How do the Twins look with their current relief core for 2022?

I like adding an arm or two just because you're going to run through SO many arms, you've got to have a plethora of options.  I would build from the back end first.  Rogers can close.  But I scratch my head as to why Rocco was using Colome and Robles instead of Rogers more last year.  Were the Twins trying to depress Rogers stats to make his arb. number lower ??  That's no way to manage.  I would LOVE Rich Rodriguez as a closer but I would also love to see the Twins add an arm like Alex Reyes from the Cardinals.  His value is LOW and the Cards have had other arms move past him.  He still has tremendous "stuff."  I would like to see a trade with the Cards that brings us SS Paul DeJong and Alex Reyes.  Not sure what the Cardinals would be looking for but it would not cost much to pry those two away from them.  Sosa seems to have beaten DeJong out for the SS position.  

A trade with the Cardinals could look something like this:

Twins get:  DeJong (SS) 4.50   Alex Reyes (RHP)  0.0    4.50 Total Value.

Cards get:  Strotman (RHP) 3.9   Valimont  (RHP)  1.1    5.00 Total Value.

Don't you consider Moran or Stashak as potential 2022 contributors to the pen?  If so, why not?

I think Jovani Moran is going to be a significant contributor in the bullpen in 2022 (assuming there's a season, of course). He had some struggles in his first taste last season, but also showed he had the pitches to compete. He's got some control issues that he needs to keep working on, but you can absorb the BBs when you hunt Ks like he does. He's a lefty who can torch guys from both sides of the plate and I think he's for real.

I wouldn't mind them adding one more RHP for the bullpen, but otherwise I'm ok with rolling with what we have and cycling guys through to find an effective and consistent bullpen.

Rogers, Duffey, Alcala, and Thielbar are a solid crew for the back end, and then you add in Garza, Cotton, and Moran/Coloumbe plus one more RHP fireballer and the 'pen looks pretty solid, flexible, and ready to go. Few players on scholarship and the biggest risk is Rogers being healthy, but he's also the most proven guy so he's worth the risk.

I don't believe in throwing extra cash at a guy because they're a "proven closer", and I don't believe in dropping $5-8M AAV contracts on most relievers. Too many of those guys are fungible from year to year and not worth the risk. I'd rather go with guys who have minor league options left who can be cycled, converting failed starters, and only putting the cash down on top talent.

IMO is that the last several seasons, we've had a break down in the BP at some point, which also overextends the rotation. IMO where we can avoid that is having  solid long relief, having a solid crew w/ rotating AAAA prospects. Last season we put too much confidence on a weak rotation and a failing short relief (Last season when Colume' was terrible they should've yanked him immediately as being the closer and slowly work him back) , which was our early demise. 

We have a good core, I like Richard Rodrigues as an cheap option. We have even a weaker rotation this season. Is why we should have a stronger long relief corp, rotating pitching prospects, playing who's hot, keeping the rotation and short relief fresh

4 hours ago, TopGunn#22 said:

A trade with the Cardinals could look something like this:

Twins get:  DeJong (SS) 4.50   Alex Reyes (RHP)  0.0    4.50 Total Value.

Cards get:  Strotman (RHP) 3.9   Valimont  (RHP)  1.1    5.00 Total Value.

Appealing trade possibility, although I'd give up a DH type with a low pitching prospect. With the DH being adapted in NL they should go for it.

I look forward to the day when all the stats reverse themselves and we discover that arms can't pitch every other day so a bullpen has to be set up with a starting pitcher that actually gets innings.  

I think we're either going to see pictures eventually start to take innings like they should or will start seeing six man rotations and they will be forced to extend the roster to accommodate for all the arms that are needed. 

Of course the problem is we see already is that there are not that many arms that are viable and so we will continue to have a lot of mediocre pitching. And I don't mean just the twins I mean overall in baseball.

I see comments about not paying so much for proven closures and that's fine. But I also have seen numerous comments about the junk heap pictures that we keep grabbing hoping that they will rebound with another good year or find some magic in a slider. 

I'm sorry to say but this is one area where safer metrics has really adversely impacted baseball from my perspective.  

When you are looking at names on the 40-man roster, I picture Dobnak being groomed solely as a rotation arm. He could start easily at St. Paul to get back to speed. He could also be removed from the 40-man, depending on his spring training, as his contract might be too much to gamble for anotehr team's 40-man roster.

There is also talk of transitioning Jax and Thorpe into long-relief roles, which would be wonderful if you have a bunch of starters who can barely get thru the fifth inning, or have inning caps for the season. Thorpe needs to prove himself in the spring or is gone. Jax could also be the guy on the fringe.

Last year the Twins shuffled many names on the bullpen express  out of St. Paul, guys NOT on the 40-man when the season started. When you do that, you do risk them leaving (Waddell, Anderson). Just remember all those that came, and went: Luke Farrell, Derek Law, Danny Coulombe, Juan Minaya, Ian Gibault, Nick Vincent, Edgar Garcia, Kyle Barraclough, Beau Burrows, Andrew Albers. As well as those minor league free agents signed that didn't make the call: Brecklyn Williams, Jason Garcia, Brandon Koch, Adam Lau, Erik Manoah, Vinny Nittoli, Sean Gilmartin, amongst others.

The Twins also have Yennier Cano getting older, Iam Hamilton back at St. Paul, and Ryan Mason as a prospect that could still disappear in the Rule 5.

But the question remains: Twins have a surefire closer? Necessary if competitive, not necessary if just playing ball games.

I have no interest in Rodriguez short of a minor league deal. His xERA and xFIP both declined significantly last year and they are the better indicators of performance this year.

Colome performed exactly as should have been expected last year with an XFIP of 4.21. It had been 4.26 in 2020. The Twins made the mistake of buying too much into ERA last year with Colome. Will they with Rodriguez?

This team is in big truouble from the mound, all aspects. And when you look at the Top 100 and top 10 MLB position prospects, only Twins' fans seem to think our farm is promising.

1 hour ago, h2oface said:

This team is in big truouble from the mound, all aspects. And when you look at the Top 100 and top 10 MLB position prospects, only Twins' fans seem to think our farm is promising.

There were 6 prospects from last year’s fangraphs top 100 that did not graduate to the major leagues. That would be a well above average number of prospects for a team. I guess that must be just natural fertilizer from the horse on the farm

12 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

I look forward to the day when all the stats reverse themselves and we discover that arms can't pitch every other day so a bullpen has to be set up with a starting pitcher that actually gets innings.  

I think we're either going to see pictures eventually start to take innings like they should or will start seeing six man rotations and they will be forced to extend the roster to accommodate for all the arms that are needed. 

Of course the problem is we see already is that there are not that many arms that are viable and so we will continue to have a lot of mediocre pitching. And I don't mean just the twins I mean overall in baseball.

 

I see comments about not paying so much for proven closures and that's fine. But I also have seen numerous comments about the junk heap pictures that we keep grabbing hoping that they will rebound with another good year or find some magic in a slider. 

I'm sorry to say but this is one area where safer metrics has really adversely impacted baseball from my perspective.  

 

I couldn't agree more.  We need at least a couple of SP's who can get through the lineup 3 times, or we will go right back to where we were last year, with a 13 man staff and 2-4 AAA guys on the St. Paul express back and forth.  If we truly had 15 or 16 pitchers in the system who could get people out on a fairly consistent basis, we wouldn't need 15 or 16 pitchers.  We throw too many innings with pitchers who either can't make the major league roster for any length of time or are at the edge of the roster, both starters and bullpen.  It all begins with the starters; 5 innings or less a game and the bullpen simply has to go too deep into arms that are borderline major league pitchers or less for too many of the innings afterwards.  

I accept I will be lectured on the idea that it is simply the way the game is played today, and that may very well be true, but it doesn't make it the right way to go.  There simply are not enough pitchers of major league caliber to keep going down that path.  Use the ones who are better and longer, and we won't be having this conversation for years to come.  

We keep hearing about our developing pitchers. This is the year to find out how developed they are.

5 hours ago, Mark G said:

I couldn't agree more.  We need at least a couple of SP's who can get through the lineup 3 times, or we will go right back to where we were last year, with a 13 man staff and 2-4 AAA guys on the St. Paul express back and forth.  If we truly had 15 or 16 pitchers in the system who could get people out on a fairly consistent basis, we wouldn't need 15 or 16 pitchers.  We throw too many innings with pitchers who either can't make the major league roster for any length of time or are at the edge of the roster, both starters and bullpen.  It all begins with the starters; 5 innings or less a game and the bullpen simply has to go too deep into arms that are borderline major league pitchers or less for too many of the innings afterwards.  

I accept I will be lectured on the idea that it is simply the way the game is played today, and that may very well be true, but it doesn't make it the right way to go.  There simply are not enough pitchers of major league caliber to keep going down that path.  Use the ones who are better and longer, and we won't be having this conversation for years to come.  

I agree with this. At some point all the clever manipulation of pitching roles don’t matter. If you have crappy pitchers you will get crappy pitching no matter how you slice and dice it.