Should The Twins Bring Back Taylor Rogers?

[Cody Pirkl]

The Twins need bullpen help and could certainly use another left hander to mix and match with late in games. Luckily an old friend is looking for a home this winter. Is a reunion with Taylor Rogers in the cards?

Image courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

The Twins have mostly neglected the bullpen in years past and it’s more often than not blown up in their faces. The few additions they typically make are what many consider “bargain bin” pitchers, typically coming off of rough seasons in search of a bounce back. By targeting Taylor Rogers, they can stick to the strategy we’ve seen them use time and time again, though this time the payoff could be much better.

Rogers is coming off of a rough season by his standards. In 64 innings he posted a 4.76 ERA. His strikeout rate remained strong at 30.7%, still in the 10th percentile in all of baseball. His walks ticked up slightly as did his homers, though neither to a worrisome degree. While his peripherals were higher than usual, they were far from disastrous (3.32 FIP, 3.26 xFIP). His season was marred by untimely meltdowns, blowing 10 saves between San Diego and Milwaukee. Is there hope Rogers could rebound in his age-32 season?

As noted, Rogers was still able to strike out hitters at an impressive clip, and while his average fastball was down over a full tick from 2021, his average of 94.3 mph isn’t far off from his career norm. There isn’t much to suggest that he’s entered the decline of his career quite yet aside from his unsightly ERA. 

One little talked about factor of Rogers's season is that it appeared San Diego changed the shape of his slider. The pitch was three mph slower than it was in 2021 and had 40.4 inches of drop as opposed to 35.7 in 2021. Instead of the hard breaker we’d grown accustomed to seeing, Rogers was throwing more of a looping breaking ball. While the results didn’t show up on the slider, it was likely easier to differentiate between his out-pitch and his sinker. His slider’s underlying success was about the same, but his fastball produced the worst underlying numbers of his career. It seems like this would be an easy fix for Rogers to make. With the rest of his stuff appearing to be intact, Rogers could be due for a huge bounce-back. At the very least his underlying numbers as is suggest he massively underperformed in 2022.

Rogers also had an absurd 16 saves through May 21, as a questionable Padres bullpen leaned on him heavily to begin the season before he began to unravel. We saw a decline in performance from the left-hander in Minnesota during several seasons when Rogers was ridden particularly hard. The Padres may have simply bent him until he broke early in the year, especially given the fact that he was coming off of a finger injury. A Twins bullpen consisting of Duran, Jax, Thielbar, Lopez, etc. is a far cry from the bullpens of Twins past or the Padres early 2022 bullpen in which Rogers was the go-to guy for every situation. With more options, the Twins would be able to avoid any kind of burnout Rogers has suffered from in the past.

In regards to the fit, the Twins could greatly use another left-handed option even as Caleb Thielbar has become a certified dude. Having two left-handed options who can also get righties out at a respectable clip would add an entirely new dimension to the Twins bullpen. We often saw Thielbar pitching in late situations regardless of matchup in 2022 when other arms were missing or struggling, leaving the Twins without another effective lefty if a matchup opportunity arose. Rogers would be an easy and familiar fix.

Let's be honest. The Twins aren’t going to all of a sudden pony up and sign a legit back end of the bullpen reliever. It’s not in their DNA. There’s a lengthy list of their typical candidates they’ll probably be plucking a few names from in hopes that one of their bounce-back projects finally works out. Instead of hitching their wagon to an Ian Kennedy or Archie Bradley, why not reach out to a familiar face with tangible signs of a rebound in their profile? Not to mention the fact that it would be a homecoming for a homegrown player who was just recently a fan favorite.

Taylor Rogers checks a lot of boxes that the Twins are looking for, and a reunion just seems like it would make too much sense. Should we be hoping to see the former anchor of the Twins bullpen added back to a new look core at the back end of games in 2023? Let us know below.

 

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[Brock Beauchamp]

Testing

[Doctor Gast]

If MN sticks with stressing short relief (most very likely) then yes, Rogers would be great. Rogers was very much needed last season and as you stated he was great with SD at 1st until SD misuse of him caught up to him. Stat gazers gave up on him so I hoped that Rogers would be available on the cheap. But most MLB teams are not that stupid, he'd be courted by many eager teams that'll pay top dollar for him. MN doesn't like to spend on RPs and won't want to admit they were wrong, so no.

[Thebigalguy]

Trading away Rogers was ridiculous. At least when they traded Pressly they got good return, though a bullpen with those two would be wicked. If he's affordable as a free agent, do it. Maybe he can replace the incomparable Pagan.

[mnfireman]

No. Failing in SD was one thing, but it continued in Milwaukee. It actually got worse in Milwaukee.

[farmerguychris]

Yes we should.  The 2 reasons we let him go was injury concerns, and that we knew we would not pick up another year of arbitration.  We can offer him a lesser contract and if things go south performance wise - cut him like we did Joe Smith.

[RpR]

Get him and his brother.

[Whitey333]

Yes.  Get him.  Twins blew it by trading him for a couple of stiff pitchers.  Plus we gave Padres money to pay Rogers salary. What kind of a messed up trade was that?  Any twins team and FO that can keep that "great talent" Pagan is not serious at all about contending.

[Craig Arko]

Yes, a fine complement to Duran and Lopez; and with the trio he shouldn’t need to pitch often on consecutive days, which was a known issue.

[Trov]

If the price is right I am fine with brining him back, but it should be on a very cheap 1 year contract. 

[chpettit19]

If he's cheap and they aren't planning on just plugging him in as their everyday closer they should absolutely look at him. As a middle reliever he'd potentially be a very nice fit. We already know he can't go back to back days so I don't want him brought in as some late inning savior, but he could be a very nice lefty piece in the middle of the pen.

I'm not sure I agree with the assessment that "San Diego changed the shape of his slider," though. When do you think they made that change? He got there on opening day. I don't think they chucked him in the trackman that day and told him to change the shape of his slider. Then he got off to a great start so I'm guessing they weren't out there telling him to change the shape of his slider in the middle of April when he was dominating. I don't think the San Diego staff told him to change anything. Maybe the reason they were willing to trade him to Milwaukee was because they couldn't get his slider back after he lost it. I think it's just the nature of 90% of relievers that they're finicky and any little thing being off leads to them being bad. It's why they're relievers instead of starters for the most part. Being able to get his slider back may be a nice tweak to try to make if they do re-sign him, though.

[jmlease1]

I'm not opposed to bringing Rogers back at a reasonable price, but I'd say we have a greater need for a flame-throwing righty, unless the team is very comfortable with Moran stepping forward as a relief option already.

Rogers should still be death to lefties, but just another guy against righties, so I'm not exactly panting at grabbing him.

I suspect he will bounce back this season and be a quality relief option, but as a 1 inning, can't pitch back to back days option I'm not sure he's what we need.

[gman]

I'd bring him back no reservations.

[HerbieFan]

i dont see the downside...assuming reasonable contract

[Danchat]

13 minutes ago, HerbieFan said:

i dont see the downside...assuming reasonable contract

He was one of the worst relievers in baseball in the second half, so bad that the Brewers demoted him to low leverage innings. There is a lot of downside here.

I would guess the Twins don’t want to pay him, which is part of the reason why they moved him… but seeing how both SD and MIL ended up demoting him, I’d only bring him back on a prove-it deal. MLBT thinks he gets 3/$30M… no thanks.

[MTV]

14 hours ago, RpR said:

Get him and his brother.

Fantastic Idea, the Bay Area also has some solid pieces the twins could trade for and that 1-2 combo would be wonderful in high-leverage, which is exactly what the twins need.

[MTV]

Rogers looks like he should probably fill a high-end reliever role or setup job, and could still bounce back to being a closer. His struggles in Milwaukee will likely make him cheaper and the Twins could use another veteran lefty, send him a contract for $6-8m a year on a 2-3 year contract (idk if the organization would do that, but let’s hope so). This bullpen needs improvements and bringing back Rogers could be an easy one.

[Otaknam]

Relief pitchers can bounce back from a bad season, so yes, sign Rogers to replace Pagan. They need another lefty and it doesn’t look like there are a lot of left handed prospects ready for the bigs. 

[Minny505]

Seems like a decent one-year-contract bullpen arm.

[Stew]

We should not have traded him. But can the front office suck it up and bring him back 

[Mike Sixel]

I would bring him back for a reasonable deal. I think if used correctly, he's still quite good. 

[Major League Ready]

23 hours ago, Stew said:

We should not have traded him. But can the front office suck it up and bring him back 

Why?  What exactly was the cost of trading him.  He was bad.  So was Pagan and Paddack is hurt so I would be more inclined to say they traded him for the wrong players but how is trading a player that performed poorly a mistake?

[Stew]

Rodgers had 30+ saves in the national league. Did we have 30 saves for us in the whole season.? The reason people thought he did poorly was because of an injury. That being healed allowed him to grip the ball better and effectively use his pitches better.