Is the Minnesota Twins' Bullpen Philosophy Justified?

I thought we already had several articles which identified the Twins bullpen as the best in baseball. 

The bullpen looks good right now. If a big trade occurred with a team and the Twins were able to scoot off with a really decent arm that is on a reasonable salary as a part of the deal , sure add a guy.

Otherwise, we good.

We have players we can trade. I have high hopes on Preilipp but until that happens we need a high-leverage LHRP. I wanted the Twins to target AJ Puk early last offseason, this season MIA still has Nardi, he is my target this season.

I tend to agree with the Twins philosophy on bullpen building; too many of these veteran bullpen guys are fungible and throwing $7M at a guy when it's a flip of a coin whether they're be great, average, or awful isn't the best use of limited resources. I think other teams think about it the same way: better to develop relievers internally or acquire them when they're cheap & controllable to see who can get it done 2-3 seasons in a row and either trade them as they get too expensive or sign them for their prime seasons when you already know they're more dependable.

A strong bullpen is important, but can be built without needing to invest substantial FA $. Cleveland did it that way: they had an incredible season from their bullpen (especially remarkable for how healthy the top guys were) but of their top 4 Clase was acquired via trade when he was cost-controlled and Smith, Gaddis, and Herron were all drafted/signed by Cleveland and came up through their system. Maybe they've guessed right on Sewald, but is he actually going to be any better than Avila (who was sent down to make room for him)? is $7M for Sewald going to get you substantially better results than Tonkin for $1M?

Much rather develop relievers from within than chase guys like Colome or Robles and hope they you catch them on the right year with the right small sample.

I think there philosophical works as long as they keep developing pitchers and flipping those who don’t cut it as starters into relievers by adding velo.  
 

I think guys like Varland and Morris and maybe even Hendricks will be successful relievers once fully converted into the relief role.

"The American League Central has long been among the lowest-spending divisions in baseball, and that hasn’t changed in recent years. For as much as Twins fans bemoan their limited spending, Minnesota leads the division in payroll. All five teams want to spend as little as possible while being competitive. This reality compels all of the front offices to prioritize where they want to spend strictly. The Twins have made their beliefs about the bullpen well known, while it looks like some of their competitors have a different mindset."

Excellent point here that will likely be glossed over by many readers.  I see this narrative that the Twins are cheap and are "severely constrained by payroll considerations" all over almost every article on Twins Daily.  How does this track when we led the Central Division in payroll last year and are way ahead going into 2025?

The truth (IMHO) is that right now 130 million dollars is plenty to field a championship caliber team as long as it is done intelligently.  Our on-field performance last year just didn't cut it overall. 

We have built a darn good bullpen that only looks to be better this year.  The fact that we did it for 12 million instead of 25 should be a crazy good feather in the FO's cap, not an opportunity to cry "CHEAP" yet again.  If everyone plays to their potential this is a very good team.

Shameless plug, but I did a mini-analysis of bullpen spending last offseason: 

What the data shows is that these $5-$15M APY relievers don't move the needle at all. $10M is a heck of a lot of money to spend on your 3rd or 4th best reliever when the Twins don't have a 1B. What would have moved the needle would have been signing Tanner Scott, because that would have moved everyone else into lower leverage roles, and the data shows that bullpens with a member who makes more than $16M/yr are going to be good bullpens.

The data also shows that bullpen success is correlated with how deep starters pitch. Spending $10M-$15M on a veteran inning-eater (like Jose Quintana or Charlie Morton) for the bottom of the rotation will improve the bullpen more than signing Kenley Jansen or David Robertson

If you're concerned about bullpen depth, I'm certain that there will be plenty of cheap (both monetarily and trade comp) mid-leverage relievers available at the trade deadline. I'd much rather save that money for a first baseman or starter.

9 hours ago, NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin said:

Shameless plug, but I did a mini-analysis of bullpen spending last offseason: 

What the data shows is that these $5-$15M APY relievers don't move the needle at all. $10M is a heck of a lot of money to spend on your 3rd or 4th best reliever when the Twins don't have a 1B. What would have moved the needle would have been signing Tanner Scott, because that would have moved everyone else into lower leverage roles, and the data shows that bullpens with a member who makes more than $16M/yr are going to be good bullpens.

The data also shows that bullpen success is correlated with how deep starters pitch. Spending $10M-$15M on a veteran inning-eater (like Jose Quintana or Charlie Morton) for the bottom of the rotation will improve the bullpen more than signing Kenley Jansen or David Robertson

If you're concerned about bullpen depth, I'm certain that there will be plenty of cheap (both monetarily and trade comp) mid-leverage relievers available at the trade deadline. I'd much rather save that money for a first baseman or starter.

 

I concur completely when it comes to the starters going deeper and not relying on the pen as much as some teams do.  I have always been a staunch believer in carrying a long reliever; someone who could relieve a starter who is getting thrashed and keep the ball until the 7th or 8th inning, saving the rest of the pen to fight another day.  Or, as you said, get a back end starter with a rubber arm (not exactly the way you said it, was it?). 😉

Very good comments.  Well thought out and thought provoking.   The highest payroll in the division has always been interesting.  My contention is it's not the total payroll dollars, but how those dollars are allocated.  Spending half of your payroll on 3 players doesn't leave much room for improvements.  Also the notion that the Twins have the best bullpen in baseball is sheer nonsense.  Last year they led all of baseball in inherited runners scoring.  Meaning they couldn't put out the fire.  Isn't that what a good bullpen is for.  Keep in mind this team has missed the playoffs 3 of past 4 years during a so called open window.

I do think our pen is in a good spot, but that doesn't mean we couldn't upgrade. A solid LHRP would be nice. We also have a lot of candidates that could earn a spot in ST or throughout the year. Varland, Canterino, Prelipp, Headrick, Henriquez or any of our up and coming starting pitchers. Maybe guys like Adams, Raya, Culpeper or someone else gets their cup of coffee in the pen. You can never have too much pitching. I do think at least one addition would be helpful.

I would not say the pen as it currently looks is one of the best, but it's not crap either. Depth is an issue and the way this team ...how can I say this, keeps players healthy is absolutely horrible. Its way past the point where injuries are bad luck. There is something wrong from the top down. I don't think they know what they are doing. Maybe it's best they sit on their hands all winter because if you don't do anything, you can't be accused of screwing anything up. if I'm selling the team why the hell do I give a damn what the payroll is? Falvey is either lazy, or just stupid. The new owners are going to fire him anyway.

On 2/1/2025 at 5:04 AM, Mark G said:

I concur completely when it comes to the starters going deeper and not relying on the pen as much as some teams do.  I have always been a staunch believer in carrying a long reliever; someone who could relieve a starter who is getting thrashed and keep the ball until the 7th or 8th inning, saving the rest of the pen to fight another day.  Or, as you said, get a back end starter with a rubber arm (not exactly the way you said it, was it?). 😉

I'm also a staunch believer in long relief. Too many times as far as I can remember, one of the biggest if not the biggest problem is the BP burning out which in turn burns out the rotation going into the home stretch & into the postseason. Last season Baldelli said he wanted to implement long relief. But his idea of long relief is extending RPs like Alcala from 1 to 2 innings. That's not my idea of long relief. My idea is going 3-4 innings to really help the pen. IMO Castellano will fit into this category as a mop-up guy. I'm not sure if Castellano would develop into anything more than that (I don't want to put that kind of pressure on him, which hasn't worked out in the past), so I'd like a bonafide long RP that can go in with games on the line to save the BP.