19 October 2023
While the Twins’ bullpen wasn’t quite the strength the starting rotation was in 2023, there was plenty for the Twins to like from the group, particularly late in the season. The bullpen finished the season with a 3.95 earned-run average, 15th in the majors.
And many of the main contributors are expected to be back next season, giving the Twins a solid bullpen core to build around as they enter the offseason.
2023 RECAP
Jhoan Duran’s sophomore season in the big leagues further cemented the flame-throwing closer as one of the best relievers in baseball.
Griffin Jax went through some bumps in his second season as a reliever — some of it fluky with the underlying metrics showing he pitched better than the results he got — but recovered well and was nearly unhittable in the postseason.
Caleb Thielbar, the high-leverage lefty out of the ‘pen, missed much of the summer months with oblique strains that required two separate stints on the injured list. But when healthy, he pitched to a 3.23 earned-run average in 30 2/3 innings.
Emilio Pagán recovered from a difficult first season in Minnesota last year — and a tough start to the 2023 season — to finish with an ERA under 3.00.
Brock Stewart, signed in 2022 to a minor-league deal after a long injury path, emerged as a dominant reliever — before an arm injury took him out for much of the second half of the season.
Near the end of the season, rookie Kody Funderburk, a lefty, came up and made a strong first impression, giving up just one run in 12 innings pitched. Fellow rookie Louie Varland, a starter who the Twins threw out of the bullpen near the end of the season, adapted well to the role, posting a 1.50 ERA in 12 innings.
The Twins also cycled through a number of other pitchers through the bullpen — Jovani Moran, Jorge López, Jordan Balazovic, Brent Headrick, Cole Sands and Josh Winder among the large group — throughout the season.
2024 OUTLOOK
Of the core that made up their bullpen this season, just Pagán will be a free agent. The rest — Duran, Jax, Thielbar and Stewart — should be back. Those four give the Twins a solid group as they assemble their bullpen for next year, which will fluctuate, as always, throughout the year.
This front office hasn’t invested much throughout the past offseasons in free-agent relievers, often opting to construct much of the bullpen from within.
The Twins seem to prefer keeping a long-relief option in the bullpen — though this year, they didn’t wind up needing that role often — and they have plenty of options for that.
Funderburk could have a leg up on a bullpen spot out of spring training camp as the second lefty after making a strong impression down the stretch. And what the Twins do with Varland will be a particularly interesting development to watch. Though Varland has expressed a preference as a starter, he performed so well as a reliever that it’s something that could be on the table.
“I think he has the ability to be an elite reliever,” manager Rocco Baldelli said of Varland, a former North St. Paul and Concordia-St. Paul star. “… What he showed out of the bullpen was special. It’s hard to look away from that and not at least think about that going forward.”
This is the second in a series of stories recapping the 2023 season and looking ahead to 2024.
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