Right-hander Jose De León is joining the Twins, with the hurler himself announcing the agreement on Twitter. Presumably, it’s a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training, though no formal announcement has been made.
De León, 30, was once considered one of the best prospects in all of baseball. While in the Dodgers’ organization, Baseball America ranked him #23 in 2016 and #29 in 2017 among all prospects in the league. Unfortunately, injuries have been severely holding him back from living up to his potential since then.
He was traded to the Rays prior to 2017 but only pitched in 11 games that season. In March of 2018, he required Tommy John surgery, which wiped out that entire year. He returned and pitched in 22 games in 2019 before getting flipped to Cincinnati. He saw some brief time in the big leagues with the Reds in 2020 and 2021 but was released. For 2022, he signed a minors deal with the Jays but got hurt in the spring and didn’t make his season debut until August.
De León continues to get chances based on his previous prospect pedigree but it’s been a while since he’s had an extended period of time to showcase his skills. For the Twins, there’s little harm in adding him to their system as a depth option in case injuries elsewhere on the roster create a need for him down the line.
Welcome back Jose! It’s been a long road
“Presumably, it’s a minor league deal”
What makes you think that?
Common sense?
Are you suggesting common sense is mutually exclusive of IQ?
On this site common sense is optional. Extremely optional.
Career 8.44 era in majors
Dodgers and Rays let him go
Yeah it’s a minor league deal
Hope he gets another shot in the show even if it’s just a brief call up, he has worked hard and overcome injuries
Interesting that, now that most of the top FAs have signed, it’s now the signing of players hardly anyone’s heard of to minor league contracts. I wonder what the next phase will be. More obscure players heading to Korea or Japan?
Make it Jays and Reds to, Manny.
Twins MO
also he’s bad.
they got their guy! original piece they wanted in Dozier trade years ago.
Every year the Twins wind up with a player they have been known to covet in the past. (Ervin Santana, Carl Pavano, Phil Hughes, Terry Steinbach…) it was just a matter of time before the Twins picked up deLeon. I am surprised that Matthew Boyd didn’t get his chance in MN this go-round.
They wanted Bellinger. They could have had de Leo straight up for Dozier.
And de Leon for Dozier straight up was a laughably bad offer, as evidenced by the way de Leon’s career has turned out.
Turns out Dozier didn’t have MUCH more in the tank either but de Leon has never contributed anything
Well, at least they completed the Dozier trade.
I don’t know how many times I tell an organization not to sign someone with only 15.6k twitter followers.
Yeah cause that makes all the difference in pitching in Major League Baseball.
Not only does it make a difference in Major League Baseball, but it makes a difference in life. I judge people exclusively on their following. I look at the number and determine if they are worth my time and more importantly, what they could do for me. I was taught at a very young age to surround yourself with greatness and let the lower and middle class fade into oblivion
Ain’t no stank on you.
…that’s so sad
Not much work left for the FO.
Next up:
James McDonald and Greg Miller
How about Ben McDonald?
His minor league pitching register is like reading “War and Peace”.
Ponce is still looking for the fountain of youth
I was thinking of the former Cardinal Ponce de Leon too when I saw the headline to this article! I think he’s still a free agent, so maybe the Twins could sign him as well
This guy has been around forever it seems – he can still K but geez time is running out to fix his get in trouble rate and work with runners on board.
This was the guy Twins refused to trade Brian dozier for to the dodgers
It’s hilarious if the dodgers were the refuser ee
There was a pitcher of the same name in the 80’s and 90’s who pitched for some NL East teams and the White Sox. Very mediocre career (86-119 W/L), but did have a career ERA under 4. If there is anything to a name.
Lottery Ticket.
This is typical Twins cause lets face it Rondon will not sign here this is Pohlads hard at work!