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What do we make of the Twins bullpen in this era where bullpens have supplanted starters? Closers, Openers, Lefty and righty specialists, relievers for innings 5,6,7,8,9. Lots of warm ups, lots of wasted time. In my world we would not have openers and we would limit the teams to 4 pitchers per nine innings which would really make the manager think about who to bring in and when - if they are on their third pitcher in the sixth inning. We might have to teach starters to learn what starters in the past learned – how to conserve themselves, who to put max effort into, and to think about quick outs instead of 6 – 9 pitch outs. But my dream does not count so what should the Twins do about their 2019 – 2020 Bullpens? We have the following players in our current Bullpen: Belisle – overused – even if it is once a week or once a month Hildenberger – overused and should not be in the ninth Reed – Can he be what he once was? May – just to make everyone angry, I will tell you I think he is overrated. Drake – Not on a good team, but are we a good team? Magill – Nice surprise can he keep it up? Busenitz – running out of chances Rogers – finishing the best of all Mejia – Not sure what to think of him in BP Goya- Our opener specialist Duffey – Hope your next team can get you effective again Curtiss – okay, but Vasquez – Nice to see the advance, but do they really expect him in MLB next year? Gimenez – I know he is a ringer Which ones do you want to keep? They are all on the 40 man roster. Who would you DFA – I would choose Gimenez, Belisle, Busenitz, Duffey as my for sure DFA group, but would not mind if we could move up from Curtiss, Magill, and Drake. Then in the minor leagues we have: A different Reed Anderson Moran Stashak Molina Harper All were included in Seth Stoths minor league reliever of the year. Only Vasquez, Moya, Curtiss, and Busenitz were called up from the entire list. Why not all of them in September? I know service time, etc. Anyone you want to predict will be on the roster in the next two seasons? Go ahead and move starters in if you want, I have not seen enough of the young pitchers to want Gonsalves, Stewart, Little, DeJong in my pen. Here is the Relief pitcher Free Agent Class for your shopping pleasure – but remember that very few relief pitchers can sustain their effectiveness and seldom to they come in and shine for their new club: Adam Ottavino (33 years old, 2.2 WAR) Jeurys Familia (29, 1.8) David Robertson (34, 1.3) Craig Kimbrel (31, 1.2) Sergio Romo (36, 1.0) Jesse Chavez (35, 1.0) Oliver Perez (37, 0.8) Jake Diekman (32, 0.7) Tony Sipp (35, 0.7) Brad Brach (33, 0.7) Zach Duke (36, 0.7) Joe Kelly (31, 0.6) Justin Wilson (31, 0.6) Mark Melancon (34, 0.5) -- Can opt out of the two years and $28 million remaining on his contract. Tyler Clippard (34, 0.4) Andrew Miller (34, 0.4) Kelvin Herrera (29,0.4) Tony Barnette (35, 0.3) Aaron Loup (31, 0.3) Bud Norris (34, 0.3) Jonny Venters (34, 0.3) Adam Warren (31, 0.3) John Axford (36, 0.2) Greg Holland (33, 0.2) Shawn Kelley (35, 0.2) Jerry Blevins (35, 0.1) Santiago Casilla (38, 0.1) Fernando Salas (34, 0.0) Ryan Madson (38, 0.0) Zach McAllister (31, 0.0) Blake Wood (33, 0.0) Daniel Hudson (32, -0.1) Zach Britton (31, -0.1) Jorge De La Rosa (38, -0.1) Jeanmar Gomez (31, -0.1) AJ Ramos (32, -0.2) Jim Johnson (36, -0.2) Matt Belisle (39, -0.2) Randall Delgado (29, -0.2) Boone Logan (34, -0.3) Brad Ziegler (39, -0.3) Cody Allen (30, -0.3) Hector Santiago (31, -0.4) Peter Moylan (40, -0.4) Junichi Tazawa (33, -0.6) Blaine Boyer (37, -0.9) Josh Tomlin (34, -1.3) David Phelps (32, N/A) -- Hasn't appeared in the Majors in 2018. Joaquin Benoit (41, N/A) -- Hasn't appeared in the Majors in 2018. https://www.mlb.com/news/2019-mlb-free-agents/c-293292274 Not easy because we are not blessed with great arms like some teams and we have not shown an ability to develop them. With the average now close to 4 pitchers per game per team and going up can we get by with 8 relief pitchers – five starters and that makes 13. Can relief pitchers come in every other game? https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-bullpens-took-over-modern-baseball/ Don Mattingly got steamed https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/mlb/miami-marlins/article218196470.html on September 15 when the two teams – Phillies and Marlins used a total of 15 relievers in one game! No pitcher recorded 6 outs in the game. So what happens next – that was a September open roster game, but will we start to see rosters with a second catcher, a utility man and the rest pitchers? Stay tuned. Give it a try – who will you depend upon?

There was a time, particularly during his first stint as Twins GM, that Terry Ryan was a trading partner to be feared, largely because of his ability to turn throw-in prospects into major league contributors. There are stories -- likely apocryphal -- of opposing GMs deeming a low-level prospect untouchable because Ryan had been inquiring as to his availability. The reputation wasn’t without merit: Dave Hollins became David Ortiz; Chuck Knoblauch turned into Eric Milton, Cristian Guzman, Buck Buchanan (who was later spun for Jason Bartlett), Danny Mota, and cash; and Milton was subsequently dealt for Carlos Silva, Nick Punto, and Bobby Korecky. Not every deal came out perfectly, but Ryan consistently extracted enough extra value in trades to give his colleagues pause. It’s easy to look back at the deal that brought Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, and Boof Bonser to the Twins for A.J. Pierzynski as an obvious one to make. Joe Mauer was coming off a solid season between A and AA, and it was a foregone conclusion that he would take over behind the plate sooner rather than later. For that to happen, Pierzynski needed to clear out or change positions, and the latter wasn’t happening, so of course Ryan would deal him to clear space for Mauer. But while Mauer was hitting well in the minors -- particularly for his age level -- he wasn’t beating down the doors. As a 20 year old, he hit .338/.398/.434 including a stint in the Arizona Fall League; Pierzynski hit .312/.360/.464 in the majors that season, earning a deserved All-Star selection. And at 26, it isn’t as though Pierzynski was at the end of his career, or even at the end of his prime, so Ryan’s decision to move him after back-to-back great season could have backfired badly had Mauer not made the jump as well as he did. As it turned out, Ryan moved Pierzynski at the absolute peak of his value. While he remained a solid catcher through his age-38 season -- which shouldn’t be glossed over, that’s an incredible achievement -- he never returned to the All-Star game and only twice put up above-average offensive numbers. In return for this desirable asset, Ryan got a once-prized prospect who had lost a bit of his luster (Bonser), a converted outfielder who was coming off back-to-back seasons of injury issues (Liriano), and a former shortstop who wasn't far removed from shoulder surgery himself (Nathan). A former first round pick, Bonser had the pedigree to succeed, and (just like many of Ryan’s other finds) he did make contributions to the major league team, even if he was clearly the worst of the acquired players. He gave the 2006 Twins 18 starts and ended the year fractionally above average by ERA+ and with a 1.0 fWAR. Great? Hardly. But he was just 24, so it would have been a solid foundation for him to build on as he rose to being a mid-rotation piece...except that those 18 starts marked the best year of his career. Even if he wasn’t spectacularly bad, Bonser neither generated enough groundballs nor missed enough bats to make it in the majors and a torn labrum in 20009 ended his time with the Twins. Liriano’s arm had already been an issue when the Twins acquired him and it would continue to plague him throughout his career, though to his credit, he has continued to rehab and make it back to the majors every time he has gone under the knife. Still, his career would be typified by terms like “serviceable” and “solid” were it not for his unforgettable rookie season in 2006. His 2006 line is staggering: 3.6 fWAR, 1.00 WHIP, 2.16 ERA, and 10.71 K/9, but that actually undersells how good he was that year. Liriano wasn’t well-suited to pitching out of the bullpen, but that’s how he began the season (even recording a three-out save in a game which the Twins won by 10 runs, because of course he did) which included a three-inning relief appearance after the Tigers bombed Carlos Silva out of an April game. Liriano fared little better, giving up 5 ER in just 3 IP. Look at his numbers once he joined the rotation full time in May, and they’re even better: 1.92 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, 112/28 K/BB ratio, and opposing hitters hit a pathetic .181/.244/.281 off of him. But the arm issues caught up to him once again. He threw just six innings after July 28 and would miss all of the 2007 season recovering from Tommy John surgery. His 2010 season showed glimpses of the form that had made him so unbelievably dominant in 2006, and the fact that he had 31 healthy starts means his counting stats look better, but he never did fully recover the form he had shown. He gave everyone a season to dream on and enough flashes of brilliance to bounce around the league for another decade and counting, but the consistent excellence he showed once seems to be part of his legend rather than his actual legacy. The Baseball Prospectus comment on Nathan prior to the 2003 season began “Nathan continued his comeback from shoulder surgery in 2000, with a year that was impressive only relative to the year before. He was never a great prospect, even before the shoulder woes, but he could be a serviceable innings-eater in middle relief.” Put another way: If you don’t have a player like this in your minor league system, the cupboard is so impossibly bare, it beggars belief. You don’t trade for players like this, they just appear on your AAA roster as if placed there by an occult hand. And to be fair, eating innings is exactly what Nathan did in 2003: His first year as a full-time reliever in the majors, Nathan appeared in just shy of half the Giants’ games, racking up 79 innings in 78 starts. Prior to the 2004 season, Prospectus noted that Nathan had looked leaps and bounds better the previous year than he ever had before -- and how right they were! -- but cautioned that this could be an aberration because it seemingly came out of nowhere. Here, too, they were right: 2003 was an aberration for Nathan, because for the decade following, he never again had a season as bad as 2003 when he was healthy for a full year. 2004 started with a closer-by-committee set-up with Nathan, Juan Rincon, and even a fleeting appearance from Joe Roa before he was relegated to mop-up duty, but by mid-April, the job was Nathan’s to lose. The next time someone besides Nathan would lead the team in saves was 2010, when Jon Rauch stepped in while Nathan was recovering from Tommy John surgery. Like Liriano, there were serious concerns about Nathan’s ability to stay healthy during his time in the minors, but after he moved to the bullpen, those concerns all but vanished. He finished his career with the 8th most saves of all time and appeared in the 54th most games. Of the three players acquired for Pierzynski following the 2003 season, Nathan had by far the best career; taking everyone involved in the deal, only Mauer has a claim at being a better player than Nathan. Whatever the Twins thought they were getting in Nathan, no matter how much Ryan and his staff believed that 2003 was indicative of what he could be, Nathan exceeded even the most optimistic expectations. He filled a hole that had existed since the end of Rick Aguilera’s second stint with the team (Mike Trombley notwithstanding) and held it down through some of the team’s best years post-1991. It’s fitting to see him end such a stellar career as a Twin. The Pierzynski-for-prospects deal is widely considered a heist, Ryan’s Robbery if you will. Some of that is due to Pierzysnki’s decline and some is due to Liriano’s apotheosis in 2006, but given that Bonser added almost nothing and Liriano was more frustration than fulfillment, the idea that the trade was as lopsided as it was confirms just how good Nathan was: If the deal had been a straight Nathan-for-Pierzynski swap, would the reviews be all that much less glowing?

The last two years, the Twins' bullpen has been incredibly stable. They've also been regarded as quite effective, especially when compared to the starting rotation. During the last leg of the season, the bullpen wasn't effective or efficient. I'm going to discuss the players who were on the club for much or most of the season. Six pitchers spent all season with the Twins and most of their innings in the bullpen: Swarzak, Burton, Fien, Duensing, Thielbar and Perkins. They all threw between 47 and 68 innings, with Swarzak again logging the most frames and Thielbar the least. With so many measures to view overall effectiveness, it is really hard to summarize the group, other than to point out that five of these six relievers gave up more hits than innings pitched. Only Glen Perkins struck out more than one batter per inning and all of their ERAs were over three. As a relief staff, the Twins didn't strike out many, but didn't walk many. This wasn't a bullpen that overpowered hitters, as a group they were effective when they hit their spots and the ball hit in play found the gloves of the Twins' fielders. Here's a brief thumbnail of each along with a projection for 2015: Thielbar: After having a fine rookie campaign, Caleb Thielbar pitched a pretty anonymous 47.1 innings. He was pretty close to equally effective vs. left or right. Like most Twins' relievers, he weakened at the end of the season. Thielbar is not eligible for arbitration, which increases his value. I expect that Caleb will be a member of the coming year's bullpen. Duensing: The WHIP is up, Ks are down. Duensing was the only all-season reliever to have his ERA outpace his FIP by a substantial amount. I have liked Duensing because of his versatility and durability, but he will be arb-eligible, he is a strong candidate to be non-tendered. I, for one, hope that the Twins find a way to keep the veteran lefty, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he is traded or non-tendered. Perkins: Publicly, the Twins are saying that Perkins is an All-Star closer and that his pitching arm is fine. While I am glad that there isn't something seriously wrong with his arm, I'm not convinced that his performance going forward won't become an issue. Perkins got his swings and misses and his strikeouts in 2014, but even before his dismal September, his velocity was down and he allowed a lot of hard hit balls, not all of which should have been caught. He allowed 32 hits in 32 innings from June-August before his (injury fueled) drop-off in September. Just about every stat went the wrong way in 2014. At the very least, Perk will have to make some adjustments. Swarzak: He won points with his manager and pitching coach by taking the ball. However, his coach and manager will be different in 2015. Swarzak's role is long relief and they just aren't very valuable unless they can evolve into a late-inning role or a spot in the rotation. It looks to me like long relief is Swarzak's only role. Swarzak garnered four starts, with mostly unimpressive results and wasn't much better in higher leverage situations. The numbers say he regressed to the mean after a very good 2013. His WHIP was up, walks up, and strikeouts down. Since he's arbitration-eligible and out of options, I expect Swarzak will be pitching for someone else next year. Burton: Burton was a solid performer in 2012, less solid in 2013, and started out horribly in 2014. He pitched better as the season wore on, and by the end of the season was the Twins most reliable reliever IMHO. The warning signs started in 2013. His velocity was down, and it lessened the effectiveness of his out pitch (change-up). The numbers point the wrong way--WHIP, hits per IP and BB up, Ks down. Burton also was victimized by base stealers, unable or unwilling to keep runners close. The Twins pretty much closed the door on his return by buying out his 2015 option. The 33 year old Burton will be a free agent and I doubt the Twins will seriously try to re-sign him. Fien: Like Burton and Thielbar, Fien was picked off the scrap heap. His performance when called up in 2012 was excellent and surprising. He started strong in 2013, but faded. That script was followed in 2014. Fien was the principle 8th inning guy and did well holding leads. In his few attempts to close games, he couldn't get it done. Fien's two-pitch mix requires excellent command. If he's a little off, the ball can travel a long, long way. He allowed slightly more hits than innings pitched, struck out far fewer batters and yielded some big innings. At 31, it is doubtful that he can improve much. Much like Swarzak, Duensing, and Burton, it seems likely that we've seen the best these guys have to offer. It makes sense to move several of the bullpen guys and replace them with younger guys with power arms. This concludes my "Postseason Reviews". To summarize, there are a lot of pretty good players already in the majors. The talent needs to be augmented by an improved pitching staff and maybe some premium talent that is getting close to arriving.