Minnesota's Bullpen Gamble At the Deadline Looks Like An Intriguing Wager

The Minnesota Twins gambled at this year’s trade deadline in late July by breaking up a bullpen that was probably the club’s strength in the first half. And aside from lefty Danny Coulombe, the four other high-leverage relievers that they sold off all had at least two more years of team control.

It was long speculated that the Twins would inevitably trade relievers. Still, dismantling the group to that extent was unprecedented and a shock to the club's outlook in 2026 and beyond.

The backlash from fans reached near-biblical levels of criticism. But with a month post-deadline in the rearview mirror, is it possible that we were too hasty in calling out the Twins for this significant gamble?

The jury might still be out when it comes to evaluating the incoming players the Twins got in return. However, some spotty performances from a few of the outgoing major league assets, combined with the surprisingly promising outings from a few of the relief arms that they hung onto, make me think that things could be worse.

Don’t get me wrong, the overall numbers out of the relief corps in this new chapter look downright ugly when grouped together. But that’s mainly due to the bottom half of mostly placeholders being almost unplayable. The rest of this season needs to be about finding a few answers from the group, more so than the overall numbers of the class, in the absence of their former star-level peers that Minnesota traded away.

The case could be made that they’ve found a few.

Between Coulombe, Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart, and Louis Varland, the Twins traded their top five relief options -- a group that would be the envy of most contending teams. The club made the call to sell off their biggest strength of a disappointing 2025 campaign. While these five bullpen weapons weren’t the problem that has dragged this team down for the last 12-plus months, their value at this year’s selling point was too high to pass up.

Trading Duran started this bullpen exodus, and it was still the most high-profile transaction of the bunch. They sent the flamethrowing righty to the Philadelphia Phillies for two global top-100 prospects in Mick Abel and Eduardo Tait.

While Abel hasn’t had the rosiest welcome to his new organization after producing a 24.75 ERA in two starts with the Twins, Tait looks like a high-upside play that could pay dividends in a few years. Meanwhile, Duran has been nothing short of stellar with his new club, tossing 11 innings of 1.69 ERA ball with 13 strikeouts and zero walks allowed. He has performed about as well as any Phillies fan could’ve asked for at the time of the swap.

But outside of Duran, the other four arms have had rocky first months with their new club.

Jax has a 6.30 ERA in a dozen games for the Tampa Bay Rays after requesting a trade from the Twins. Still, the one player that came to the Twins in that swap, Taj Bradley, had a very encouraging start on Saturday. He allowed only one run across five innings with six strikeouts against the San Diego Padres.

Stewart pitched in four games with the Los Angeles Dodgers before being placed on the injured list with a sore shoulder. They anticipate him being back at some point this season, but time will tell if there’s enough runway to get ramped up for the postseason.

Coulombe has an unsightly 7.56 ERA with the Texas Rangers, and he has a walk rate that is nearly double his mark with the Twins this year.

Varland arguably had the most value of any of these arms due to his five additional years of club control. However, he has a 6.00 ERA and has hardly been the answer in the bullpen for one of the league’s best teams.

On the other hand, a few arms that the Twins hung onto are thriving in their new roles. Since August 1, Kody Funderburk -- the heir to the southpaw throne in 2026 -- hasn’t allowed a single earned run while maintaining a 95.2% Left On Base rate. Cole Sands has a glowing 34% strikeout percentage and a 3.46 ERA as Minnesota's de facto best reliever. Justin Topa has a 3.29 ERA despite some unexciting peripheral numbers.

Time will tell if they can carry that strong performance through the rest of the year and into 2026 and beyond. Still, for now, they’ve certainly been a welcome development.

Should Twins fans accept that these holdovers are going to outperform their traded counterparts for the next few years? Probably not, but the risk that many bemoaned on July 31 has turned into quite the intriguing wager after a month of action.