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There’s no two ways about it: Emilio Pagan rode the rollercoaster as a Twin. He had high highs and low lows. He wasn’t at the top of anyone’s pecking order in the 2023 bullpen—including manager Rocco Baldelli’s—but he filled a role that doesn’t have an immediate replacement, and he was good in that role.
When one thinks about the essential members of the bullpen, archetypes like closer, setup, lefty specialist, and fireman come to mind. Pagán’s run in 2022 as the closer was disastrous. His career home-run numbers prevented him from being used as a fireman, and by the end of his tenure, he was merely an occasional setup man.
Instead, Pagán was a middle innings merchant--and he was pretty daggum good at it. Bolstered by a career-low 0.6 home runs per nine innings (less than half the rate of his next-best year), he pitched to a sub-3.00 ERA, while leading the bullpen at 69 1/3 innings over 66 appearances. He was perfect in his role, holding opponents to an OPS in the .400s between medium- and low-leverage appearances.
His performance was substantially worse in high-leverage situations (.828 OPS against). Still, as a good organization should do, the Twins played to his strengths, only putting him in high-leverage situations for 22 percent of the batters he faced in 2023. He threw at least once in every inning except the second, and 80 percent of his appearances came before the eighth.
Going into 2024, the Twins have a backend that seems pretty solid. Jhoan Duran is paired with right-handed setup men Griffin Jax and Brock Stewart, with Caleb Thielbar primed to return as the high-leverage lefty and Kody Funderburk slotted to fill the second lefty role. The middle innings go-to guy isn’t as clear—especially if the team intends to use someone the way they used Pagán.
It wasn’t only the innings and in-game situations that made Pagán’s usage unique; he was also relied on for his proverbial "rubber arm," in a way that no other Twin has been over the past few years. Last offseason, I pointed out Pagán’s unusual place by the end of 2022. They would throw him wherever and whenever the situation called for it, and he excelled.
There’s a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that Emilio Pagán is going to lead the bullpen in innings https://t.co/qaF0Bua8cm
— Greggory (@greggtmasterson) February 27, 2023
The rest-conscious Twins tend to err on the side of underworking relievers. Pagán threw back-to-back games 14 percent of the time and a team-high 38 percent of the time on exactly one day’s rest. A total of 52 percent of his appearances were on one or fewer days’ rest, which was tied for the most often among Twins relievers with Jax. However, Pagán threw more than one inning in 21 percent of his appearances, and at least two in nine percent of them.
None of the “short-relief” guys who tended to throw on less rest could match Pagán’s multi-inning output. Jax never threw more than an inning. Stewart's 18 percent of appearances matching that criterion is as close as it got, and he only threw two innings once.
Some pitchers threw multiple innings more often than Pagán, but those were guys like Brent Headrick, Jordan Balazovic, Jorge Alcala, and José De León, a group of abused arms that could be swapped out if necessary. Also, did you know that Cole Sands threw a whopping 21 2/3 innings, despite seemingly being on the roster all season?
De León could, potentially, have been another Pagán-type reliever, before his season ended in Tommy John surgery. Based on how the club threw Alcala to the wolves last year after a return from injury, he may be an option for bulk, productive work in the middle innings. Maybe Funderburk carries some of that load as well.
Balazovic is out of options, and the former starter is a potential fill-in in the role, but his lack of strikeouts makes it challenging to put faith in him. Still, the Twins are committed to using him in a bullpen role, so he's in position to take on the burden.
One exciting possibility Matt Canterino, who is also coming off Tommy John surgery but may someday be a late-inning reliever. Canterino might fill a Pagán-like role as he settles into a bullpen role, but it’s hard to imagine the Twins are keen on a Pagán-like usage pattern for a recovering prospect. Also, reports indicate he’s still seen as a starter by the Twins’ brass.
The difficulty in replacing Pagán isn’t that he threw well in the middle innings, or that he threw on little rest, or that he could be counted on for more than three outs at a time—it’s that he did all three. It’s pretty straightforward to replace one of those traits, maybe even two. But all three? That’s a different beast.
I haven’t mentioned any free-agent relievers because, let’s be honest, projecting the Twins’ reliever targets is a futile exercise made more impotent by payroll questions. Who knows? Maybe they’ll throw $2 million at a Joe Smith equivalent and hope it works, but it’s almost not worth discussing. They’ll probably bring in two minor-league veterans or waiver claims that will mysteriously stick.
If a Pagán replacement doesn’t appear, they’ll need to change their philosophy on handling the middle innings. Maybe they throw their bigger arms earlier, or more often, or on shorter rest, to pick up the slack. Maybe the Green Line will bring them middle relievers on a tryout, in addition to the bulk arms for blowouts or injuries.
The point is that the Twins—to a degree—built a bullpen hierarchy around Pagán’s strengths, and it’s going to take some shuffling to work around the lack of a rubber-armed, 2.99 ERA, middle-innings guy. There are options, but it’s hard to see it working as well as it did in 2023.
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