Monitoring The Bullpen

Granted, the Twins signed MLB veteran lefty reliever Fernando Abad to a minor league contract. There was never really any question that he would make the Opening Day roster.

Abad was one of several pitchers signed to minor league deals. Besides Abad, the only pitcher who really had a chance at cracking the Opening Day roster was right-hander Brandon Kintzler, another veteran with several years of big league service time. Dan Runzler and Buddy Boshers were nice stories for spring training, and maybe one of them will perform at AAA and eventually get a promotion back to the big leagues.

There were not many bullpen jobs available. Glen Perkins is signed for another year. Kevin Jepsen, after what he did for the Twins after last year’s trade deadline, was coming back, and that’s a good thing. We can debate bringing back Casey Fien, but once he was re-signed, he was a given. Trevor May got some opportunity this spring to start, but we all knew that he would go to the bullpen. Michael Tonkin was out of options. Ricky Nolasco was a possibility for a bullpen spot depending upon spring training performance. Again, there were only one or two jobs to be competed for.

In my opinion, I was always comfortable with Twins not wanting to go beyond one year with any relief pitcher for a few reasons. First and foremost, there are very few relievers who are good for multiple years, especially free agent pitchers who are already 31 years old, or older. Most likely, during a two-year contract, the pitcher would be good one of the years. In a three-year contract, you could hope beyond hope that you get two decent years. Of course, we can follow the next three years of Tony Sipp and Antonio Bastardo to see how they pan out.

Secondly, the Twins are loaded with relief pitching prospects, guys that we hope are ready sometime in 2016. Guys that we don’t want to see blocked by mediocre veterans.

In the same Offseason Handbook Terry Ryan interview, Ryan was asked about the power arms in the system and if they could surface in 2016. He said, “Yeah, we do. I do. I would expect some of those guys to surface this year. I was hoping maybe last year but it was maybe one year premature. Some of those guys had a few struggles, and that’s not a bad thing. Alright, now you know what you’ve gone through. Now you can take a step back. A few of them are out in that Arizona Fall League which is good. I would think that some of those guys are going to surface this year which would be well received here. We can use some of that influx of people. I would like to see some of those relief pitchers there.”

In 2016, the following pitchers could come up and contribute to the Minnesota Twins. (Note-That is not saying all of them will, just that they are at a point in their career and development that it is possible)

40-Man Roster

Alex Meyer

JR Graham

JT Chargois

Taylor Rogers

Ryan O’Rourke

Mason Melotakis

Pat Dean

Non-Roster

Nick Burdi

Jake Reed

Logan Darnell

Brandon Peterson

Alex Wimmers

Now that’s 12 names. Most likely no more than two to four will actually come up in 2016, but by the end of 2017 several more of them will and potentially other names like Luke Bard, Trevor Hildenberger and Yorman Landa will be ready.

All of that is well and good, but for a team that expected to compete in 2016, performance matters. And through one week - a very small percentage of the season - the bullpen has been one of the biggest issues contributing to the Twins 0-7 loss. It’s not the only contributing factor. The complete lack of offense and run scoring has pushed the bullpen issues into the spotlight a lot this first week.

They have had three one-run losses and two-two run losses. In a couple of the games, the Twins lost leads in the late innings.

I’ve always wanted to establish a statistic of sorts to help measure the effectiveness of a relief pitcher. I think it’s fair to say that ERA and even WHIP are not the best statistics to measure the reliability of a reliever. Because relief pitchers generally pitch one, and maybe two, innings once or twice a week, one or two really bad outings can affect how the pitcher’s numbers look for much of the season.

To me, I want to know how often a reliever came into a game, into a situation and got the job done. All pitchers are going to have a few clunkers, so I’m going to try something new this year. I’m going to look at each and every appearance by relief pitchers throughout this season and determine whether or not the pitcher did what he was brought in to do.

Someone else can name this stat, if it’s worthwhile. Frankly, the reality is that this is subjective. Pitching well or getting the job done can mean different things to different people. For instance, if Trevor May comes in to a situation where there are runners on 1st and 3rd and nobody out and gets out of that inning with just one run scoring, I think he got the job done. If Michael Tonkin comes in with runners on and the Twins already down 8-0 in the 2nd inning, but he leaves the game with the Twins down 11-0 after the fifth or sixth inning, I think he did his job. If Glen Perkins comes in to a game with a 2-run lead and give up just one hit but no runs in the inning, he got the job done. If he comes in to a game with a three-run lead, gives up two runs on three hits and two walks but gets the save, I can’t say that he did his job.

So using my opinion, along with box scores and often watching on TV, here are how the members of the 2016 Twins bullpen grade out by this method through the way-too-small-of-a-sample-size of seven games. This stat may be more valuable in six to eight weeks, but here is the introduction:

Pitcher Y N Success

Glen Perkins 0 2 0.0%

Kevin Jepsen 1 2 33.3%

Trevor May 0 3 0.0%

Casey Fien 1 2 33.3%

Ryan Pressly 3 1 75.0%

Michael Tonkin 0 1 0.0%

Fernando Abad 3 0 100.0%

Y=Yes, they got the job done.

N=No, they didn't

Success = percentage

Aside from Fernando Abad and Ryan Pressly, it’s been a tough go for the Twins bullpen so far this season.

As I would say to everyone after a poor seven-game start to the season, it is a long season, and things will (most likely) normalize over the course of the next couple of months.

I don’t know what is good or bad with these percentages. Is 85% good, or is 70% good? I think we can agree from the start that 50% and lower would not qualify as good.

The bullpen was said to be a focus in the offseason. Little significant was done to address it in the offseason which has made it a large focus in the team’s slow start. It is certainly something that warrants monitoring throughout the season.