As Caleb Thielbar grows older, Twins lefthander gets better

FORT MYERS, FLA. – Caleb Thielbar looked around the Twins clubhouse and shrugged.

"If you had told me in 2013 that I would still be here in 2023," he said with a smile, "I would have thought I'd be a lot richer than I am."

Such is the price you pay for a non-traditional path to major league success. Not many players, after all, finish the best season of their career as the oldest player on their team, but Thielbar, who turned 36 in January, did so in 2022.

That late-blooming arc of his career means that Thielbar spent what should have been the prime earning years of his career, seasons when he was 29 through 32, out of the majors, and almost out of baseball completely. But it also helped turn the lefthanded reliever into one of the rarest specimens to be found in big-league baseball: a pitcher who has gotten better — and even throws harder — as he gets older.

"He's really an incredible success story. Pitchers, generally speaking, don't gain velocity after the age of 30 or so," said Derek Falvey, the Twins president of baseball operations. "Caleb used to use his fastball to set up his other pitches. Now, with a lot of work and a lot of self-examination, he's turned it into a weapon on its own."

In his first three-season stint with the Twins, 2013-15, Thielbar threw fewer than 100 fastballs or sliders that exceeded 92.8 mph. In 2022, that 92.8 mph figure was his average fastball velocity, and 3.7 mph faster than when he landed back on the team in 2020.

Even better: Thielbar's four-pitch mix of fastball, slider, curveball and occasional changeup last season produced the highest percentage of soft contact in the league. The average exit velocity of balls hit off Thielbar was 84.7 mph, among the top 1% of major league pitchers, and his percentage of hard-hit pitches was 25.9%, lowest in the majors.

"It's awesome. It's definitely satisfying. When I made it back, I felt more vindicated than anything. I always felt good enough, even in those years that I wasn't up here," he said. "There were different stretches where I felt like I had really good stuff, and it was just a matter of whether I could do it consistently. So finally getting back was just vindication that my hard work paid off and that I actually was good enough to be a big-leaguer."

It was a close call, though. After shoulder tendonitis in 2015 kept him at Class AAA for most of the season, the Padres claimed him off waivers in August but later that month designated him for assignment, leaving him without a job that winter.

"It was pretty discouraging, but I used it as an opportunity to make some changes," said Thielbar, who began visiting the campuses of Driveline Baseball's development centers for input and advice. "I learned how to take care of my body better and how to move my body better. How to recover better. I was able to get more hip-shoulder separation, the way my body rotates, to get better velocity. I was able to sit on my back leg a lot better. I'm able to brace on my front leg better when my foot hits the ground. My arm action is a lot better. It was just a combination of a lot of small things that added up."

Still, after two seasons in independent ball in St. Paul and two relatively successful but unnoticed seasons in Detroit's farm system, he accepted a job as pitching coach at Augustana University in Sioux Falls.

"I gave it everything I had" for Toledo, the Tigers' Class AAA team, in 2019, posting a 3.30 ERA with 92 strikeouts and 16 walks, "but the Tigers didn't have any plans for me in the majors. Didn't give me a call," Thielbar said. "I was getting better, but it didn't matter."

But after accepting an invitation to play for Team USA that winter in the Olympic qualifying tournament, he demonstrated he could still pitch. Scouts noticed, and "half the league called," he said. Thielbar chose the Twins again, made the team in the pandemic-shortened season, and continued to blossom.

And 2022 was his masterpiece — or perhaps 2023 will be. The former standout at Randolph High School and South Dakota State at least put himself on some amazing lists.

For instance, the last Twins pitcher to pitch as many innings as the Northfield native, at age 35 or later, and turn in a better ERA than his 3.49? It was 31 years prior, by another Minnesotan: Jack Morris in the 1991 world championship season.

"He's not that much younger than I am, and he's still doing this really well," said 41-year-old Twins manager Rocco Baldelli. "If we get a similar version of Caleb as what he gave us last year, everyone over here will be real happy."

Especially at his age.

"You know, I really don't feel that old," Thielbar said, smiling again. "I know I am, everybody reminds me of it every day. But I don't feel that old."