A big point of contention for Twins fans over the past calendar year has been the bullpen. And while expectations were low heading into 2015, the team exceeded them. The bullpen, however, did not.

Absent context, the bullpen’s numbers don’t look that bad, right? The team cobbled together a 3.95 ERA, a nice 6.9 K/9 and was one of just a handful of American League bullpens to issue fewer than three walks per nine frames. Nothing about that necessarily stands out to the untrained eye, but nothing looks terribly egregious, either.

But context is important — very important. Just three bullpens in the AL fanned fewer than 8.0 batters per nine last year. The other two were the Boston Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers, with the Twins in last place. That’s a familiar spot, as the Twins’ staff on the whole has been last in the AL in K/9 the last five years running. To address those woes, Boston added Craig Kimbrel (14.5 career K/9) in the offseason; Detroit added a trio of guys in Justin Wilson (9.7 K/9 in ‘15), Mark Lowe (1.96 ERA) and the venerable Francisco Rodriguez (2.21 ERA, 9.8 K/9). The Twins added…..Fernando Abad on a minor league deal.

How much did the Twins miss the league average marks by? Let’s have a look:

Statistic – Twins – AL Avg.

ERA – 3.95 – 3.77

FIP – 4.20 – 3.94

K/9 – 6.9 – 8.4

BB/9 – 2.9 – 3.3

GB rate – 43 percent – 44.9 percent

Basically speaking, the team’s only saving grace in the bullpen was its disdain for the free pass. Besides that, not only was it a decidedly uninteresting unit that gave a number of innings to low-ceiling vets like Aaron Thompson and Blaine Boyer, rather than seeing the limits of younger guys like Michael Tonkin.

It wouldn’t be fair to ignore some of the positives the bullpen put together in 2015, either. Boyer’s results (2.49 ERA) didn’t match his peripherals (4.5 K/9, 4.00 FIP), and that turned out to be a good thing. Thompson had a run early in the season where he was unhittable. Glen Perkins was so great in the first half he made the All Star team. Kevin Jepsen was fantastic (1.61 ERA) after coming over in a deal to stabilize the back end, and helped keep the unit together during Perkins’ tumultuous second half. And finally, Trevor May was a revelation after a move to the bullpen, posting a 2.87 ERA and 10.6 K/9 while limiting opposing batters to a .250/.305/.392 line.

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