The Twins will designate right-hander Randy Dobnak for assignment prior to tomorrow’s game, as first reported by Ted Schwerzler of Minnesota Sports Fan. The corresponding move isn’t yet known. The DFA comes on the heels of an impressive long relief outing for Dobnak, as he allowed one run over 5 1/3 innings of work in Minnesota’s 9-2 loss to the Cardinals today.
Removing Dobnak from the roster allows the Twins to get a fresh arm into the bullpen, and it speaks to Dobnak’s unusual contractual situation. The righty is in the last guaranteed season of his five-year, $9.25MM contract, though since signing that extension in March 2021, Dobnak has appeared in only 20 MLB games, and he didn’t pitch in the majors at all in 2022-23 due to injuries and time spent in the minor leagues.
Since Dobnak has been outrighted off the Twins’ 40-man roster in the past, he has the right to reject another outright assignment and become a free agent if he clears waivers. However, he doesn’t have enough big league service time to reject an outright assignment and still keep the remaining $4MM ($3MM in 2025 salary and the $1MM buyout on a $6MM club option for 2026) owed on his contract. As such, Dobnak is sure to again accept an assignment to Triple-A in order to retain his salary, and that same price tag makes it unlikely that another team would claim him on waivers.
This all gives Minnesota a bit of flexibility when it comes to moving Dobnak relatively freely through the waiver wire, as it seems likely that he could face the “contract selection/DFA/waivers/outright” cycle more times whenever the Twins need a spot start, a piggyback starter, or a bulk pitcher behind an opener. Having Dobnak available came in handy for the Twins today, as Bailey Ober came into his start recovering from a virus, and was rocked for eight runs over 2 2/3 frames before Dobnak came in to handle the rest of the game.
Even with the sting of the 9-2 loss, Dobnak can take solace in his best performance in the majors in quite some time. He posted a 7.31 ERA over 19 appearances and 60 1/3 innings with the Twins from 2021-24, and he struggled in Triple-A in 2022-23 before having a bit of an uptick in St. Paul last year. Dobnak posted a 4.25 ERA, 15.6% strikeout rate, 11.1% walk rate, and 57% grounder rate over 133 1/3 Triple-A frames in 2024, starting 24 of 28 games.
That’s just rude
Could always go back to the cheeseburgers & being an assistant trailer park supervisor
A man’s gotta eat.
Na, he was driving Uber man
Braves go get him pls
Earned his $3m for the year….
Thanks for saving the bullpen, here’s your release.
It’s not a release, it’s an assignment. It means they want to keep you in the organization, pay your salary and if any other team wants to have you on their ml roster they can. Seems pretty fair to me.
I hope they close that loophole. Perhaps the first time you are DFA’d with between 3-5 years service time, you’d lose your remaining salary. But if it happens a second time, you can elect free agency AND keep the money. All this rule does is prevent team from bringing players close to 5 years up because they know they will lose them if they try to finagle a roster spot again. There was one guy (Marlins?) a couple years back that was DFA’d like 6-7 times during the season and never claimed. It was pure roster manipulation.
Guardians did it with Anthony Gose a bit, too
I don’t believe Gose was in a similar contract situation with Cleveland. He wasn’t on a guaranteed deal, so had he rejected one of his many assignments, there would be no financial impact. He just didn’t get another major league opportunity, so he wanted to stay with Cleveland.
Angels and Braves both did it with David Fletcher.
TheYankees or some such should claim him just to f with the weird ass Minnesota Twins and their stupid games
Please do. Cash-strapped Twins could use a couple mil of payroll flexibility.
He gets basically $10 mil career to play baseball for a year. I think both parties understood upside, downside and how they could make it work in the middle.
If someone wants to pay me millions for a few years to recover from injuries with some of the best specialists for free… I’ll even let them injure me.
*a few years
If someone gave Griffin Canning a MLB deal then maybe the Dobber will be claimed
No one’s gonna pay him that much. He’s gonna serve his full contract before ending up on another team. The Twins need an overhaul, new owners, new coaching, new players.
Dude leads Twins in innings pitched.
He pitched 2 1/3 then they sent him back out after a lengthy rain delay and had him finish the job.
He better get use to this. He’s going to be with the MLB team part of the time and with the MiLB team the rest of the season. They’ll pull him up when they need his services. I doubt it would happen but it would be funny if a team claimed him during all this time between the majors and minors.
Tne Twins love to do this to guys who have an mlb contract thinking another team won’t want to pick up the tab.
Among others,they bounced Pudge Rodriguez’s kid Dereck back and forth over two years.
The oddest one was a few years ago when they continually DFA’d and shipped out Jharel Cotton despite the fact he was their third best bullpen arm and he compiled a 139 ERA+ over 25 games and 35 innings.
They lost him on waivers about the fourth time they DFA’d him.