Andrew Gebo

It’s certainly no secret that a strong bullpen is a common trait among championship teams. The Kansas City Royals made back-to-back World Series appearances, in 2014 & 2015, winning it all in 2015 on the backs of a very strong bullpen. The likes of Wade Davis, Kelvin Herrera and Greg Holland were a major part of their success. The team that beat them in 2014, the San Francisco Giants, also posted a stellar bullpen. Led by their “Core Four” (Jeremy Affeldt, Javier Lopez, Sergio Romo, and Santiago Casilla) they were able to win three titles in five years. While they had had other key members such as former ROY & MVP Buster Posey and Postseason legend, Madison Bumgarner, the impact of ther bullpen cannot be overlooked. Now, since this is a Twins site I should probably talk about the Twins. Going into the season the bullpen was supposed to be downfall of this team. They were only going to go as far as the bullpen would let them. This was not an illogical expectation. Strong bullpens are a foundation of really good teams (see above). However, after a month and some pocket change into the season their bullpen is having all the laughs at that early season rhetoric. For the purpose of this blog post let’s all just close our eyes and pretend Mejia hasn’t pitched in 2019. I usually close my eyes when he pitches anyway so it’s all the same. With the exception of Mejia, the Twins have gotten stellar performances from a numbers of guys in their ‘pen. Per FanGraphs, here is how some of their relievers have performed so far this year. Trevor Hildenberger - 10.1ip, 3.48 ERA Taylor Rogers - 13.2ip, 1.98 ERA Blake Parker - 9.1ip, 0.96 ERA Trevor May - 10.2ip, 3.38 ERA Ryne Harper - 11.2ip, 2.31 ERA I do realize it’s only early May and there’s still a lot of baseball left to play. I’m not saying Rogers will have a sub-2 ERA over the course of the full season. Would be awesome if he does but let’s be real about all this. Now with all this said, I would like to see them add another quality arm or two at the deadline. The guy that jumps to mind right now is lefty Will Smith of the Giants. They’re not going anywhere and they have a surplus of quality bullpen arms. Until then, however, let’s recognize and appreciate what this group has done so far this year. Thank you for reading!

First, regarding Austin, the Giants are in desperate needs of outfielders who can even semi-hit. They’ve also been using Brandon Belt out there. Both in LF and RF. He’s played there before but he’s subpar in the OF and primarily a first baseman, but i guess we can give him credit for trying. So for the Giants it woulddn’t even had made sense to pick up Austin had they not intended to use him in the OF. Let this sink in, their Opening Day corner outfielders were Michael Reed and Connor Joe, both of which aren’t even on the 40 man roster anymore. So saying the Giants use Austin in the OF as a reason why the Twins should have done the same is apples to oranges. Now, regarding the Twins and having La Tortuga in RF with Marwin at 3B, I think it’s a valid question. However, I think the reason for it is likely because they want to find out if he can play RF on a more semi regular basis. They know Marwin can, they don’t need to see him out there to feel comfortable putting him there. The same can’t really be said of Astudillo. Staring him out there against the Orioles with your ace on the bump is a very low risk move.