The Minnesota Twins tried to fix their biggest problem at the trade deadline. Instead, the bullpen kept dragging them down.
Minnesota’s front office sent a clear win-now signal by bringing in right-hander Dean Kremer from the Baltimore Orioles, left-handed reliever A.J. Minter from the New York Mets, and right-handed relievers Jeff Hoffman and Tommy Nance from the Toronto Blue Jays. The idea was obvious: add arms, steady the late innings, and give the club a real shot to stay in the race.
That part has not gone according to plan. Since the Twins added Nance, Hoffman and Minter, their bullpen ranks 26th in ERA at 5.02. That’s a rough number on its own, and it looks even worse next to what happened last year, when Minnesota’s bullpen ranked 27th with a 4.93 ERA after the deadline, following the trades of Louis Varland, Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart and Danny Coulombe.
Since making bold moves to improve their bullpen at the trade deadline, the Twins rank 26th in MLB with a 5.02 ERA from their relievers.
Last year, after dismantling their bullpen at the deadline, they ranked 27th with a 4.93 ERA.
- Nick Nelson (@NickNelsonMN) September 15, 2026
It’s tough to avoid the conclusion that a few more clean innings could have changed Minnesota’s season. If the bullpen had held up better after Aug. 3, the Twins likely would have been sitting in a much better place in the standings. A couple extra wins might have been enough to keep the season alive in the postseason picture.
The good news, if there is any here, is that the new additions aren’t the main reason things have gone sideways. Nance’s results have been uneven, but he also came at a much lower cost than Minter and Hoffman. Even so, his 3.48 FIP with Minnesota points to some bad luck rather than complete collapse.
Minter and Hoffman, meanwhile, have done their jobs. Minter’s rough Monday outing against the Yankees stands out, but before that he had allowed only three runs across 17 1/3 innings for the Twins. Hoffman has been even sharper, putting up a 2.45 ERA with 22 strikeouts in 14 2/3 innings.
The bigger issue has been the drop-off from Andrew Morris and Yoendrys Gómez. Before the deadline, both right-handers were among Minnesota’s best bullpen pieces.
Since Aug. 3, they’ve been the weak spots. Morris has an 8.36 ERA over 14 innings, while Gómez has posted a 6.00 ERA in 12 innings over that same stretch.
There is at least one encouraging wrinkle. Even though the Twins’ bullpen has been worse in ERA after the deadline than it was last year, the underlying numbers are much healthier.
This year’s group ranks 17th in expected ERA at 3.99, 11th in FIP at 3.85 and 10th in strikeout-to-walk ratio at 14.6%. After last season’s deadline, the Twins were in the bottom 10 in all of those categories.
So the late-season results have been ugly, no question. But the broader picture suggests Minnesota’s relief corps is in a better place going forward than it was after last year’s deadline.
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Now Minnesota has lost that momentum, too. Culpepper has landed on the injured list with a hamstring injury, and the likelihood is that his season is over, leaving the Twins to keep searching for answers in a lineup that has already made their second-half climb much tougher than it needed to be. [Read more 🡒]