Danny Coulombe is hardly a high-impact addition, but the veteran reliever agreeing to sign a one-year, $3 million contract with the Minnesota Twins is proof of life for a front office that had spent the entire offseason on the sidelines and clarifies the team’s bullpen picture heading into the beginning of spring training next week.
Beyond simply being the first player the Twins have acquired on a major-league contract all offseason, via free agency or trade, Coulombe is also their lone left-handed pitcher with a major-league deal. Presuming they want to have at least one lefty in the bullpen, the only options on the 40-man roster before the Coulombe reunion were Brent Headrick and Kody Funderburk.
Coulombe is 35 years old and has struggled to stay healthy, including a 2022 hip injury that got him cut by the Twins and a 2024 elbow issue that created the path for his return after the Baltimore Orioles turned down his $4 million team option. But unlike Headrick or Funderburk, or any of the other lefties in the Twins organization, Coulombe has a track record of big-league success.
Danny Coulombe, K’ing the Side pic.twitter.com/n6TOhWY8pD
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 9, 2024
Despite his small stature and a fastball that last year averaged just 91 mph, Coulombe has a 3.52 ERA in 273 2/3 innings spread over parts of 10 seasons in MLB. And he’s gotten better with age, posting a 2.75 ERA and 3.10 xERA in 127 2/3 innings over the past four seasons with the Twins and Orioles. He’s an injury risk, but it’s hard to imagine finding a better fit in the bargain bin.
Back in November, when it became clear the Pohlads weren’t giving the front office any real spending room on their way out the door, I named Coulombe as a cheap free-agent fit for the Twins. Coincidentally, his $3 million salary nearly matches the $2.4 million the Twins later “saved,” compared to MLB Trade Rumors’ projections, when signing their arbitration-eligible players.
Coulombe makes up for middling velocity with expert command of a deep bag, adding a cutter in 2023 and using five pitches at least 12 percent of the time last year. That enables him to keep hitters on both sides of the plate off balance, racking up more strikeouts than his raw stuff would suggest and faring well versus lefties (.573 OPS) and righties (.623 OPS) since 2021.
Coulombe will likely slide into the bullpen’s vacant No. 1 lefty role that was filled for the past five seasons by Caleb Thielbar, who inked a one-year, $2.75 million deal with the Chicago Cubs as a 37-year-old free agent. And it’s easy to envision the other seven spots in the Twins’ season-opening bullpen being filled exclusively by right-handers.
Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax and Cole Sands are three no-brainers, and Brock Stewart can be a fourth if he’s fully healthy following August shoulder surgery. While not locked into spots, Jorge Alcala, Justin Topa and Michael Tonkin have guaranteed contracts — albeit for less than $2 million each — making them favorites for jobs if they get through camp healthy.
That’s already seven righty relievers without even including Louie Varland, who has the potential to be one of the Twins’ better relievers, or Rule 5 pick Eiberson Castellano, who has to be on the MLB roster all season to avoid being offered back to the Philadelphia Phillies. There’s really no room to carry a second lefty just for the sake of having two of them.
And the reality is it would take a better lefty than Coulombe to push Duran and Jax, and a healthy Stewart, out of high-leverage, late-inning matchups against lefty bats anyway. Instead, the Twins figure to use Coulombe in the middle innings, as a secondary setup man somewhere between Sands and Alcala/Topa in the initial leverage hierarchy. He should be a solid fit there.
Barring a late addition, the Twins’ bullpen pecking order looks something like this going into camp:
1. Duran
2. Jax
3. Stewart (if healthy)
4. Sands
5. Coulombe
6. Alcala
7. Topa (if healthy)
8. Tonkin
9. Varland
10. Castellano
That’s a pretty strong group fighting over eight spots, with lots of depth and several high-upside arms, especially if Stewart is ready for Opening Day. Of those top 10 names, all but Sands, Varland and Castellano have guaranteed 2025 deals, although Alcala and Topa also join them in still being optionable to the minors despite $1.5 million and $1.225 million salaries, respectively.
Tonkin has a $1 million contract and is out of minor-league options, but the Twins could consider placing him on waivers at the end of camp if Varland makes a compelling case for an Opening Day job. In that scenario, they’d risk losing Tonkin for nothing, but if no teams claim his $1 million contract, he could be stashed at Triple-A St. Paul as in-season depth.
FanGraphs projects the Twins to have MLB’s best overall bullpen — with 52 innings of a 3.45 ERA predicted for Coulombe — which is very encouraging. However, it’s only fair to note FanGraphs also projected the Twins’ bullpen to be among MLB’s best at this point last offseason and it ended up ranking 19th out of 30 teams in both ERA and Win Probability Added.
Predicting the future is hard and predicting the collective performances of bullpens is really hard, but the Twins have a good group of righty relievers and Coulombe complements them by filling the lefty-on-lefty role capably.
(Photo of Danny Coulombe: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images)
