June 24: Jackson passed through waivers unclaimed and has been assigned outright to Triple-A St. Paul, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. As previously noted, he’ll have the right to reject that assignment but is extremely unlikely to do so, as that would require forfeiting the remaining $685K on this year’s salary and the $200K buyout on next year’s $3MM club option.
June 20: The Twins are designating reliever Jay Jackson for assignment, manager Rocco Baldelli told the team’s beat after today’s loss to the Rays (relayed on X by Bobby Nightengale of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune). Darren Wolfson of SKOR North reports (on X) that Minnesota will recall southpaw Kody Funderburk from Triple-A St. Paul to step into the bullpen. Minnesota’s 40-man roster count drops to 39.
It’s the second time this season that Minnesota has taken Jackson off the roster. The Twins designated him for assignment in May and successfully ran him through outright waivers. The righty accepted his assignment to St. Paul and pitched his way back to the big leagues a couple weeks later. Jackson had only made a trio of appearances in Triple-A, working three innings of one-run ball.
He has pitched 20 times for Minnesota at the big league level. Despite decent strikeout and walk numbers, he has had a tough time keeping runs off the board. That continued this afternoon. Jackson allowed three runs on homers by Jose Siri and Yandy Díaz, stretching a one-run deficit into a 6-2 gap. Minnesota scored four in the bottom of the ninth to tie it but lost in the tenth inning.
The longball has been Jackson’s biggest concern. He’s up to seven homers surrendered across 26 1/3 innings. That’s the biggest reason he has been unable to strand many baserunners. After today’s outing, he carries a 7.52 earned run average. That’s a sharp downturn from the excellent 2.12 ERA he posted in 29 2/3 frames for the Blue Jays a year ago. Jackson’s strikeout and walk numbers are essentially unchanged from his productive stint in Toronto, but his batted ball results have pushed him off the roster twice.
It is likely that Minnesota will place the 36-year-old on waivers again in the next few days. Jackson could decline an outright assignment if he goes unclaimed, though doing so would require forfeiting what remains of this year’s $1.3MM salary and the $200K buyout on next year’s $3MM club option. He could wind up back in St. Paul as a result.
Cubs will sign him in a few days
May as well…
Out of options, out of gas, out of here.
He may do well to chase his last baseball paycheck out of the country again.
It’s been a nice run, Jay.
JJ can brag to his grandkids, he was an MLB ball player
@curly
Not only that, but he has enough success that a Major League team saw that he was talented enough to sign him to a contract to play for their team. If we could all be so lucky.
Amen
Don’t know about anyone else, but I never get tired of the old “Team X will sign him” snark.
In fact, we should just refer to that knee-slapper as “#51”.
We could work up a whole list; “John Henry sucks” can be “old number 15”, “Alex Cora is a cheater” can be #38″. The always spectacular comeback “Say hi to your mom for me” could be “11”.
This way, when people want to make all the same, old, tired, useless, non-contributory, cliche comments, they could just post “#71”, and we could all up vote the underlying cleverness.
#2 LOLMets
What number is “World Series bound!” that the hilarious jokesters inevitably toss around when an inconsequential player gets signed to a MiLB contract?
@Kidding
The A’s and our number of fans would like number #2 please….
What number is “I thought I read (insert player) instead of (less known player with similar or same first or last name)?
Top ten without a doubt @CO
Can’t spell “Funderburk” without “fun”.
Get some outside bullpen studs, these stop gap middle relievers are just that, bums
Maybe they are freeing up s spot on the 40 man roster for Brooks Lee.
He’s looked really good lately. Tough find him ABs with Lewis/Miranda/Santana all playing well too
about 3 hours too late
The Twins bullpen has not been an asset lately. They’re not playing well against above .500 teams, so they better take advantage against the weaker teams. Cleveland is 17-9 against above .500 teams.
Sorry Jay Jackson (Oooooh)