A Look At The Twins’ Intriguing Start
The Twins received an “F” grade from MLBTR readers during our Offseason in Review series. The fact that only 42% of voters deemed the winter a complete failure might have been an upset. Minnesota’s biggest developments of the offseason were the unexpected departure of president of baseball operations Derek Falvey, Pablo Lopez‘s elbow surgery, and … Josh Bell. With 39% of voters giving the Twins a “D” grade, it’s clear the general consensus was that the Twins would not be walking at graduation.
Minnesota’s first five games went as expected. But after a 1-4 start, the club found some momentum. The Twins swept the division rival Tigers in a four-game set. They took series from the Red Sox and Blue Jays. The team dropped a game to the Mets last night to fall back to an even .500, but they’re still tied with Detroit for the 2nd-best run differential in the American League.
A 12-12 record certainly isn’t anything to write home about, but the beginning of the campaign has gone about as well as Minnesota could’ve hoped for, given minimal investment in the club heading into the year. The Twins’ $107MM payroll is down nearly $30MM from 2025. Here’s a look at some of the moves that have spurred Minnesota so far, plus what it could mean when the trade deadline rolls around…
Taj Bradley, reliable starter
The Twins landed Bradley as part of the mass bullpen selloff at the 2025 trade deadline. He came over from the Rays in a straight-up swap for reliever Griffin Jax. It’s been a clear win for Minnesota up to this point, particularly with Jax falling out of the high-leverage mix in Tampa Bay. Bradley has a crisp 1.63 ERA through five starts. He’s boosted his strikeout rate to a career-best 28.8% in large part due to an improved splitter. Bradley’s top swing-and-miss pitch has nearly three additional inches of vertical drop this year. The splitter has generated an elite 43.8% whiff rate.
Bradley isn’t going to maintain a sub-2.00 ERA all season. The right-hander’s xFIP and SIERA are nearly two runs higher than his actual ERA. He’s getting ground balls at a career-low 34.7% clip, while allowing a significant level of hard contact (93.6 mph average exit velocity – 2nd percentile). Given Bradley’s previous struggles with the home run ball, that’ll be worth monitoring as the weather gets warmer and the ball starts traveling. Even if Bradley is a mid-3.00s ERA starter with above-average strikeout stuff, that’s a major boon for a Minnesota rotation without many trustworthy options beyond Joe Ryan.
Mick Abel, backend starter (when healthy)
Speaking of the pitching staff, Abel was emerging as a fixture before going down with elbow inflammation. It’s not expected to be an extended absence, but it was a disappointing diagnosis following back-to-back scoreless outings for the young righty. Abel came over as part of the package from Philadelphia for closer Jhoan Duran. He scuffled in his first two appearances (one in long relief), then shut down the Tigers and Red Sox over 13 frames.
Abel and Bradley both struggled in their initial stints with the Twins last year. It seemed like a leap of faith to expect either one to be a positive contributor in 2026, and Minnesota was relying on both of them. The club didn’t add to the rotation after the Lopez injury, leaving Ryan, Bailey Ober, and Simeon Woods Richardson as the top options, along with the two young righties. Any crack in the group would be a problem, but Minnesota’s starters rank ninth in ERA right now.
Taylor Rogers, experienced setup man
Rogers’ return was Minnesota’s only major-league signing on the pitching side. The Twins grabbed him on a cheap $2MM agreement. He joined a bullpen lacking proven arms after the group was completely cleared out in July, with five core pieces heading out in various trades. Rogers coughed up the lead last night against New York, but he’d been solid before the outing. The veteran lefty has secured three holds and has generally been effective in high-leverage situations. Heading into Wednesday, Rogers had only been scored upon in two games, both of which were with Minnesota facing a deficit.
Josh Bell, hot streak extraordinaire
Bell will have a three-week stretch every season where he looks like an MVP candidate. It may have already happened for 2026. Bell had three hits in the final game of the sweep against the Tigers, pushing his OPS to 1.066 through 13 games. He’s cooled off from there, but it’s still a solid 116 wRC+ across 96 plate appearances. The Twins added Bell on a one-year, $7MM deal. He’s provided a nice boost to an offense that ranks in the top 10 in scoring. The Victor Caratini signing (two years, $14MM) hasn’t worked out as well, but adding a pair of veteran switch-hitters has given the lineup a bit more flexibility.
Will it matter?
This probably isn’t a roster headed toward an AL pennant run. It’s probably not even a squad equipped to end Minnesota’s three-year playoff drought. The key will be whether the Twins are competitive enough not to be sellers at the trade deadline. Ryan would be among the prizes in July, assuming Minnesota is once again open for business. Could a couple more months of .500 ball be enough to convince ownership this team can compete in an uninspiring AL Central? The early returns have been fairly positive despite a tepid offseason.
Photo courtesy of John E. Sokolowski, Imagn Images
Twins Claim Christian Roa, Designate Eric Wagaman
The Twins claimed right-hander Christian Roa off waivers from the Astros, who’d designated him for assignment earlier in the week, Houston announced Thursday. Minnesota designated infielder/outfielder Eric Wagaman for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, per Dan Hayes of The Athletic. Roa has been optioned to Triple-A St. Paul.
Roa, 27, brings some velocity to a patchwork Twins bullpen that hasn’t recovered from last July’s fire sale, wherein Minnesota shipped out five relievers (Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Louis Varland, Brock Stewart, Danny Coulombe). He’s pitched briefly in both 2025 and 2026, totaling 11 2/3 big league innings. Roa has held opponents to only five runs (3.86 ERA) on 11 hits, but he’s also issued 10 walks and plunked three batters while only recording nine strikeouts.
It’s a small sample, of course, but command has long been the biggest knock on Roa’s game. The 6’4″, former Texas A&M standout was the No. 48 overall pick by the Reds back in 2020. He’s drawn praise for a plus slider and average or better fastball and changeup over the years, but he’s regularly received 30 and 40 grades (on the 20-80 scale) for his command along the way. Roa has pitched to a 4.52 ERA in parts of four Triple-A seasons, fanning 25.5% of his opponents there but also issuing walks at a dismal 13.9% clip.
While Roa’s overall numbers in Triple-A don’t look like much, most of the damage against him there came in 2023-24. He tossed 60 1/3 Triple-A frames last year and notched a tidy 2.83 ERA with a 26.1% strikeout rate and an improved (but still too high) 11.4% walk rate. He tossed one scoreless inning there so far in 2026.
Roa has sat 96.2 mph with his four-seamer in limited big league action. His slider has been as advertised in the majors; he’s finished off 11 plate appearances with the pitch, four of them resulting in strikeouts and only one resulting in a base hit (a single). He also mixes in a sinker and a very occasional changeup.
This is the second of Roa’s three minor league option years. The Twins can shuttle him back and forth across the Mississippi River as needed both this year and next, assuming he sticks on the roster. For now, he’ll open in St. Paul, but given the state of the club’s bullpen, there’ll surely be opportunities over on the Minneapolis side of the Twin Cities.
Turning to the 28-year-old Wagaman, he’ll now find himself in DFA limbo for the second time in the past six months. Minnesota originally acquired him after he’d been designated for assignment by the Marlins over the winter. The Twins shipped minor league reliever Kade Bragg to the Marlins in that swap, though he hasn’t exactly stood out in Double-A this year (12 walks and a hit batter, 46 batters faced).
The hope in picking up Wagaman was that he’d be a righty-swinging bench option who could fill in at all four corner spots. The former Yankees and Angels farmhand spent the whole 2025 season on Miami’s roster despite a sub-par .250/.296/.378 batting line (85 wRC+) in 514 turns at the plate. Wagaman was decisively overmatched by fellow righties but knocked left-handers around at strong .283/.321/.462 clip with the Fish.
Wagaman has experience at all four corner positions but has worked primarily at first base in recent seasons. He’s in the first of three minor league option years but has gotten out to a dismal .159/.284/.254 start in his first 74 plate appearances with the Saints.
The Twins will have five days to place Wagaman on outright waivers or trade him to another club. Since waivers are a 48-hour process, we’ll know the outcome of Wagaman’s DFA within the next week. If Wagaman passes through waivers unclaimed, the Twins will assign him outright to St. Paul. He hasn’t been outrighted in the past and doesn’t have three years of big league service, meaning he won’t be able to reject an outright assignment.
Twins Promote Connor Prielipp
The Twins announced Wednesday that they’ve recalled top pitching prospect Connor Prielipp from Triple-A St. Paul. He’ll make his major league debut tonight, starting their road game against the Mets. Infielder/outfielder Ryan Kreidler was optioned to Triple-A in his place.
Prielipp, 25, was the No. 48 overall draft pick out of Alabama back in 2022. He’s a consensus top-five prospect in the Twins’ system who currently sits 81st on Baseball America’s ranking of the sport’s top 100 prospects. The 6’2″ southpaw has begun his 2026 season with 16 2/3 frames, a 2.30 ERA and a huge 34.9% strikeout rate in Triple-A, but his 12.7% walk rate is obviously higher than Minnesota would prefer.
Health troubles have plagued Prielipp to this point in his career. He dominated when healthy enough to take the mound at Alabama but required Tommy John surgery early in his sophomore season. On stuff alone, he might’ve been a first-round talent, but the injury concerns and the pandemic-impacted 2020 season limited him to only seven starts in his NCAA career. He posted preposterous numbers in that time: a 0.96 ERA with 45.6% strikeout rate against a 6.8% walk rate.
Durability concerns have carried over into Prielipp’s pro career. Renewed elbow troubles in 2023 prompted an internal brace procedure to once again repair his left ulnar collateral ligament. He pitched just 30 innings in his first two pro seasons combined but in 2025 tossed a career-high 82 2/3 frames with a 27% strikeout rate and 8.5% walk rate.
Prielipp has worked off a four-pitch mix in 2026, sitting 95.7 mph on his four-seamer — up from the 94.8 mph he averaged in his return from surgery last year. He’s largely shelved his sinker this season but incorporated a new curveball that sits in the 82-83 mph range. Prielipp also has a slider and changeup in the upper 80s. All three of his fastball, slider and changeup draw plus grades in Baseball America’s scouting report (60 each on the 20-80 scale). FanGraphs touted the slider as a plus-plus (70) pitch on last season’s scouting report.
Minnesota’s rotation ran into trouble as soon as pitchers and catchers reports. Right-hander Pablo López experienced discomfort in his first bullpen session this spring and wound up requiring UCL surgery that’ll cost him the whole season. David Festa, a former top-100 prospect who was in the rotation mix this spring, suffered a shoulder injury and has yet to pitch in 2026. Right-hander Mick Abel, a former first-round pick and top prospect acquired in the trade sending Jhoan Duran to the Phillies last summer, won a rotation spot in camp but just hit the injured list due to elbow inflammation. He’d just rattled off 13 shutout frames with a 16-to-3 K/BB ratio across his past two starts.
With those injuries impacting the staff, the Twins have Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober, Simeon Woods Richardson and breakout candidate Taj Bradley in the rotation at the moment. Prielipp will get at least one crack at forcing his way into the mix, and it’s plausible that he could get a couple looks if he impresses in tonight’s debut. There’s no formal timeline on Abel’s recovery yet, but Dan Hayes of The Athletic reports that his MRI results were a best-case scenario: only mild inflammation and no structural damage. Abel will miss at least two starts. Even if he only requires a minimum stint, Woods Richardson has been hit hard in the early-going and could be a bullpen candidate if Prielipp and Abel outpitch him. (Woods Richardson is out of minor league options and thus cannot simply be sent to Triple-A to get back on track.)
The timing of Prielipp’s promotion takes him out of the running for any PPI consideration. He’s also been called up late enough in the season that his only viable path to a full year of major league service would be a top-two finish in American League Rookie of the Year voting. Barring that, he’ll be controllable through at least the 2032 season. If Prielipp is up for good, he’d be on pace for Super Two status, making him arbitration eligible four times rather than three (beginning after the 2028 season). However, he’s in the first of three minor league option years, so he’s hardly a lock to stick in the majors for good from this point forth.
Regardless, Prielipp joins a crop of controllable young arms who can give Twins fans some hope even amid the chaos stemming from last July’s fire sale, an ownership restructuring and the recent departure of president of baseball operations Derek Falvey. Prielipp, Bradley, Abel, Kendry Rojas (called up yesterday), Dasan Hill (another top-100 arm down in Triple-A) and recently recalled righty Andrew Morris are all at or on the cusp of the MLB level. Festa and fellow right-hander Zebby Matthews (currently in Triple-A) were both top-100 talents prior to their debuts but have yet to establish themselves. Bradley is controlled through 2029. The others are all controlled through 2030 or later. The entire group is 25 or younger, with the exception of Festa, who turned 26 a month ago.
Mets Planning To Recall Christian Scott For Thursday Start
The Mets will recall righty Christian Scott from Triple-A Syracuse to start Thursday’s series finale against the Twins, manager Carlos Mendoza tells the team’s beat (link via MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo). It’ll be Scott’s first big league action since undergoing Tommy John surgery during the summer of 2024. He’ll square off against Twins top starter Joe Ryan.
Scott, now 26 years old, once ranked as the organization’s top pitching prospect and one of the top prospects in the entire sport. He made his major league debut in 2024 and posted a 4.56 ERA with 19.8% strikeout rate and 6.1% walk rate in his first nine starts in the Mets’ rotation. He’d previously tossed 42 1/3 innings with a 2.76 ERA, 33.5% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate at the Triple-A level. His surgery didn’t take place until September, so he was never going to be an option for the Mets in 2025.
At this point, Scott is 19 months removed from going under the knife. He held opponents to three runs in six spring innings and has tossed 13 2/3 innings in Syracuse so far in 2026. His 5.27 ERA isn’t much to look at, but Scott has set down 29.3% of his opponents against a microscopic 3.4% walk rate. His 95.3 mph average four-seamer is actually up about a mile per hour over his prior levels. He’s pairing that pitch with a slider and splitter — the same three-pitch mix he featured prior to his elbow injury.
Outside of Nolan McLean, the Mets’ rotation is something of a mess at the moment. Freddy Peralta has been solid but not as effective as expected when trading a pair of top-100 prospects for the final season of his contract. David Peterson‘s 5.40 ERA is tied heavily to a sky-high .373 average on balls in play, but the results are discouraging nonetheless. Clay Holmes has a sub-2.00 ERA but is working with diminished strikeout and walk rates; metrics like FIP (4.18) and SIERA (4.23) feel he’s in line for a change of fortune. Lefty Sean Manaea, in the second season of a three-year deal guaranteeing him $75MM (with some notable deferrals), has been relegated to a long relief/swing role.
Most concerning of all is right-hander Kodai Senga, whom the Mets optioned to Triple-A last summer amid a series of struggles that looks to have been rekindled. The 33-year-old started the season in strong fashion (four runs, 16-to-5 K/BB ratio in his first 11 2/3 innings) but has lasted only 5 2/3 innings over his past two starts. In that time, he’s been shelled for 14 runs (13 earned) on 14 hits and five walks with only six strikeouts (17.1%).
For the time being, Mendoza indicated that Senga would stay in the rotation. His start date will be pushed back to Saturday, however. Peterson, meanwhile, will pitch out of the bullpen during the upcoming turn through the rotation (via SNY’s Chelsea Janes). It doesn’t seem that move is permanent, but with the Mets mired in a calamitous 11-game losing streak, they’re pulling some levers to try to change the team’s fortunes and avoid the doomsday scenario of digging an April hole that’s simply too large to escape.
The tumult in the Mets’ rotation could pave the way for Scott to carve out a lasting spot. His workload will probably be monitored closely this season, but the Mets can find ways to try to manage that if he’s pitching like one of the team’s five best starters. From a service time vantage point, Scott only needs 56 days on the major league roster or injured list this season to cross from one to two years of service. Doing so would put him on track for arbitration following the 2028 season and free agency following the 2030 campaign. He’s currently in the second of his three minor league option years.
Twins, Luis García Agree To Minor League Deal
The Twins and veteran right-handed reliever Luis García are in agreement on a minor league contract, reports Bobby Nightengale of the Minnesota Star Tribune. He’ll report to their Triple-A club in St. Paul for the time being. García is repped by agents Larry Reynolds, Rosie Lopez-Herrera and Noah Herrera.
García, 39, opened the season with the same Mets team against whom the Twins will open a road series tonight. He signed a one-year, $1.75MM contract in the offseason but was cut loose after only six appearances. In that time, García was knocked around for six runs (five earned) on 11 hits and a pair of walks with four strikeouts. The resulting 7.11 ERA wasn’t pretty, but García posted a hearty 3.42 earned run average just last year between the Dodgers, Nats and Angels. In 55 1/3 frames last season, García fanned 20.9% of his opponents, issued walks at an 11.2% clip and kept 49.7% of batted balls against him on the ground.
While last year’s results were generally solid, García’s early work with the Mets did raise some red flags. His average sinker velocity plummeted from 96.9 mph in 2025 to a flat 94 mph in 2026. His splitter and changeup experienced similar velocity drops. He still induced chases at a massive 46% rate and posted a strong swinging-strike rate, but the Mets were apparently disheartened enough by the nearly three mile-per-hour drop in his sinker to quickly move on.
The Twins can use all the help and experience they can get in the bullpen. Minnesota’s 2025 trade deadline sell-off centered around dismantling what had been one of the game’s best relief corps in order to bring in a host of prospects and controllable young big leaguers. The Twins then did little to address the ‘pen in the offseason, with their primary adds being Taylor Rogers (on a one-year, $2MM deal), Anthony Banda (in a small trade after he’d been designated for assignment by the Dodgers) and Eric Orze (in a trade with the Rays).
Predictably, the Twins have had one of the worst bullpens in baseball this year. Minnesota relievers rank 23rd in the game with a 5.07 earned run average, but there’s reason to think even that might be the product of some good fortune. The Twins’ bullpen has the fourth-worst strikeout rate in MLB. They’re tied for the third-slowest average fastball (93.4 mph) and have the third-worst swinging-strike rate (8.7%) of any relief corps in the game.
Adding a 39-year-old García to the mix isn’t going to fix that collection of issues, but given the righty’s 3.86 ERA from 2021-25, it’s not a stretch to think he could right the ship and help a bullpen that generally lacks experience. García’s velocity is down this year, but there’s little harm in taking a nearly free look at a veteran reliever who, in addition to that 3.86 ERA over the past five seasons, has punched out a solid 22.3% of his opponents against a sharp 7.8% walk rate and a huge 53% ground-ball rate.
Twins Promote Kendry Rojas, Activate Royce Lewis
April 21: The Twins formally announced that Rojas has been recalled for his MLB debut and that Funderburk has been placed on the paternity list. Minnesota also formalized its previously reported placement of righty Mick Abel on the 15-day IL due to elbow inflammation. To take his spot on the active roster, the Twins reinstated third baseman Royce Lewis from the injured list.
At least for now, Prielipp has not been added to the big league roster, so it seems he’ll remain on the taxi squad. Minnesota’s Wednesday starter is still listed as TBD, so perhaps that could go to Prielipp or to Rojas — depending on how tonight’s game plays out.
April 19: The Twins will promote left-hander Kendry Rojas from Triple-A to the active roster prior to Tuesday’s game with the Mets, according to Declan Goff and Darren Wolfson of SKOR North. Rojas was already added to the 40-man roster last November in advance of the Rule 5 Draft, and Bobby Nightengale of the Minnesota Star Tribune writes that the corresponding 26-man roster move is Kody Funderburk‘s placement on the paternity list.
In addition, left-hander Connor Prielipp will also be joining the Twins for the start of their series with the Mets, as per The Athletic’s Dan Hayes. It isn’t an official call-up yet, as Prielipp is only part of the taxi squad. Prielipp joined Rojas as two of the six 40-man additions Minnesota made back in November, so the Twins would just have to make another 26-man roster move if Prielipp is officially promoted.
Both Rojas and Prielipp will be making their Major League debuts whenever they appear in a game. In Rojas’ case, this might just be a cup of coffee while Funderburk is absent, though the Twins’ relief corps has struggled enough that adding a raw but talented young arm could help spark the pen. Funderburk, Taylor Rogers, and Anthony Banda are the bullpen’s current trio of left-handers, and Banda in particular has gotten off to a rough start in 2026.
Tuesday’s game in New York begins a stretch of 13 games in 13 days for the Twins, so it is possible Rojas or Prielipp might receive a spot start in order to help preserve the rotation. The club could look to use either southpaw as a traditional starter or as a long reliever, or perhaps Minnesota could deploy a piggyback with Rojas and Prielipp paired with another starter.
Rojas missed time due to a hamstring injury this year and has only pitched 7 1/3 total innings, though the 23-year-old has yet to allow a run in that small sample size. (Six innings were with Triple-A St. Paul, and 1 1/3 IP were with A-ball Fort Myers on a rehab assignment.) In those 7 1/3 frames, Rojas has posted seven strikeouts, but also four walks. Over 38 1/3 career innings at the Triple-A level, Rojas has a 14.06% walk rate, along with a 20.31% strikeout rate and a 6.10 ERA.
How well Rojas can harness his control appears to the chief question facing the lefty’s future as a viable big league arm. Baseball America ranks Rojas as the eighth-best prospect in the Twins’ farm system and MLB Pipeline has him tenth, with both outlets noting that he projects as a back-end rotation arm if he remains a starting pitcher. As per BA, Rojas “has a balanced arsenal with all his pitches projecting as at least average,” though he doesn’t have a true plus pitch. His fastball might be his top offering, as the pitch usually sits around 95mph and Nightengale writes that Rojas hit the 99mph threshold during his time in St. Paul.
The Blue Jays landed Rojas as an international signing in 2020, and his time in Toronto’s farm system was hampered by lat, shoulder, and abdominal injuries. Prior to last summer’s trade deadline, the Jays shipped Rojas and outfielder Alan Roden to the Twins in perhaps the most surprising move of Minnesota’s deadline fire sale, as controllable reliever Louis Varland and Ty France went the other way. Varland immediately became a critical piece of Toronto’s pen, but Rojas and Roden fit the Twins’ trade model of obtaining players that were at or close to big league readiness.
Prielipp is a homegrown product, selected by the Twins in the second round of the 2022 draft. BA ranked him as the 96th-best prospect in baseball prior to the 2026 season and slotted him fourth on their list of Twins prospects, while Pipeline put Prielipp fifth. Both outlets give 60-grades to the southpaw’s changeup and slider, and Prielipp generates a ton of spin on the latter pitch. Prielipp also has a mid-90s fastball that can hit 98mph.
After reaching Triple-A ball for the first time last season, Prielipp had some struggles but has now looked sharper over 15 2/3 innings for St. Paul in 2026. Over 36 2/3 innings of Triple-A ball, Prielipp has a 3.93 ERA, a 30.13% strikeout rate, and a 13.46% walk rate, so control is also a concern on his end. Staying healthy has been Prielipp’s largest issue, as he underwent a Tommy John surgery in college at Alabama and then an internal brace surgery that sidelined him for big chunks of the 2023-24 seasons. Prielipp has thrown only 128 1/3 total innings of minor league ball.
Twins Place Mick Abel On Injured List
The Twins announced this morning that they’ve placed rookie right-hander Mick Abel on the 15-day injured list due to inflammation in his right elbow. A corresponding move wasn’t announced, though it’s already been reported that prospect Kendry Rojas is joining the major league roster tomorrow and that top prospect Connor Prielipp has been added to the major league taxi squad. Abel’s IL placement is surely related to those forthcoming moves (which the team has yet to formally announce). The Twins will take advantage of today’s off-day by moving up right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson, who’d been slated to start Wednesday, to start in place of Abel tomorrow, per Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Selected by the Phillies with the No. 15 overall draft pick back in 2020, Abel has long been hailed as a quality pitching prospect. He went from Philadelphia to Minnesota alongside top catching prospect Eduardo Tait at last year’s trade deadline in the deal sending star closer Jhoan Duran (also currently on the injured list) back to Philly.
Now 24 years old, Abel has seen his stock rise and fall over the years. He slipped off most top-100 rankings prior to the 2025 season but enjoyed a resurgent year that saw him both make his major league debut in Philadelphia and pitch well enough to be included as a key component in one of the deadline’s most notable trades.
Abel has gotten out to a nice start in 2026. He entered camp without a rotation spot assured to him but won a job with a dominant performance in the Grapefruit League: 22 innings, 2.05 ERA, 32.9% strikeout rate, 4.9% walk rate. The right-hander was hit hard in his first two appearances with the Twins this season but bounced back with 13 shutout innings and a 16-to-3 K/BB ratio across his last two starts (against the Tigers and Red Sox, respectively). He’s currently sitting on a 3.98 ERA, a 24.7% strikeout rate and a 10% walk rate in 20 1/3 frames. Metrics like FIP (2.79) and SIERA (3.93) agree, to varying extents, that he’s been a quality arm.
With Abel on the shelf, the Twins will have four starters locked into spots: Joe Ryan, Taj Bradley, Bailey Ober and Woods Richardson. Candidates to take Abel’s spot on the staff include Rojas, Prielipp and Zebby Matthews — the latter of whom Abel beat for a spot on the Opening Day staff. Matthews, however, has pitched to a 7.71 ERA in his first four turns through the Triple-A rotation. The former top-100 prospect is still only 25, but he’s slid down the depth chart a bit with a rough spring and even rockier start with Triple-A St. Paul. Minnesota also recently recalled 24-year-old starting pitching prospect Andrew Morris and plugged him into the major league bullpen. He’s still stretched out enough to make a start, follow an opener or work in some hybrid/piggyback role if the team sees fit.
It’s not yet clear how long the Twins expect Abel to be sidelined. His IL placement is retroactive to April 17. If it’s indeed just a minor bout of inflammation — and the Twins have yet to indicate the potential that anything more serious is at play — he’d be eligible to return as early as May 2. Presumably, the team will provide more information on Abel’s status in the near future, although with an off-day on the calendar today, a formal update may not happen until tomorrow, when skipper Derek Shelton addresses reporters prior to Tuesday’s series opener against the Mets in Queens.
Twins Place Royce Lewis, Cody Laweryson On Injured List
TODAY: The Twins officially announced the IL placements, with Laweryson retroactive to April 9 and Lewis to April 10. Kreidler and right-hander Andrew Morris were called up to take Lewis and Laweryson’s places on the active roster, and the 24-year-old Morris will be making his big league debut whenever he appears in his first game for Minnesota.
Morris was a fourth-round pick for the Twins in the 2022 draft, and he has a 3.78 ERA, 21.45% strikeout rate, and 7.27% walk rate over 135 2/3 innings at Triple-A. Morris started 28 of his 30 Triple-A appearances, though the scouting reports at both MLB Pipeline and Baseball America view Morris perhaps more as a swingman or multi-inning at the Major League level. Pipeline and BA each rank Morris as the 13th-best prospect in Minnesota’s system, and he has a five-pitch arsenal highlighted by a 55-grade slider and a fastball that can reach 99mph but usually sits in the 95-96mph range.
APRIL 10: The Twins will make a couple roster moves before tomorrow’s game at Rogers Centre. Manager Derek Shelton said tonight (relayed by Twins TV’s Audra Martin) that third baseman Royce Lewis and reliever Cody Laweryson are each headed to the injured list. Lewis has a left knee sprain, while Laweryson suffered a right forearm strain. Shelton didn’t specify return timelines for either player.
Lewis suffered his injury during Thursday’s win over Detroit. He came up limping after a swinging strike in his final at-bat of that game. Lewis was able to gut out the plate appearance and hit an infield single. He finished the contest but felt more discomfort today. Bobby Nightengale of The Minnesota Star-Tribune writes that Lewis went for imaging this evening that revealed the sprain.
This will be the ninth injured list stint of Lewis’ four-year MLB career. He has twice torn the ACL in his right knee, once before his big league debut, and battled various left leg injuries. That included a pair of hamstring strains last year. Lewis narrowly topped 100 games for the first time in his career.
The former first overall pick had been out to a nice start. Although he’s only hitting .222, he has taken eight walks and collected four extra-base hits (two doubles and homers apiece). Lewis was at the hot corner for 12 of Minnesota’s first 14 games. Utilityman Tristan Gray has gotten the other two starts and projects as the regular there for the time being. Gray has a homer and a double in the early going but is a .220/.279/.394 hitter over 53 career contests.
Laweryson made his first Opening Day roster this year. The 27-year-old righty made five appearances last season as a September call-up. He has worked 6 1/3 frames of four-run ball (three earned) with eight strikeouts in five outings this year. Laweryson has a save and a hold as part of a wide open Minnesota bullpen.
Minnesota will announce their corresponding call-ups tomorrow. Ryan Kreidler and Eric Wagaman are on the 40-man roster as depth infielders. Kreidler offers more defensive value and is hitting better in Triple-A to begin the season. Zak Kent, who was optioned earlier in the week, seems likeliest to take the bullpen spot if the Twins don’t want to designate anyone for assignment.
Twins Acquire Garrett Acton
The Marlins announced that they have traded right-hander Garrett Acton to the Twins for minor league righty Logan Whitaker. Acton was designated for assignment by Miami a few days ago when they acquired infielder Leo Jiménez. Minnesota transferred righty David Festa to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding 40-man roster move.
Acton, 28 in June, has a very limited major league track record. He made six appearances for the Athletics in 2023 and then one more with the Rays last year, with Tommy John surgery wiping out his 2024. He has allowed eight earned runs in 6 2/3 innings. In the offseason, he went to the Rockies and then Marlins via waivers.
The Twins are surely more focused on his minor league track record, where he has shown intriguing strikeout stuff, though home run troubles have led to lot of runs crossing the plate. Dating back to the start of 2022, he has thrown 160 minor league innings, mostly at the Triple-A level. In that time, he has a 4.56 earned run average. His 10% walk rate was a bit high but he managed to strike out 29.5% of batters faced.
Acton still has a pair of options, meaning the Twins can send him to the minors for some extra bullpen depth or add him immediately to the active roster. In either case, he may shuttle between the majors and minors throughout the season whenever the Twins need to freshen up the relief corps.
For the Marlins, they just claimed Acton off waivers two months ago. They are presumably happy with that sequence of events, which has netted them Whitaker. Minnesota took Whitaker with a 19th-round pick in 2024. Last year, he tossed 38 1/3 innings between High-A and Double-A. His 2.11 ERA in 2025 looks good but he only punched out a pedestrian 21% of batters faced. His 6.4% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate were a bit better than average. He seemed to get some help from a 78.9% strand rate. He doesn’t really show up on prospect lists but, as mentioned, Miami should be pleased to get a lottery ticket prospect for a guy they just grabbed from the waiver wire two months ago.
As for Festa, he was injured in February and began the season on the 15-day injured list. The Twins listed his injury as a triceps strain and shoulder impingement. His current timeline is unclear but this transaction indicates the Twins don’t expect him back before late May, which would be 60 days from his initial IL placement.
That doesn’t necessarily indicate bad news about his recovery. Even if he were declared healthy today, since he missed all of spring training, he would effectively have to start ramping up from scratch. The Twins should provide more details about his status in the future.
Photo courtesy of Jim Rassol, Imagn Images
Twins Sign John Brebbia To Minor League Deal
The Twins have signed right-hander John Brebbia to a minor league deal, according to a report from Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic.
Brebbia, 36 next month, is coming off back-to-back down seasons. The righty made his big league debut with the Cardinals back in 2017 and was a solid reliever for the club immediately, with a 3.14 ERA and 3.39 FIP across his first three seasons in the majors. He struck out 27.4% of his opponents in 175 innings of work while walking just 7.5%. Brebbia went under the knife for Tommy John surgery in 2020, and that caused him to not only miss the 2020 campaign but also be non-tendered by St. Louis, bringing his time with the Cardinals to an abrupt end despite his success on the mound.
The right-hander caught on with the Giants on a big league deal during the 2020-21 offseason. His 2021 season was lackluster as he worked his way back from surgery, and in his 18 appearances that year he struggled to a 5.89 ERA. He remained with the Giants despite that poor performance, however, and San Francisco was rewarded for its faith by a pair of much more successful relief seasons. Brebbia posted a 3.47 ERA and 3.54 FIP across 106 1/3 innings of work from 2022 to ’23, though his strikeout rate dipped to 22.5%.
Following his three-year stint with the Giants, Brebbia returned to free agency and eventually caught on with the White Sox. Chicago offered him a one-year, $5.5MM deal during the 2023-24 offseason, and Brebbia jumped at the healthy payday. Unfortunately, the deal didn’t work out well for either side. Brebbia struggled badly as the club’s top veteran reliever and was torched to the tune of a 6.29 ERA in 54 appearances for the White Sox. That’s in spite of a perfectly strong 26.9% strikeout rate and an acceptable 7.7% walk rate. Brebbia’s issues with the White Sox came down to the long ball, as he allowed a whopping nine homers in 48 2/3 innings of work. That’s nearly one home run per five innings pitched, and so it was hardly a shock when the White Sox opted to cut ties with the veteran.
Brebbia caught on with Atlanta to finish the 2024 season and pitched quite well for the down the stretch, but upon returning to free agency found a smaller one-year deal with the Tigers in February of last year. Unfortunately, Brebbia wound up appearing in just 18 games for the Tigers after being sidelined by a triceps strain and struggling to a 7.71 ERA when he did return to the mound. He once again was scooped up by Atlanta after being released, but this time his struggles continued and he finished the year with an identical 7.71 ERA to the one he had in Detroit.
That left Brebbia to settle for a minor league deal this winter, and he initially signed with the Rockies in free agency before failing to make their roster out of camp. His 7.00 ERA in nine innings of work during camp wasn’t exactly something to write home about, but the Twins are in need of bullpen depth after dealing away Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, and Louis Varland last summer. Brebbia figures to head to Triple-A and attempt to break into a bullpen that currently relies on Taylor Rogers and Cole Sands in the late innings.