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FanGraphs projects the Minnesota Twins to have baseball’s best bullpen — and by a wide margin, too. Twins relievers are projected for 5.4 WAR, well ahead of the No.
2 projected Baltimore Orioles at 4.3. In fact, the gap of 1.
1 WAR between the Twins and the next-best projected bullpen is larger than the gap between the No. 2 Orioles and the No. 11 Texas Rangers.
Advertisement That’s the good news. Dependably excellent relief pitching can have a huge, almost magical effect by elevating a team beyond its baseline expectations and keeping a fan base sane throughout 162 games. The bad news is that FanGraphs projected the Twins to have baseball’s second-best bullpen last spring, and that very much didn’t happen.
Twins relievers finished 19th in ERA and Win Probability Added (WPA) last year, crumbling in the second half as part of the team’s historic collapse. That probably speaks more to the difficulty of predicting team bullpen performance in a sea of small samples, inherited runners and high-leverage spots than anything specific to the Twins that might linger. But it does serve as a reason for skepticism about this season’s rosy reliever projections.
The Twins’ relief pitching has typically not been a strength in Rocco Baldelli’s six seasons as manager, collectively ranking 12th out of 30 teams in ERA, 10th in WPA and 15th in innings. Their bullpen hasn’t finished with a top-10 mark in ERA or WPA since 2020. FanGraphs predicts this season will be different, but should Twins fans buy into the super-bullpen projection after last year’s forecast missed so badly? Here are three reasons for optimism and three reasons for skepticism, and why some of them intersect.
Optimism: Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax Most of the Twins’ status as FanGraphs’ best-projected bullpen comes from Duran and Jax being the best-projected bullpen duo in MLB. Duran is projected for 65 innings of a 2.58 ERA and 1.
9 WAR, second among MLB relievers behind Mason Miller of the Athletics. Jax is projected for 70 innings of a 3.21 ERA and 1.
3 WAR, 13th for relievers. Only the Cleveland Guardians also have two top-15 relievers in Emmanuel Clase (No. 4) and Cade Smith (No.
10), and Duran-Jax (3.2 WAR) narrowly beat Clase-Smith (3.0 WAR) for the best combined projection.
Duran and Jax project for more WAR as a duo than 19 of the 30 full bullpens across MLB. And that would include the rest of the Twins’ bullpen, which is projected for a combined 2.2 WAR without Duran and Jax.
Griffin Jax, Vicious Sweepers. 😤 pic.twitter.
com/1eT4HecKt4 — Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 27, 2024 Skepticism: Duran Projections revolve around multi-year track records, and Duran has been spectacular throughout his three-season Twins career with a 2.59 ERA and 239 strikeouts in 184 1/3 innings. His projected 2.
58 ERA is right in line with that. However, last year was the worst of Duran’s three seasons, and he showed signs of potential decline while posting a career-worst 3.64 ERA.
His average fastball velocity dipped to 100.5 mph last season, compared to 101.8 mph in 2023, and his strikeout rate declined by 12 percent.
Advertisement To be clear, Duran was very good last season. He still threw hard and racked up tons of strikeouts. But he was also less dominant in terms of raw stuff and results, and that casts some doubt on his ability to live up to the projection as the No.
2 reliever in MLB. Can the Twins’ bullpen be elite with the 2024 version of a very good Duran throwing 99-102 mph rather than the 2022-23 version of a dominant Duran throwing 101-104 mph? And what happens if his velocity dips further? Optimism: Brock Stewart and Cole Sands Stewart returned from August shoulder surgery with his velocity intact, topping out at 97 mph in his first spring game. Injuries limited him to 43 1/3 innings the past two years, but when he’s healthy, Stewart performed at a Duran/Jax level with a 2.
28 ERA and 12.3 strikeouts per nine innings. FanGraphs projects Stewart as the 34th-best reliever in MLB, meaning the Twins’ third option would be better than the top arm in some bullpens.
And the Twins have a fourth projected top-50 reliever in Sands, who ranks 49th following a breakout first season as a full-time reliever. Formerly a middling starter prospect, Sands’ average fastball velocity jumped from 91.6 mph in 2022 to 95.
7 mph last season. He rose rapidly from mop-up man to setup man, posting a 2.34 ERA and a 58-to-8 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his final 50 innings.
Having two trustworthy late-inning options is good, but three is great and four is a tremendous luxury that could account for most of the Twins’ high-leverage work and lessen the temptation to ride anyone into the ground. Cole Sands, 3Ks in the 7th. pic.
twitter.com/cicLDVWoaZ — Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 20, 2024 Skepticism: Injuries Stewart, 33, has 149 career innings in the majors, including 15 2/3 last season and a high of 34 1/3 in 2017. It’s encouraging that he didn’t leave any velocity on the operating room table, but counting on him to hold up for six months and 60-some innings is beyond optimistic.
Danny Coulombe, 34, had minor elbow surgery last summer, yet he’s projected for a career-high 54 innings. And injuries suffered in camp have already started to erode the veteran depth, with Michael Tonkin and Justin Topa unlikely to be ready for Opening Day because of shoulder problems. Advertisement All bullpens will deal with injuries, but the Twins’ projected depth benefits more than most by assuming a relatively high health baseline for Stewart, Tonkin, Topa and Coulombe.
They are projected for a 3.68 ERA in a combined 213 innings, but a realistic over/under might be half of that. Skepticism: Lefties Collect enough right-handers with the pitch mixes to neutralize hitters on both sides of the plate and a bullpen doesn’t necessarily need a late-inning left-hander to succeed.
That seems to be the Twins’ approach after Caleb Thielbar, Steven Okert and Kody Funderburk totaled a 5.62 ERA in 2024. Coulombe was signed for $3 million to fill Thielbar’s old secondary setup role, and Funderburk is the only other left-handed pitcher of any kind on the 40-man roster, so the Twins’ bullpen may carry just one lefty on Opening Day.
Pitching handedness can be overrated, and it rarely makes sense to carry a mediocre lefty for the sake of having one, but this certainly looks like a weak spot for the Twins, again. There’s going to be a lot of pressure on the soft-tossing Coulombe to get outs in big spots and stay healthy. Optimism: Louis Varland and Connor Prielipp Varland is making the move from starter to reliever at 27, and he could follow in Sands’ footsteps by quickly emerging as a go-to bullpen arm.
When used in the short, max-effort role, Varland’s fastball has reached 100 mph, and he also benefits from being able to pare down his pitch mix. Nothing is guaranteed, and Varland has plenty to prove as a reliever, but he has the raw stuff to be a quality setup man, and he’s shown flashes of that bullpen upside the past two Septembers. The injuries to Tonkin and Topa should clear a path for Varland to make the Opening Day roster.
Connor Prielipp was unhittable today in Live BP⚡️ He faced 8 batters on the day and struck out 7 of them 🤯 Check out our account on Instagram to see the hitters barrel reel from today 💪 #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/4gRHxnaxlM — Twins Player Development (@TwinsPlayerDev) March 7, 2025 Prielipp isn’t an Opening Day option.
The 24-year-old lefty wasn’t even invited to Twins major-league camp after spending last season at High-A Cedar Rapids after a second elbow surgery, but the 2022 second-round pick has the best pure stuff in the Twins’ farm system. Prielipp has the pitch mix of a potential front-line starter, led by a mid-90s fastball and a devastating slider, but he’s thrown just 58 innings since high school. If durability concerns push Prielipp to the bullpen, he should move quickly and could solve the aforementioned lefty weakness.
(Photo of Jhoan Duran: Gerald Herbert / Associated Press).
