Looking into what sectors of the roster that the Minnesota Twins front office needs to address over the winter, the bullpen was noticeably a weakness this past season, meaning some relief reinforcements could be on their way.

Most concerningly, the Twins’ relievers as a staff struggled by issuing an unhealthy number of walks, while also surrendering a good number of hits, and that combination normally doesn’t lead to success. As a result, the Twins bullpen ranked 26th with a 4.74 ERA and 28th with a 1.49 WHIP.

Stuck in the midst of an overall poor Twins bullpen, Andrew Morris took full advantage of his first major league season and demonstrated to be one of Minnesota’s best relief options.

Manager Derek Shelton took notice of his excellent abilities, meaning it wasn’t long before Morris found himself in high-leverage situations. Heading into 2027, Morris is projected to be one of the most dependable relief assets, led by newly hired pitching coach Brian Reith.

Reviewing Morris’ 2026 Season

When the Twins set their 26-man Opening Day roster, Morris was not included. He made his major league debut in April in Toronto, although his first month of major league action didn’t go well, pitching to a 6.35 ERA during the month of April.

Morris found his footing in May where he started to show what he was capable of, owning a 2.19 ERA over 12.1 innings. Furthermore, he carried his dominance into the next pair of months, putting up a 3.77 ERA in June and 0.64 ERA in July.

During those three months, spanning May through July, Morris ranked 19th amongst major league relievers with a 1.91 ERA, while tying for ninth along with five others, being valued at 0.8 fWAR.

After a dominant three months of action, anchoring the Twins bullpen, he started to unravel as the season’s end neared, pitching to an unpleasant 6.94 ERA in August and 8.10 ERA in September.

Looking beyond Morris’ surface-level stats and monthly splits, he proved to be superb at limiting hard-contact to a respectable 34.7% clip, while keeping the ball on the ground 45.5% of the time, both metrics ranked in at-least the 68th percentile.

Now that you’ve seen how Morris can be dominant at times, while also struggling mightily on the other hand, in summary, he ended his debut 2026 campaign with a 4.40 ERA and 1.37 WHIP across 73.2 innings of work.

It wasn’t a perfect debut season, but Morris provided a glimpse into what he can offer moving forward. Definitely someone worth building around.