Who Are Your Top 5 Relief Pitchers in Minnesota Twins History?

For this analysis, I wanted to go beyond plain stats, although they’re still the core here. I’m not looking to define only who are the most talented relievers to take the mound for Minnesota, but also take into consideration their loyalty and impact on the club and their playoff contribution (if there has been one). Without further ado, here are the five relievers I believe contributed the most to the Twins and my reasons for their placements.

5. Al Worthington

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think Worthington is overlooked in most discussions about the best Twins relievers and I think that’s because of his unimpressive number of saves in Minnesota. But that doesn’t affect how important he was for the club in its first decade in the Twin Cities. The Reds gave up on him after an awful sequence of six games to start the 1964 season and the Twins picked him up in late June and had no regrets. He left the Reds with a 10.29 ERA in those six games, but went on to pitch 41 games for Minnesota, 36 of which were scoreless appearances, posting an outstanding 1.27 ERA and earning 14 saves at the end of the year. He was worth 2.5 WAR in only three months.

After such great first impression, Worthington rose to the occasion and became one of the best relievers in the league. He finished in the top ten of saves in the majors in all but one of the five following seasons (1969, his retirement year) and he led the AL with 18 in 1968. He was also an important part of the club’s first playoff run, in 1965. He couldn’t put out the fire set by starter Mudcat Grant in game 4 of the World Series, but he kept the team alive with two scoreless innings in relief of Jim Kaat in game 7. He would end his career with Minnesota, holding, by then, the club record for innings pitched as a reliever, with 473 1/3, and strikeouts, with 399. He was the first great reliever in Twins history.

4. Eddie Guardado

The “Everyday Eddie” history with Minnesota is definitely special. Until this day, no reliever has pitched more games (623) or innings (579) in a Twin uniform. But his first stint with the club should be divided into two moments. Drafted by the team in 1990, he first came to the majors in 1993 as a starting pitcher, but found no success in that role. He started the transition to full-time reliever in 1996 and didn’t find success right away, but he found his mojo in 1997 and started his seven-season career peak. From 1997 to 2003 he had a very decent 3.70 ERA, 128 ERA+ and 8.7 K/9. He led the AL in saves in 2002 and earned MVP votes that year. He was named an All-Star in 2002 and 2003, before being granted free agency. In two postseason appearances for the Twins, he wasn’t nearly as brilliant, but Minnesota did win four of the five games he finished in October and he earned three saves.

3. Jeff Reardon

One of the most important acquisitions for the 1987 Twins, Reardon only stayed in Minnesota for three seasons, but they are among the greatest ones from a reliever in club history. He didn’t have the best start of the regular season in his first year in Minnesota (5.32 ERA in the first half), but it was on the playoffs that he proved his worth. He pitched in eight of the twelve postseason games that year. He earned three saves in the playoffs, including the game 7 victory, in which he had a 1-2-3 ninth inning against the Cardinals’ batters 3-4-5. He didn’t allow a single run or walk in the World Series. He went back to the All-Star Game in 1988, notching 42 saves and earning MVP votes. He became a free agent after the 1989 season, leaving Minnesota then with the second most saves in club history, with 104.

2. Joe Nathan

One of the best relievers the game has ever seen, Nathan had the most amazing run any Twins reliever has ever had. For six years, he kept a ridiculous 237 ERA+, to go with a 1.87 ERA and 2.40 FIP. He made four All-Star appearances and finished in the top five of the Cy Young voting twice. He leads all Twins relievers in almost every metric, including saves (260), ERA (2.16), FIP (2.58), strikeouts (561), fWAR (14.1), WPA (24.55). The one and only stain in Nathan’s career as a Twin and, thus, the reason he’s not at the top of my personal ranking, were his unsuccessful playoff appearances. Not that he was the only one to blame or even among the guiltiest players, but in three postseason runs, Nathan had a 4.70 ERA and a -0.562 WPA, which indicates how much the Twins missed him in October. In my personal experience, his blown save in game 2 of the 2009 ALDS was absolutely soul-crushing.

1. Rick Aguilera

Aguilera takes the top of my rankings for checking all the boxes. He pitched for 11 years in a Twins uniform, which included some of the worst years in recent history. He even chose to come back as a free agent, after being traded to the Red Sox in 1996. He became the Twins’ saves leader in 1992 and more than doubled Ron Davis' previous record (108), ending his career in the Twin Cities with 254. He’s also the second in games played (460) and innings pitched in relief (507), through which he kept a 3.50 ERA, a 3.58 FIP and 130 ERA+. Granted, he wasn’t as talented as Nathan, but he has the upper hand when we’re talking about October. Aguilera’s performance during the 1991 playoffs was extraordinary. He pitched a total of seven games, with the Twins winning six of them. He had a 1.08 ERA in those playoffs, earning five saves and a WPA of 0.571. He was the winning pitcher of game 7, coming into the game in the 10th inning and pitching a couple of scoreless innings.

Honorable mentions and future candidates

Picking just five is an difficult task and it’s almost impossible to be completely fair. For example, it was painful not to include Glen Perkins here, especially because of his relationship with Minnesota, his home state. He was also the bright spot for five years of a very bad team, being named for three consecutive All-Star Games and having three 30+ saves seasons in that span.

Other relievers that had impressive moments with the Twins were Doug Corbett, who had the second highest WPA for a reliever in major leagues history in 1980 (7.58) and was named for an All-Star Game in 1981; Tom Hall, who in 1970 was worth 4.1 fWAR and is one of the 13 relievers in MLB history to have 4.0+ fWAR in a season, the only Twin to ever do so. Matt Guerrier didn’t have closing duties, but he definitely deserves a mention, as he logged 488 relief innings in eight years in Minnesota (third most), maintaining a decent 3.40 ERA.

A couple of current Twins have a great chance to make history in the club’s bullpen. Taylor Rogers has become one of the key pieces of Minnesota’s pitching staff, especially after Rocco Baldelli assigned him closing duties during last season. He got 30 saves last year, at age 28. Nathan didn’t get his first save as a Twin until he was 29, so there’s a large chance Rogers surpasses him, depending on how long he stays in Minnesota and pitches well. Also, Trevor May currently holds the highest K/9 (11.67) and K% (31%) of all relievers in Twins history (min. 150 IP). It will be very interesting to see how his career will develop after he had a career year as a reliever in 2019.

The “Goose Eggs” perspective

Modern bullpens have been centered around closers and saves, for good or for bad. But statistician Nate Silver, from FiveThirtyEight, came up with an interesting point of view to evaluate relievers beyond just saves. He proposes a statistic called “Goose Egg”, which is “a scoreless inning when it’s the seventh inning or later and the game is tied or his team leads by no more than two runs”. According to him, he designed the metric after Baseball Prospectus’ Russell Carleton brought up the problems with saves.

Although “Goose Eggs” didn’t become popular, it’s still an fun alternative to say how good relievers actually are. I looked into their database and found the ten relievers with most Goose Eggs in Twins history. Draw your conclusions about it.

All-time Twins total “Goose Eggs” leaders

Joe Nathan — 230

Rick Aguilera — 224

Al Worthington — 195

Eddie Guardado — 174

Ron Davis — 142

Glen Perkins — 130

Jeff Reardon — 116

Doug Corbett — 115

Juan Rincón — 108

Matt Guerrier — 104

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