Minnesota Twins: Why signing Cody Allen is a smart decision

The Minnesota Twins signed the former All-Star closer to a minor league deal this weekend and hope that signing a variety of arms can help solve their bullpen woes.

If there is one flaw with the current Minnesota Twins roster, many will tell you that it would be the team’s bullpen. After getting by the first couple of months with an effective closer by committee, the effectiveness of the bullpen has decreased. With the Twins having their most promising team in recent memory, making upgrades to the bullpen is a must before the July 31 trade deadline.

While the Twins haven’t made a big move to upgrade the back end of their bullpen, they’re starting to make steps in that direction by signing a plethora of arms that have low-risk but potentially decent-to-big rewards. In the past couple of weeks, Minnesota has signed Cuban right-hander Yennier Cano and veteran Ian Krol to minor league deals and this past weekend, they added closer Cody Allen to that stable.

After debuting for the Indians in 2012, Allen became one of baseball’s top closers, racking up 122 saves for the Cleveland Indians from his debut through the 2017 season. The right-hander was also effective in other metrics as he registered a 2.67 ERA, a 1.15 WHIP and averaged 11.7 strikeouts per nine innings.

However, the 30-year old has ran into a wall in the past couple of seasons. His final year in Cleveland produced 27 saves for the Indians, but also came with a 4.70 ERA that was well off his mark established from the previous six seasons. The Los Angeles Angels tried to take advantage of that signing Allen to a one-year deal worth $8 million this past winter, but he responded with a 6.26 ERA and a 1.91 WHIP before being designated for assignment.

With Allen’s recent performance, this smells like a typical Twins move to avoid going all in on bringing in an elite bullpen arm. However, Allen’s contract will only cost the Twins $500,000 for the rest of the season and he won’t be added to the major league roster right away. If Allen can find his groove at Triple-A Rochester, Minnesota can add an arm with a proven track record for very little cost and perhaps strengthen their bullpen internally.

For this reason, the Twins might want to do more of this just to see if something they throw at the wall sticks. One reasonable target could be Washington Nationals reliever Trevor Rosenthal, who has also struggled in 2018 coming off of Tommy John surgery, but could be an interesting reclamation project.

By no means should this be the only way the Twins attempt to fix their bullpen, but for now, adding arms with a track record on the cheap is a good place to start.