The Whatnot crew is a little shorthanded this week, so bear with us. In this edition of Twin's Whatnot, three Twins fans will explore the possibility of a bullpen shake up. We will also take a look at Michael Cuddyer and the infield.
After the loss of Pat Neshek, the bullpen isn't in top form. What needs to be done?
Marty Andrade: The Twins have a couple of options: convert some of the starters to relievers or expand Joe Nathan’s role. Aaron Gleeman touched on this in a post on his website on Monday of this week. To summarize his point, the idea of a just using a closer in a “save situation” is a new phenomenon in baseball. Bullpen “short” men (Joe Garagiola called short men the “aces of the leper colony”) used to be used in relief of a game whenever the game was in doubt, regardless of some stat. The classic relievers of the '50s and '60s were typically tapped for more than 100 innings a season. Now it’s rare to see a “closer” get more than 80 innings in a season.
The Twins could easily cover some of the losses from the Neshek injury by expanding Nathan’s role to the more traditional “bullpen ace”, as opposed to the modern obsession with a closer closing games only in “save” situations.
Otherwise, the Twins can shed some of the deadweight in the bullpen by sending down or cutting Bass, Korecky, Crain, or Rincon, and replacing them with Liriano, Duensing, Bonser, Slowey, or Baker.
My preference would be to drop Juan Rincon and add Liriano, but there are many acceptable permutations. The Twins have a surplus of starting pitching and a shortage of quality relievers, it’s simple sabernomics.
Kelso Hakes: A person can only hope. I don't know who's down on the farm, but the Twins really need someone to step up and say, "I'll be your set-up man." Granted the bullpen doesn't get too much of a break, and have been beat up quite a bit lately, the way they're playing is not major-league worthy.
Andrew Kneeland: I had the thought of moving Liriano to the bullpen almost right after he was injured. I thought he would make a great closer, but he would also do well in any relief role.
It would be hard to convert and present starters to relief roles simply because of how shorthanded we are in starting pitchers.
I have had the opportunity to read through both Marty's and Kelso's entries before I wrote my own, and they both make some great points. Marty's idea of expanding Nathan's role sounds beautiful right now. I'm all for it.
Michael Cuddyer is on a cold streak. What should be done with him?
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