FORT MYERS, Fla. -- With Rocco Baldelli as part of the Rays' coaching staff last season, Tampa Bay leaned heavily on creative pitching concepts like the opener and the bullpen game to squeeze the most out of a young, inexperienced pitching staff with a lack of proven starting options.

Baldelli will have no such problem in Minnesota, where chief baseball officer Derek Falvey and general manager Thad Levine have compiled five capable starters, meaning that such out-of-the-box thinking shouldn't be needed for the time being.

"We feel pretty good about [the starters]," Falvey said. "Do we need guys to continue to take steps forward? Yeah, for us to be good. And certainly, if you look around the league and look at the some of the best pitching staffs in the game, we have to continue to get better. I don't think we are right there today, but I think we'll focus on the guys that we have and we will continue to find ways to add to that group to make them better."

But several factors -- the schedule, the personnel and even unpredictable spring weather -- will make it difficult to make large generalizations about the Twins' path to 27 outs on any given day. In the early stages of his managerial career, Baldelli has shown the ability to adapt to the hand he has been dealt.

The Twins' new skipper is being tested in the first weeks of the new season, as the Twins will open with a stretch of five off-days within the first 15 days -- as Baldelli put it, "a schedule built for about three, maybe three-and-a-half" starting pitchers. That will necessitate fifth starter Martin Perez following another starter out of the bullpen for extended outings, but he will be lined up to assume his regular rotation spot once the schedule stabilizes in mid-April.

Even when the Twins establish a more traditional rhythm with their starters, their personnel will dictate different strategies within games. Jose Berrios and Kyle Gibson, for example, both approached 200 innings last year and were effective in pitching deeper into games, with 17 and 18 quality starts, respectively.

On the other hand, for someone like Michael Pineda, who is returning from a pair of surgeries (a July 2017 Tommy John surgery and an August 2018 meniscus surgery), the Twins could be more cautious with inning counts and be more proactive in turning to the bullpen.

"Yes, there are going to be times where we're calling on our relievers earlier in games," Baldelli said. "But I promise you where there will also be times where we allow our starters to pitch deep into games. How it works big picture-wise, I can't give you a ratio or anything like that. But I think we're going to see both of those things, and probably both regularly."

The Twins haven't yet announced a defined closer, but Blake Parker, Taylor Rogers, Trevor Hildenberger and Trevor May are expected to pitch shorter stints out of the bullpen in high-leverage situations, complemented by long-relief types like converted starter Adalberto Mejia and other relievers like Addison Reed, Matt Magill and potentially Ryne Harper that could bridge the gaps.

The skill sets of those pitchers likely fit into a more traditional bullpen composition for now. But once Fernando Romero returns to the Twins after gaining more relief experience in the Minor Leagues, Baldelli thinks that the 24-year-old right-hander could potentially develop into a candidate for a multi-inning, high-leverage role that has emerged as part of the evolving view of relief pitchers.

"Not everyone is built to do that," Baldelli said. "Everyone has a different sort of skill-set profile. But when and if we run into guys that are progressing in that direction, I think it's possible we could see it."

While the Twins had the seventh-highest ERA in the American League last season, Falvey believes that the offseason additions of Parker and Perez and continued progression of the returning arms under the guidance of new pitching coach Wes Johnson give the Twins the makings of a staff that can compete for a spot in the playoffs.

"I think our group is good enough to put us in a position to compete all year," Falvey said. "I do believe that. And I do think that while you look around the game and, are there some staffs that you look out there and go, 'I wish I had a couple more of that version of guy?' Sure. But I would say that's probably true in a lot of places with teams that are competing."