Twins Eyeing Bullpen Help, Right-Handed Bats

The Twins are the only team in the AL Central above .500, and president of baseball operations Derek Falvey unsurprisingly tells Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic that they’ll accordingly operate as buyers at this year’s deadline. Bullpen help and right-handed bats are the primary areas of focus for Minnesota between now and next Tuesday’s deadline.

One club the Twins have spoken to has both to offer. Darren Wolfson of SKOR North Radio and 5 Eyewitness News tweets that the Twins have talked with the Nationals, who have been scouting Minnesota’s Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul. The Nats are just one of many teams the Twins have spoken too, of course, but the presence of outfielder Lane Thomas and surely available relievers like Kyle Finnegan present some obvious fits.

Falvey suggested that the Twins will be in the market for more “complementary” pieces, which might take someone like Thomas off the table, though as a lefty-mashing outfielder with multiple seasons of club control remaining beyond the current year, he’s an on-paper fit at the very least.

Falvey noted, however, that he’s amenable to trading for rental players. The trade market figures to have plenty of righty-swinging options who fit that bill — Randal Grichuk, Tommy Pham, Mark Canha and Adam Duvall potentially among them. (Canha has a 2024 option.)

The Twins are hitting just .219/.293/.369 against left-handed pitching this season, thanks in no small part to a glut of left-handed-hitting outfielders that at one point looked likely to lead to an offseason trade. That never materialized, however.

[Related: Twins’ Outfielders Drawing Trade Attention]

Many of the Twins’ offseason acquisitions who were added with an eye toward bolstering the lineup against southpaws have fallen shy of expectation in that regard. Christian Vazquez, Donovan Solano and Michael A. Taylor all have some past success against lefties, but none has been more than average against southpaws in 2023. Kyle Farmer has hit lefties well but not up to his prior standards.

Incumbent righty bats like Byron Buxton and the previously optioned (and now injured) Jose Miranda, meanwhile, have struggled against southpaws. Royce Lewis and Jorge Polanco have hit lefties well, but both are on sitting alongside Miranda on the injured list. Polanco has been out since early June. Lewis hit the IL in early July and isn’t expected back until next month.

Similarly, the Twins are missing some key contributors in the bullpen. Left-hander Caleb Thielbar has quietly become an excellent setup man since his 2020 return to the big leagues after a five-year absence. The 36-year-old has pitched to a 3.10 ERA with a 30% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate since 2020 but has just 10 1/3 innings this year due to a pair of oblique injuries.

Brock Stewart, another diamond-in-the-rough find for the Twins, returned to the Majors for the first time since 2019 this year and has posted a 0.70 ERA and 35.4% strikeout rate for the Twins. However, he’s been out since late July with an elbow issue. Stewart threw his first bullpen session today and will throw another Saturday, per Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com (Twitter link), but it’s not yet clear just when he’ll be back in the Twins’ bullpen. The absence of both Thielbar and Stewart was felt last night when the Twins’ relief corps squandered a four-run lead and strong start from Pablo Lopez in a game they eventually dropped to the Mariners by a score of 9-7.