, but I don't think he is dominant.  Sands numbers were better than Duran basically across the board.  Duran throws heat, but the reults don't really live up to the hype.

This BP isn't even the best in the division, much less all of MLB

12 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Not sure.  In those situations there is no "previous pitcher" whose ERA is affected, per the site.

I just took the season total from baseball-reference.com.  I assume that over the course of a season the extra innings more or less balance out.  With 203 inherited runners (fewer than league average) and 83 of them scoring (above league average), I imagine that extra innings aren't the key factor.

The extra innings runner does not count against the pitcher’s ERA, but essentially is an inherited runner.  Runs allowed per 9 innings might e a better gauge for relief pitchers. They are suposed to overcome the errors and inherited runners in their spot 

4 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

Duran is a competent reliever, but I don't think he is dominant.  Sands numbers were better than Duran basically across the board.  Duran throws heat, but the reults don't really live up to the hype.

This BP isn't even the best in the division, much less all of MLB

Looked at a couple other places.Ceaveland is still rated the best 

4 hours ago, old nurse said:

Years ago I heard a guy n Common Man talk baseball with him. Entertained, informative. Gave out his web site, Seth Speaks. It does seem like a time when they all formed this site it was about the game itself and how it was played. Now it feels like a site for would be GMs and people to complain about everything. The site seems to be clickbait city. Get them arguing so they get more clicks 

Amen to this!  I miss when this site was about baseball.  It has become harder and harder to read the comments section.  So much bloviation about roster construction and managerial decisions.  There used to be a wealth of really insightful articles as well as very insightful commenters.  Now it seems more and more to be clickbait articles and an obligatory troll fest.  No surprise that traffic on here is way down.  It gets depressing to read the endless tripe about the FO and manager.

8 hours ago, ashbury said:

Brock Stewart has never pitched as many as 35 major league innings in a season. 

Whoa, I had no idea his innings numbers were that miniscule. Ouch! He has obviously shown talent in recent years, but his injury history is a red flag. 

10 hours ago, stringer bell said:

Between Topa, Stewart and Alcalá, there is much chance for injury

To me, that's the biggest concern, and the major reason that we can't get too confident about our bullpen this season. I still think we need at least one more veteran LHP added to the bullpen. But even that is no guarantee we will be dominant. As someone whitey 333 wrote, bullpens are indeed very fragile and unpredictable things. 

Thank you Cody for this informative & encouraging article. I don't get all the complaining about this article. Normally TD readers go ga ga over ZIPs. Last season everyone was eating up all the hype around Paddack pitching 150 innings & being the next Gray, the great addition of DeSclavani & Topa plus all the fringe RPs that never panned out. All to make us forget the loss of Gray & no significant replacement. Besides all of this Duran had a slow start & his attitude never really came back. Theilbar lost his edge & Stewart got injured. But Jax was a bright spot in the BP, along with Sands & Alcala, when he was managed properly after a long absence on the IL.

Hype is like an inflated balloon, I get the big let down but as this article states this BP still has a lot of potential. Anchored by Jax, IMO Duran was underappreciated in his fireman role. Leave Duran in the closer role & IMO his attitude could return. Alcala would be 1 more year removed from his surgery but I'd still avoid him from pitching multiple innings & consecutive appearances to begin the season. Stewart said he feels better than last year, he too should be monitored. The only debatable weakness I see is a high-leverage LHRP spot left by Theilbar. I'm not confident with Funderburg or Headrick. So we can trade from our strength (Topa & Tonkin, I don't hate Tonkin but I'd prefer RPs with options) & pick up a high-leverage LHRP (not another Okert or Richards) to make us better. I'm a believer in Varland in the BP & that Canterino & Preilipp could be big contributors in the BP. If the salary dump becomes void Paddack could also be a force at some time in the BP.

Irony = If the best LHRP out of the bullpen for high leverage situations is Theilbar 2024 then the Twins are better off without that LHRP.

Matt Canterino might be a very nice late inning option.  Like Stewart he has to find some healthy and is hard to count or rely on but you have a successful transfer to the bullpen from Varland a healthy Stewart and Canterino added with Jax and Duran I can see why on paper it looks deep and very good.

I just having trouble holding my breath for these things.

I thought WAR was considered a bad way to measure bullpens?  If the Twins pen was considered 2nd best last year based on WAR then I would disregard it.  

When you look at the total body of work in 2024, the Twins bullpen was quite good, and they're bringing back every key contributor from last season. Why wouldn't they be highly ranked and well-regarded?

Recency bias is clearly driving down some people's opinion of the bullpen; they had some struggles down the stretch along with every other part of the team not named Buxton or Correa, with some high profile blowups (Jorge Alcala, are your ears burning?). But that doesn't mean they're bad, especially in the context of the rest of the league.

Jax was elite last year, Duran was only good, but still has all the tools to be great again. Sands came on strong and seems to have found himself as a reliever, and while Alcala had a couple of bad blowups, his overall season was quite good. That's a very strong foundation for a bullpen, with 4 pitchers that can be used in high-leverage situations. Add in the rest of the options (Varland, Topa, Stewart, Castellano, Tonkin) and the Twins should have a strong bullpen that's missing only one element: a trusted LHP. But after the Okert Experience maybe it's not as critical to get a lefty out when the next 2 righties blow you up, especially when you have excellent RHP that can get LH out quite well.

I'd like to see them add a LHP who doesn't get crushed by every RH who can hold a bat, but that's literally the only hole in this bullpen. Most teams are trying to figure out if they have enough backend guys, trying out a new closer, or hoping that 2-3 guys can handle the role. Twins biggest barrier is whether they can get & keep guys like Stewart & Topa healthy enough to get value out of them...and they have options already behind them.

It's a good group.

I'm dealing with Deja vu this morning (the phenomenon not the downtown establishment). I could swear I read this exact same article last year, even down to the "we're so deep, gReAt relievers might have to start in the minors". Classic.