stringer bell

Cleveland is another team that has struggled against left handed pitching for years. Having three or four lefties in the 'pen against the Guardians is probably a good strategy. Three teams that are heavily right handed are Houston, Toronto and New York (Yankees).

Mitch Garver reupped with Seattle on a minor league deal. He’ll have to beat out Jhonny Pereda to make the club.

I don't think I agree. With a 4-4 or 3-5 mix, yes, the lefties would have to face right handed hitters, but with the three hitter rule, they already do that. All four prospective lefty members of the 'pen faced more right handed hitters than left handed hitters last year, ranging from Chafin's 51.6% to Funderburk's 59.4%. For comparison purposes the Twins top four right handed setup relievers faced right handed hitters from Jax's 48.2% to Varland's 54.1%.

Remember that despite France winning a Gold Glove, going into the season he was regarded as a poor defender at first base. It turned out that his defense was very good. Bell has been at least average to above average as a hitter every year he's been in the league except for the shortened COVID season. He can be counted on as a decent hitter with about as much confidence as any non-superstar. France doesn't have that kind of hitting profile. Obviously, the rest of Bell's profile drags down his value, but as a DH he is fine and probably worth the money. The Twins had a glaring hole to fill at 1B/DH that Bell fills pretty well. On balance, I think he's a decent acquisition, but not a program turner.

I agree that the roster is a mess. Any organization that has Brooks Lee as the starting shortstop (in ink) and Kreidler, Gray and Arcia competing for a backup/utility role is woefully short in the infield. Meanwhile the outfield configuration freezes out their best young talent because established mediocrity is in the way. It now appears that a lot of pitching talent will be getting their innings in St. Paul while the bullpen has been patched with 30 somethings who may or may not still be effective, but with no obvious closer. Not optimum. I know @DocBauer has been shouting from the rooftops for Lowe all off-season, but that he ended up with a minor league contract seems fishy in a bad way. No one in MLB was willing to give him a major league contract. There has to be more than a poor walk season involved. I continue to look for activity to address the Twins' major deficiencies, probably a trade, not another free agent signing. The team is supposed to compete with reduced payroll (and $10M of that is dead money). Truly a tough needle to thread.

Good move in most every respect. I do think this means that Funderburk no longer has a spot in the bullpen written in ink. Now for the commentary on the transactions the last couple of weeks: The Twins and their GM are obviously limited in payroll. It does look like $110M is all they are allotted to spend. The last few signings are in the $1-3M range with easily attainable bonuses for both Hendriks and Chafin. They could have brought in one $10M player instead of signing Rogers, Hendriks, Chafin etc., but I don't think $10M is the kind of money a truly key guy will even consider. They had a huge need in the bullpen and have added enough guys that they can actually put out eight guys with over a year's experience if they want. The overabundance of lefty DH/corner guys has been knocked down by only one (Julien trade) and so far the utility infielder/backup shortstop is still a huge deficit particularly when the assumed starter is both unproven and injury prone. I hope a trade is made to take care of both issues.

Others have noted how many former Twins are back with the team in one capacity or another. Off the top of my head, Shelton (former coach) is the new manager, Latroy Hawkins is the new bullpen coach, Michael A. Taylor and Ryan Pressly added as on-field instructors, but not coaches. Between the lines, the Twins have brought back Taylor Rogers, Liam Hendriks, Cody Laweryson, Matt Bowman, David Banuelos and Gio Urshela. Did I miss anyone?

He hasn't lost much speed. I believe he had the fourth or fifth highest sprint speed in MLB in 2025. That said, the numbers haven't been that extraordinary for a while. I thought it was caution after suffering so many injuries colliding with fences and people. If somebody who is here for as long or longer than Buxton, it may be time to occupy a corner.

At the bottom of the OP, in red.

Agreed, but Correa wasn't "CC in his prime" last year either. Lee does need to maximize his range by being as quick as possible with his first step and taking proper routes to ball. I was surprised that he had better stats as a righty hitter. Most switch hitters are better from the side where they get more at-bats.

Click on "view full article".

Yeah, Chafin to the ‘“experienced veteran” group and Laweryson to the inexperienced, younger team control group. Maybe Funderburk isn’t safe, since he has an option remaining.

A quick glance shows that Funderburk had the most neutral splits in 2025, but that Chafin in his career has the most neutral and lowest OPS splits.

Will they carry all four (lefty) guys if they're healthy? I thought that Funderburk earned a spot with his performance late last year. Rogers and Banda are locks and Chafin has been around a long time and mostly been effective.

Laweryson signed a minor league deal with the Twins. So, it took a while but the Twins got what they wanted when they DFAd him earlier.

The Twins have room in their bullpen for people who can get outs, no matter what type of contract they have. They have brought eleven pitchers presumably all competing for bullpen slots. They can roughly be divided in two categories, veterans over 30 with substantial service time or younger guys with little experience. Liam Hendriks, by virtue of the basic agreement has opt-outs, but any of the veterans might have an opt-out or upward mobility clause in their minor league contract. The younger guys would either go to St. Paul or be released if they don't make the team and that would be the Twins' decision. Here's a brief thumbnail on each of the veterans: Hendriks--37, three time All-Star, former Twin, injuries and illness (cancer) in the past three years. Bowman, 34 years old, over 5 years service time, so-so stuff, has really bounced around the last few years. Dan Altavilla, 33, over 5 years service time, threw a good 29 innings last year, injured prior to that. 96 mph fastball. Julian Merryweather, over 5 years service time, good in 2023, struggled since, perhaps injury related, 96 mph fastball. Much less information to be had for the younger non-roster invitees. Only 28 year old Grant Hartwig has any major league experience, and that is less than one year of service time, with two option years remaining. Hartwig also has a good fastball and has done well limited hard contact in his brief major league career. Hartwig was in the Mets organization. Corey Lewis, 25 years old, and Trent Baker, 27, were in the Twins minor league system. Lewis spent all year at St. Paul (poor numbers) and Baker evenly split his time between Wichita and St. Paul with decent success. Matt Canterino has stayed in the Twins system but barely pitched in the last three years due to injury. Lefty Chritian MacLeod, 26 in April, pitched at three levels in the Twins organization, but he had poor numbers in his last stop at St. Paul .Andrew Bash,29, put up good numbers for the Blue Jays AAA team in 84 innings. Raul Brito, 29 in May, put up good numbers in the San Diego organization until last year. I think at least one of these guys and probably two will make the club out of spring training and I would expect it would be the veteran guys. Hendriks is the most likely due to his past history and the automatic opt-outs in his contract. Both Altavilla and Merryweather are intriguing having high velocity fastballs and previous major league success. I welcome other's opinions and any further information on the guys coming from other organizations.

Concur. Elite is an exaggeration. Banda is like so many other relievers--he might be great, he might be terrible, he'll probably be somewhere in between. It's pretty much a crapshoot.

Yeah, there are a lot of categories. 1) Locks 2) Rostered with options 3) Rostered-no options 4) Non-rostered veteran (age 30+, 2 or more year service) 5) Non-rostered (team controlled) and you could add left handed and right handed, but it appears all of the competition will be between the right handers.

The ERAs from the last two years look pretty good, but the rest of his numbers are pretty pedestrian. 96 mph fastball at age 33 is a good sign, I think. It looks like the bullpen will contain three left handers. I guess that is one way to insure that Preliepp stays as a rotation candidate. Among the lefties, I wouldn't be surprised to see the pecking order change quite often as far as which guy gets the highest leverage opportunities. The bullpen still isn't high quality or deep, but they've added several veteran arms and maybe one or two will click. It also looks like no more than one more starting candidate will be moved to the bullpen with a really good competition for the fourth and fifth starter spots (SWR will be on the active roster somewhere). There are no guarantees that he'll even be decent, but he could have a really good year because 90% of bullpen pitchers are extremely unpredictable. Banda appeared to be healthy last year and worked in 78 games counting postseason. It appears this is the most he has been used since he got to the majors.

I don't expect Lee to have a career anywhere close to either of the two I mentioned. In that respect you are misconstruing what I am saying. What I am saying is that if he hits well above average (undoubtedly a big IF) Lee's athletic limitations don't rule him out from playing shortstop. As you noted, these are veteran players who debuted with superior tools in speed and throwing and Bichette might be through playing shortstop now. I'll also grant that if Brooks ends up being a well-above-average hitter, he'll will probably play the bulk of his career at another position. In an earlier post, I said the Lee profiles as a stopgap at shortstop. I think it is likely he playing another position (or utility role) by the end of 2026. There's a chance he'll turn out to be a pretty good player. These two statements could both be true.

Gary Sanchez signed a major league deal with the Brewers. One year $1.75M. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/02/brewers-to-sign-gary-sanchez-2.html

If this is the substantial move to improve the bullpen, I less than impressed. I don't know how healthy Hendriks is and I don't know how much he has left in the tank. Hey, Ben Rortvedt is available and he played for the Twins! That seems to be a prerequisite for signing with the Twins.

Yes, he's being moved by the Mets. Bichette did log more than six years as a shortstop. I would venture a guess that Bichette would be the shortstop for at least a dozen teams because of his bat.

The radar gun and the stopwatch should then eliminate Corey Seager, since he is slower with a lower velocity arm than Lee. Another to mention is Bo Bichette. These examples show the importance of being a good hitter. Bichette and Seager are elite hitters for their position and their lack of speed and arm strength can be papered over when you are so much above average as a hitter. I have more hope for Lee to hit well than be an above average defender and he may not have all the skills to compensate for the lack of speed and arm strength. It isn't unprecedented to thrive without top of the line tools, but it makes the margin really small. A bit off topic, but I was surprised that Carlos Correa wasn't on top of the chart for arm strength (172nd out of 395), Also of note to me, I had always considered Austin Martin limited by his post-surgical throwing arm, but it has come back to average (179th at 84.9 MPH).

The 2025 trade was made by a guy who isn't there any more. Zoll may or may not believe the same thing.