BALTIMORE -- Twins manager Derek Shelton finally knows who his eight relievers will be when the season starts Thursday. As to how they’ll be deployed, well … he’s getting there.
Minnesota confirmed Tuesday that right-handers Zak Kent and Cody Laweryson will take the last two sports in the season-opening bullpen, providing a pair of inexperienced, unconventional and intriguing righties in a largely unproven bullpen.
Kent is a slider-heavy righty who enjoyed a breakout in 2025 upon being moved to the bullpen full time. Laweryson is a righty who gets swings and misses on his fastball despite not having high velocity -- he averaged 93.1 mph on the pitch this spring.
In the absence of big-name relievers, the Twins built a bullpen with a range of skills and approaches to getting hitters out.
“They provide us a unique look,” Shelton said. “When you’re building a bullpen, you want to try to have as many different looks as possible, and I think in filling out the back half of that, that kind of came into part of the decision of what we made.”
Shelton still isn’t tipping his hand as to which pitchers will take closing and setup duties. Righties Cole Sands and Justin Topa and especially lefty Taylor Rogers have closing experience, but there is no single, obvious pitcher to funnel saves to.
“It’s going to be a little bit of a meritocracy,” Shelton said. “Guys are going to pitch themselves in or out of certain roles. We have to kind of monitor that as the season starts.”
Twins retain Jackson, Bowman
Two potentially valuable depth pieces will be remaining with the Twins organization. Catcher Alex Jackson has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A St. Paul, while right-hander Matt Bowman has returned to the Twins on a Minor League deal after being released earlier this week.
Jackson is a clear third on the Minnesota catching depth chart behind Ryan Jeffers and Victor Caratini. Bowman lost out in the bullpen competition, but with more than 200 games of Major League experience, he will likely factor in to the Twins’ relief mix at some point this year.
Rogers adds a cutter
For virtually all of the past six seasons, Rogers has been a two-pitch pitcher: a sweeper and a sinker. Out of roughly 5,000 pitches he’s thrown since start of 2020, more than 99 percent have been one or the other. But this spring, he threw a cutter extensively -- 30.8 percent of the time, exactly as often as his sinker.
“Trying to evolve,” Rogers said. “Just the path of when you get older in your career, some things diminish, you’ve got to add on the other side just to try to stay afloat.”
Rogers averaged 86.7 mph on the cutter this spring, much closer in velocity to his sinker than to the slower sweeper, and threw it primarily to right-handed hitters. If it helps him be more effective against right-handed hitters, that could make Rogers a more viable eighth- or ninth-inning option rather than a tactical piece.