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1. The bullpen might not be so far behind.
That certainly wasn't my impression a year ago, and I didn't expect it be so this time around. Minnesota's relief corps was a weakness in 2015 and the front office did little to address it during the offseason.
However, the talent makeup of the bullpen at the end of 2015 was a lot better than at the beginning, namely due to the additions of Trevor May and Kevin Jepsen. Both look like quality high-leverage arms, and to me, May has the makings of a pivotal difference-maker. Perkins has mostly looked good this spring, and he reports that his ramped up regimen over the offseason is already paying dividends. Cautious optimism is warranted at the back end.
I personally think that the Twins would have benefited from upgrading over Casey Fien, and aiming higher than Fernando Abad on the lefty relief market, but youthful depth offsets those concerns somewhat.
While other teams around the league have focused on building power bullpens with late-inning flame-throwers, the Twins have fallen behind the curve, as reflected by their last-place rank in relief strikeouts last year. But that is changing.
Perkins and Jepsen usually work in the mid-90s with their fastballs and May can run his up to 98. Two righties vying for the final spots, Michael Tonkin and Ryan Pressly, have been flashing 95 and 96 with hard breaking stuff. And that's before you account for minor-leaguers like Nick Burdi, Jake Reed and Alex Meyer, who could all be bringing their upper-90s heat to The Show this summer.
The Twins are not ignorant to the league-wide trend of bullpen gas. They've just characteristically elected to fuel theirs from within.
2. The Twins really like Max Kepler.
Kepler was never going to make this team out of spring training. He has just one season of experience above Single-A and he's been a gradual developer, so the Twins weren't going to risk throwing him right into the fire. Paul Molitor – who has plenty of familiarity with the young outfielder given his years of experience as a minor-league instructor prior to taking the manager gig – basically said as much when asked, even as Kepler's stay carried into the latter portion of March. There was never much suspense.
But the fact that Kepler stuck around as long as he did, up until he was cut last Friday, is telling. A year ago, Eddie Rosario was in a similar position, surprisingly remaining in big-league camp until March 28th. While he wasn't on the Twins roster at the start of the year, it took only a month before he got the call, and he never looked back.
Kepler is a hell of a specimen, with a lithe yet muscular physique and swing mechanics that garner all sorts of complimentary cliches from the old-school ball guys around camp. I think it's safe to say we'll be seeing him up before long.
3. Yep, the Miguel Sano in right field experiment is going to be rough.
There wasn't much reason to expect anything else. Acclimating a ballplayer to a brand new position takes more than a month, and often more than a year. People make a lot of out of Sano's size, and that's certainly a factor, but the biggest problem is a lack of experience and ingrained instincts.
He didn't get a ton of action while I was there, and really hasn't all spring, but I did see him badly bungle a fairly routine liner, and there have been times where his footwork and throws have been noticeably awkward.
Look, the Twins aren't under some delusion that this is an ideal situation. They know it's not, but they feel their hand was forced. They weren't going to uproot an entrenched veteran starter like Joe Mauer or Trevor Plouffe, and the desire not to relegate a 22-year-old to DH duty is understandable.
When asked, coaches and execs tried to focus on the positive aspects of his progress (what else are the going to do?) but they're prepared and expectant of some growing pains.
The good news is that right field falls toward the bottom of the defensive spectrum. Relatively few balls get hit there, and many of them are easy flies and line drives that Sano shouldn't have any problem with. It's a position that impacts games less than perhaps any other.
Still, there are going to be some scary and frustrating moments out there. It will be interesting to see how pitchers react if they get bit repeatedly by the young slugger's inexperience.
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