Perhaps no position sees as much turnover in the minors as a reliever. Minor league teams get constant calls from the major league team, sending relievers up and down from the majors. Teams constantly shuffle players around the higher and lower levels when someone is called up, injured, or cut from the team.
This year, 31 of the St. Paul Saints’ 46 pitchers have pitched in the majors this year or in their career. Some have been with the team all season, like Hobie Harris and Jeff Brigham, who joined the Twins organization on minor league deals this off-season. Others, like Steven Okert and Giovanny Gallegos, have arrived late in the Triple-A season after bad outings in the majors.
“We just get them in and meet them where they’re at,” Saints pitching coach Pete Larson said regarding how he and bullpen coach Dan Urbina work with their relievers. “We understand the time of year and how they’re feeling, what they want to do, and what they want to get out of this experience.”
Harris still leads the Saints in relief appearances with 44 despite being placed on the Development List on Monday. Harris has pitched for the Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, Milwaukee Brewers, and Washington Nationals’ Triple-A affiliates as a minor league journeyman these last four years. He made his MLB debut last year with the Nationals, appearing in 16 games and posting a 5.12 ERA as a reliever.
He has been inconsistent in the majors. One month, opponents would hit .146 off him; the next, they’d hit .388. Despite Harris’s inconsistent play on the mound with St. Paul this season, he wanted to sign with the Twins in Spring Training to develop his flaws from an analytical standpoint.
“They’ve just been very transparent,” said Harris. “They’re very advanced as far as analytics go. They give me all the information that I need. They kind of allow me to not only know what the best version of myself is but give me a track to find that best version.”
On paper, the results are not what Harris wanted this season. He had a 6.79 ERA, 1.84 WHIP, 62 strikeouts, and 31 walks in 54 ⅓ innings. Still, he feels good about what the Twins organization has done for his confidence and getting himself into a position to pitch in the big leagues again, even if it’s not this season.
“It feels like I am where I’m meant to be,” said Harris. “I feel like I’m at my best when I’m not overthinking, whenever I’m just trusting my stuff, and whenever I’m trusting my process and the work I put in and letting good things happen out there.”
For most of this season, Brigham has played alongside Harris in St. Paul’s bullpen. He has spent parts of five seasons in the majors from 2018-23 with the Miami Marlins and New York Mets. Brigham also joined the team because of Minnesota’s reputation, which they’ve garnered by helping pitchers with their analytics department.
His season has had more health hiccups. Brigham suffered an oblique injury on the mound in his second relief appearance on April 4, which kept him shut down until May 29. It was Brigham’s first injury, but observing other players go through their rehab helped him establish a routine.
“Seeing some other guys go through it, and it was the real deal of having to take my time to get back and feel strong and confident with it,” said Brigham. “I think when one thing’s out of wack, other things fall out of place. But it just threw me for a loop with my rhythm, and it just took me some time to get back into a solid rhythm for the season.”
Brigham’s numbers on the back of his baseball card have been better than Harris’s. He’s appeared in 33 games and posted a 4.75 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 56 strikeouts, and 25 walks in 41 ⅔ innings. As the season has gone on, he has worked with Larson to get better command of his slider, which he didn’t focus on mechanically with the Mets last season.
“As the years progressed, working with Pete on just trying to find some consistency with landing my pitches in the strike zone and attacking hitters, that’s been the focal point,” Brigham said. “It’s tough to develop pitches and mixes when you’re struggling with the consistency of staying in the zone outing after an outing.”
There’s only so much the Saints coaching staff can do to replicate a big-league environment for these veterans who haven’t returned to the majors this season, like Brigham and Harris, or for those who are back in the minors for the first time in a few seasons, like Okert and Gallegos.
“We can’t create the third or fourth deck, and we can’t add 20,000 fans, but what we can do is throw them in close games, high leverage for us,” said Larson. “The back end of a game, those last six to nine outs can be the hardest to get sometimes. If we can prepare them for that when they go back up and pitch in those later innings, it helps them to get the heart racing a little bit, and that’s something we can control a bit for them.”
The transition back to the minor leagues has been an adjustment for Okert and Gallegos. However, it allows them to have a work environment where they can work more freely with the mechanics they’re falling behind on in 2024 and not be put into MLB games where everything can be on the line for their team with just one pitch.
Okert’s command got away from him in the majors. Even when he was in the strike zone, hitters managed a .424 batting average off his four-seamer in 37 plate appearances and a .417 average off Okert’s sinker in 15 plate appearances.
His opponent’s average was up .125 from the .289 batting average they had off his four-seamer last year. Okert attributes his regression to mechanical issues with his back leg.
“I feel like I was drifting out a lot, not staying back and not using my back leg at all,” Okert said. “My stuff was still showing decent as far as numbers go with all the analytics behind it, but the results just weren’t the same. I felt like I was missing that little bit of zip behind my stuff.”
With less pressure on him every time he’s on the mound with St. Paul, Okert is using timing to his advantage. He’s slowing down the game to the extent he’s allowed to with the pitch clock. In doing so, Okert is allowed to regain confidence in himself.
“I feel like most of the time, that’s the biggest problem, not being confident in ourselves,” said Okert. “I felt like I had some mechanical errors, but confidence had plummeted with how I ended up there and the first couple here, so it’s just trying to get some confidence back in my stuff and seeing what it can do.”
While Brigham, Harris, and Okert have all been with the Twins organization since Spring Training, Gallegos has only had just over a month with the Saints to acquaint himself with the organization and catch them up on where he feels he needs help. Gallegos says his biggest issue has been a dip in his fastball velocity, which dropped to 92.2 MPH in 2024, whereas in 2023, it sat at 93.7 MPH.
“I had a lot of offers, but I made the decision to sign with Minnesota because I like the team. It’s one of the best teams in the American League,” Gallegos said. “I tried to find one of the best deals for me and where I can help my team in the big leagues.”
Like with Okert, part of Gallegos’s issue has also been about confidence. He posted career highs in ERA (6.53), WHIP (1.64), and hits per nine (10.2) in 21 relief appearances for the Cardinals before they released him. Having once been one of their most versatile relievers in the last five years, Gallegos’s fall from the top was hard. Still, can feel things turn around as the season winds down in St. Paul.
“I feel great with my arm and everything on my body, but I think my confidence, my confidence is the best thing for me but it hasn’t been there,” said Gallegos. “When you’re losing confidence, you’re losing everything. I’ve been working on that and I feel much better, I feel like me and I’m just enjoying the game.”
Larson’s additions of Okert and Gallegos have not only been great for him to work with so they can get their MLB careers back on track. But they’ve also meaningfully helped the younger relievers finishing the season in the Saints bullpen, who are still hungry for their first shot in the majors.
“I think they’re great additions for us, they’re great for the clubhouse, especially the younger guys to pick their brains,” said Larson. “There’s so much experience; it’s almost 30 years of service in our bullpen, so it’s really cool to have these guys to work with and for guys to learn from, too.”
Only five games remain for the Saints this year. Still, each of these relievers hopes to make the most of what time is left for them on the mound this season so they can have another shot in the majors, whether with the Twins down the stretch or in 2025. St. Paul’s coaching staff can focus on the flaws to make their greatest weakness a strength and feel confident on the mound again.
