The Twins announced a trio of roster moves today. Right-hander Cody Stashak has been optioned to Triple-A, while Derek Law takes his place in the bullpen. Law had to be added to the 40-man roster, so infielder Travis Blankenhorn was designated for assignment.
After proving himself a solid option out of the bullpen for the Twins with 40 innings of 3.15 ERA baseball from 2019-20, Stashak has stumbled badly to start the season. Stashak is still missing bats at a good clip, striking out a robust 36.5 percent of hitters, but his walk rate has skyrocketed to 13.5 percent as well. Fielding Independent Pitching suggest decent work with a 4.20 FIP, but in terms of real world production, Stashak has allowed 10 earned runs in 10 2/3 innings.
If this is the end of Blankenhorn’s Twins’ tenure, it will be a somewhat ignominious one. The 24-year-old appeared in one game this season, pinch-running in extra-innings and scoring a run. He’d go on to make an error in the bottom of the inning on a play that would have ended the game. The A’s beat the Twins a batter later when Luis Arraez followed up Blankenhorn’s blunder with a throwing error of his own. Blankenhorn was a third round draft pick of the Twins in the 2015 draft, and he obviously has more to offer a Major League club than he’s had the opportunity to show this season.
If someone puts in a claim for Blankenhorn, it’ll be the second player lost on waivers by the Twins this week. The Orioles claimed left-hander Brandon Waddell off waivers from the Twins today, per Steve Melewski of MASNsports.com (via Twitter). He has been assigned to Triple-A. Waddell was designated for assignment by the Twins yesterday to make room on the 40-man roster for Trevor Larnach.
In order to make the claim, the Orioles designated Jay Flaa for assignment, notes Roch Kubatko of MASNsports. Flaa logged 1 1/3 scoreless on April 27th for the Orioles in his only big league action of his career.
Blankenhorn shouldn’t reach the waiver wire.
If he does, I hope the Cubs are biting.
Like to see the cards put in a claim. Power hitting second baseman at triple a would be nice.
Weird, Blankenhorn should have an option left. Maybe the Twins are hoping to trade him for an arm or two, who knows!
He was DFA’d to make room for Law on the 40-man roster. The Twins decided he was the most expendable player, so his options didn’t matter here.
I’d like to see the Tigers put a claim on Blankenhorn, if for no other reason then to just take a chance on a younger player. The free agent bargain bin plan hasn’t done much this year and quite honestly at all.
They’re already collecting former Twins, with not altogether bad results, so why not?
Not a baddoo idea if I baddoo say so myself.
I think Baltimore is a great landing spot for Waddell. He can be used as long relief or for rotation help as necessary and hopefully be able to keep his 40 man roster spot long enough to prove whether or not he truly belongs in the bigs unlike his Twins and Pirates tenures shuffling between AAA and MLB. I don’t think he’s gonna light the world on fire or anything but I still think he can be a solid and steady albeit generally unspectacular, contributor to a pitching staff.