What you need to know about the 2022 Minnesota Twins is that every lousy team in the past 35 years of franchise history has entered April worried about its pitching.
Pitching uncertainty is nothing new for the Twins
Early estimate of bullpen guarantees nothing
April 7, 2022 at 5:22AM
What you also need to know about the 2022 Minnesota Twins is that a lot of the best teams in the past 35 years of franchise history have entered April worried about pitching.
The Twins lacked quality pitching during their disastrous 2021 season, and their disastrous 2018 and 2016 seasons.
They also looked like they were rolling the dice and their eyes regarding their pitching before they won the World Series in 1987 and '91, and before they won 101 games in 2019.
The '87 Twins won the World Series with two standout starters — Frank Viola and Bert Blyleven — and a bullpen starring closer Jeff Reardon, who had a regular-season ERA of 4.48. There is no way that the Twins should have won a title with that pitching staff, which is why statues of manager Tom Kelly should be posted at every intersection in Minnesota.
The 1991 Twins signed Jack Morris not knowing how much he had left. In his previous two seasons, he posted ERAs of 4.86 and 4.51, the two worst in his career to that point. The Twins only had an inkling that Scott Erickson, who had made 17 big-league starts, would become a Cy Young-caliber pitcher in his first full season in the majors. Morris, Erickson and Kevin Tapani became the fulcrum of an excellent staff.
The Twins have won 100 games once since 1965 — when they won 101 games in 2019.
Remember, that was the season during which fans rightly and daily complained about the team's shoddy bullpen. So the Twins blew up and reconstructed their entire bullpen at the trade deadline and surged to a division title.
The point here is that fans have every right to complain about the 2022 Twins' pitching. That doesn't mean anyone has any idea how this is going to turn out.
They could trade for two starters and a closer during the season. A prospect like Josh Winder or Jhoan Duran could eliminate the need for major trades.
The Twins also could thrive because of organizational pitching depth instead of pitching excellence. This season will feature 162 games in a compressed schedule following a shortened spring training. The Twins may use 25 pitchers, and they may not use many of them for more than five innings at a time, which makes evaluating this staff even more difficult.
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Given the Twins' uncertainty, here's my advice:
Quickly find a sure-thing closer.
The 2021 Twins had a lot of problems, and all of their problems were exacerbated by Alex Colome burying the team with blown saves early in the season.
Any number of prospects or trade targets might bolster the rotation. Without a closer, the Twins again will be subject to the kind of losses — early-season, late-game, soul-crushing blown saves — that can destroy a team's morale.
Analytics are highly useful, but they don't measure the emotional impact of a group of players building a late-inning lead and watching someone blow it in a few pitches day after day.
For a talented group of young players — and most of the Twins' key players are still young — late-inning and early-season success could be crucial.
Sonny Gray should be a good addition. Joe Ryan is mature beyond his years. Bailey Ober is one of those pitchers whose body type and throwing motion make him better than his stuff would suggest.
Dylan Bundy and Chris Archer are typical bottom-of-the-rotation, low-risk, high-reward acquisitions.
This pitching staff won't frighten anyone other than the fan base in April, but it could be transformed into a group functional enough to support a talented lineup.
As is the case at the beginning of most Twins seasons, we won't know until we know.
Shohei Ohtani keeps setting records, even after the season is over.
