My college journalism courses taught me to never bury the lede of a story. Sorry, University of Minnesota-Morris English profs—but I’m going to do just that here in pursuit of dramatic effect.
The 2026 Minnesota Twins bullpen has set a franchise record in the realm of saves. Before the big reveal, let’s take a brief look back through Twins save-stat history.
In the early years (1960s) of Twins baseball, the short-stint save wasn’t really a “thing”. Opportunities to close out winning ballgames were
passed around far more liberally, peaking in 1965 with nine relievers notching a SV: Al Worthington, Johnny Klippstein, Dick Stigman, Bill Pleis, Mel Nelson, Jim Kaat, Jerry Forsnow, Jim Merritt, & Garry Roggenburk.
Not much winning occurred in the mid-70s through mid-80s, so save chances plummeted. Only two MN firemen (Mike Marshall & Pete Redfern) recorded saves in 1979—same for Doug Corbett & Jerry Koosman in 1981.
In 1986—likely as a result of harboring Ron Davis in the pen—save distribution jumped to eight relievers: Keith Atherton, George Frazier, Frank Pastore, Davis, Neal Heaton, Mark Portugal, Roy Lee Jackson, & Juan Agosto.
The same general logic applied in 1996—the first year post-Rick Aguilera as closer—to seven RPs with SVs: Dave Stevens, Mike Trombley, Eddie Guardado, Dan Naulty, Greg Hansell, Frankie Rodriguez, & Erik Bennett.
Then came the Mariano Rivera-inspired one inning closer model and a bunch more years where minimal minions meted out saves. In 2005 only Joe Nathan & Jesse Crain christened that category, while in ‘07 & ‘09 it was just The Nathanator & Matt Guerrier.
With bullpen roles becoming more fluid again in the late-2010s, 2019 saw nine MN pen-dwellers get in on that sweet save action: Taylor Rogers, Blake Parker, Sergio Romo, Trevor May, Ryne Harper, Devin Smeltzer, Randy Dobnak, Mike Morin, & Trevor Hildenberger.
Somewhat remarkably, nine different stoppers saved games just three years later (2022): Emilio Pagan, Jhoan Duran, Jorge Lopez, Tyler Duffey, Griffin Jax, Caleb Thielbar, Jovani Moran, Cole Sands, & Michael Fullmer.
This catches us up to the present. After 2025’s complete bullpen blow-up, the new LaTroy Hawkins-coached unit was expected to be a top-to-bottom rebuild. Even so, I don’t think anyone expected this many relievers to have picked up saves already: Rogers, Justin Topa, Yoendrys Gomez, Luis Garcia, Eric Orze, Anthony Banda, Kody Funderburk, Andrew Morris, Sands, Travis Adams, & Cody Laweryson.
If you were counting along at home, that’s eleven Twins relievers already recording saves in ‘26—a single-season franchise record—and we haven’t celebrated America’s 250th anniversary yet! If Hawk himself were to trot in from LCF and close out a Twins victory, I don’t think anyone would bat an eye.
Bullpen by committee? In 2026, the Minnesota Twins have been more “bullpen by general assembly”. With injuries continuing to push relievers into new roles, one could reasonably expect even a few more saves to be claimed by unlikely sources in the season’s back half.
