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The Twins bullpen has currently thrown the fourth-highest number of innings in baseball behind only the Rays (of course), Pirates and Orioles. This likely isn’t a huge surprise for fans who take issue with the Twins' starting pitching management and this regime’s avoidance of pushing their starters. There are a few reasons, however, that we find ourselves here.
For starters, the shortened spring training has impacted pitcher’s workloads, particularly Sonny Gray who was barely ready to start the season on time leading to several shorter starts as well as getting eased back in after injury. Also, consider pitchers like Chris Archer and Dylan Bundy whose repertoires make them untrustworthy to navigate the order three times through. In most of these cases, the Twins are playing better safe than sorry, and it’s worked out as the rotation has been successful overall.
Secondly, the Twins aren’t creating situations where they feel they can push said pitchers. Since the Astros series ended on May 12, the Twins have played 12 games and just three of them have been decided by three runs or less despite facing easy competition. As a result, the starting pitching has a quicker hook as the team tries to preserve the lead. An offshoot of this is the Twins needing to use their high leverage relievers almost daily. It’s only out of necessity that pitchers such as Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax ever get the day off.
This recent trend boiled over on Wednesday against Detroit, where Caleb Thielbar had to pitch against a flurry of right-handed hitters in the 9th inning of a tied game, far from the situation you want. After narrowly escaping a bases-loaded jam, the Twins were forced to turn to Trevor Megill making his second appearance since being called up from St. Paul. He promptly allowed a two-run home run in the 10th. The Twins had simply run out of relief arms, and the loss left the bullpen even more shorthanded for the first game of the series against Kansas City on Thursday.
In an ideal world, the offense would soften some of these games and allow the pitching staff some margin for error. Perhaps as the weather warms up they’ll be able to do so. Rather than hoping, however, the Twins can take matters into their own hands with an early move to solidify a bullpen that’s performed incredibly well thus far.
Adding one more high leverage reliever would go a long way in easing the stress being put on the bullpen. One more high-level arm would push pitchers such as Pagán and Jax down into roles that they’re probably better suited for. It would also make managing Jhoan Duran’s workload much easier. All of this would help the Twins maintain their solid bullpen performance in the long term of course, but it would also help them win games in the short term as we saw on Wednesday.
While it may be early, there are several obvious teams who aren’t going to be competing this year and who may be willing to talk trade already. The Baltimore Orioles have the 3rd lowest bullpen ERA in baseball and have several trade candidates such as Jorge López and Félix Bautista. Even a team like the Pirates are holding onto some quality relievers such as David Bednar.
The Twins bullpen troubles are far from what they were in 2021, but given how good the team has looked, it may just be worth being aggressive. On one hand such an early trade could be seen as paying a premium, but they would also likely avoid the bidding war we typically see hours before the deadline. It may just be worth asking around to see if they can swing a surprisingly early deal.
Jorge Alcala would have been huge for this bullpen, but after being added to the 60 day IL with little news to follow, he’s become a massive question mark. Several prospects such as Matt Canterino look like they would be dominant forces at the back end of games, but the Twins have shown no signs of moving them out of starting roles. Instead it appears most of the internal bullpen options are minor league signings in AAA. By all accounts it appears the Twins are destined to explore the bullpen trade market in July. Why not kickstart the process now?
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