Minnesota Twins decision to trade Taylor Rogers looks worse

Look, there’s no way to slice it nicely: the Minnesota Twins bullpen blew up another game in as many days.

The Twins suffered another humiliating loss Wednesday night courtesy of the bullpen, losing 11-10 to the Cleveland Guardians. The loss was the second bullpen meltdown in as many days for the team as the Twins, who were in first at the start of June are now a game behind the Guardians, who have been on a run in the past month, winning seven straight series including this one.

Minnesota Twins decision to trade Taylor Rogers looks worse

The meltdown by the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday was the third worst loss ever for Twins pitchers based on WPA(wins-probability added) since 2000, according to The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman. Interestingly, all three have all been under Rocco Baldelli’s time as manager since it started in 2019.

A lot of Minnesota Twins fans will certainly be pointing blame at multiple people in the organization after these losses. Most will point to Baldelli while others will point to Twins President Derek Falvey and Thad Levine for assembling this bullpen, which has been the least valuable bullpen according to Fangraphs FWAR. If you ask me, I think the blame should definitely go to Falvey and Levine for not only assembling a cheap bullpen where frankly their highest paid reliever only is getting $3.8 million, but also getting rid of a key piece of the bullpen in Taylor Rogers.

To clarify: I don’t necessarily disagree with the Twins’ decision to trade Taylor Rogers. Rogers is set to become a free agent after the 2022 season and it seemed unlikely the team was willing to cough up the minimum of $10 million to keep him in the organization long term. Also, considering the trade rumors that happened during the 2021 season with Rogers before his season cut short days before the Trade Deadline, trading him made sense.

However, the decision to trade him to the San Diego Padres hours before the start of the 2022 season was very questionable, even at the time, and the pieces that the Twins acquired in the trade haven’t necessarily panned out in Chris Paddack and Emilio Pagan.

Paddack wasn’t necessarily bad in the starts that he was given for the Twins, posting a 4.03 in five starts. But the advanced stats like FIP, which takes into account what a pitcher’s ERA would be if he was surrounded by a league average offense, and SIERA(Skill-Interactive ERA), where it quantifies a pitcher’s performance by trying to eliminate factors the pitcher can’t control by himself, were quite favorable to him, suggesting things could’ve been better for the 26-year-old from Austin, Texas.

Unfortunately, Paddack’s arm blew out as fast as a 2015-17 Honda F1 engine and Paddack underwent his second Tommy John surgery of his career in May, ending his maiden Twins season early.

As for Pagan, well things haven’t been quite been fun for the former Rays and Padres reliever, especially in the past two days where he allowed the game tying home run against a just off the IL Franmil Reyes on Tuesday’s opening series game, and allowed the three runs to the Guardians in the ninth in their loss on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, in San Diego, Rogers has become a key piece for the Padres bullpen, posting a 2.79 ERA in 30 appearances. Rogers leads the National League in both saves and games finished.

Now look, everyone can play what if’s whether or not Taylor Rogers staying with the Minnesota Twins this season would’ve helped the bullpen be an even less of a mess than it already has been. A combo of Jhoan Duran and Rogers is very enticing.  But let’s keep in mind too: even with Rogers last year, the Twins’ 2021 bullpen was still an absolute mess, finishing the bottom half in fWAR and ERA, after finishing tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for most valuable bullpen from 2019-20 according to Fangraphs fWAR. 

Falvey and Levine will have a very busy summer to try and fix a bullpen that has been effectively Duran and a bunch of scrubs. That doesn’t take away the performances of other players in the bullpen like Joe Smith, who has been a solid signing for Minnesota, posting a 2.95 ERA in 21.2 innings for the Twins, or Griffin Jax, who has been solid for them, amassing a 2.84 ERA in 34.1 innings. But clearly when you look at the roster and see players like Caleb Thielbar and Tyler Duffey, players that have been constant presences in the Twins bullpen for the past few years, pitching beach balls to hitters this season, the obvious is clear: this bullpen is nowhere near good enough to compete against teams like the New York Yankees, the Houston Astros, or frankly even the Toronto Blue Jays or Boston Red Sox for that matter even if they get in.

The bullpen will look significantly different as the season progresses. Jorge Alcala could come back after the second half of the season begins and if everything goes smoothly, Kenta Maeda could come back in time in September as a reliever which he excelled at when it was postseason time for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

But now they will need to find a solution to fix a bullpen that continuously finds ways to cost the Minnesota Twins victories.