Chin Music w/ Roy Smalley, LaVelle E. Neal III & Jim Souhan - Minnesota Twins Podcast · Talk North Podcast Network

Twins' bullpen & hitting coaches

·37 min·2 clips

The Twins fired David Popkins, then got worse at hitting, and Roy says the cause and effect is not that simple.

The show starts with the Twins' bullpen. The panel treats it as the biggest clue in the team's teardown, walking through a year that opened with bullpen optimism and then came apart through injuries, slumps, and underperforming arms. That leads to the bigger question about the Twins' chances of competing next year. What matters now is not just who is left, but whether the pitching mix can give the club a real shot to compete again next year. The conversation then shifts to hitting coaches. The argument is simple: a coach can help with mechanics, but the more important job is to give hitters a workable plan for how pitchers are trying to get them out. Pitch plans come first. They talk about whether a hitter is likely to see fastballs or a wall of breaking balls, and about how the odds change depending on the count and the pitcher's approach. Two strikes change everything. That is where the show wants the coach to be most useful, because the hitter still needs a way to survive the count and punish mistakes in the middle of the zone. Ryan Jeffers comes up as the example. The White Sox closer at the other end of the at-bat gives the discussion a real-game shape, with the panel using that matchup to show how a 97-mph fastball plays once the hitter is already down to two strikes. The talk stays practical. There is not much theorizing for its own sake; the hosts keep circling back to what a hitter should expect, what a coach should tell him, and how that advice changes the odds in the box. The rhythm is loose. People start, correct themselves, and pick the thread back up, which makes the conversation feel like a clubhouse argument rather than a polished lecture. The back end drifts. A wedding-band story opens the door to Motown, the Spinners, and a nod to the way younger listeners still show up for old songs when the band is good enough. That drift fits the room. The whole thing sounds like veterans talking baseball and life in the same breath, with enough bluntness and memory to make even roster minutiae feel tied to something larger.

As heard by us

A practical Twins conversation about bullpen fallout and hitter planning.

This Twins discussion stays grounded in the bullpen teardown and the larger question of what next year should look like. It also makes a clear case that a hitting coach should do more than tinker with mechanics and should help hitters read what a pitcher is trying to do.

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Why you'd press play

You get the most from this if you want Twins process talk, not scoreboard chatter.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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