August 20: Roden will indeed have surgery, reports Dan Hayes of The Athletic.
August 19: Twins rookie outfielder Alan Roden was ruled out for the season when Minnesota placed him on the 60-day injured list over the weekend. The 25-year-old sprained a ligament in his left thumb, which he aggravated last week on a headfirst slide. Roden tells Bobby Nightengale of The Minnesota Star Tribune that he’s leaning towards undergoing surgery after meeting with a hand specialist on Monday. The procedure comes with a two-month recovery timeline, so it shouldn’t have much of an impact on his offseason.
It’s nevertheless a frustrating situation for Roden, who would have had an opportunity to play regularly down the stretch. Minnesota acquired him and pitching prospect Kendry Rojas in the surprise deadline deal that sent controllable reliever Louis Varland to Toronto. Roden was in Triple-A with the Jays, who have a deep outfield. The Twins immediately recalled him. Roden played in 12 of the team’s 13 games before suffering the injury.
The lefty-hitting Roden struggled in that limited look, batting .158 with a lone home run while striking out 13 times in 40 plate appearances. Roden hadn’t hit much during an early-season MLB stint with the Jays either. He finishes his debut campaign with a .191/.261/.294 slash in 55 games. That won’t be enough to guarantee him a starting spot in next year’s outfield. Roden destroyed Triple-A pitching, though, batting .331/.423/.496 with more walks than strikeouts in 32 games. The former third-round pick has hit at every minor league stop and owns a career .302/.409/.457 slash below the MLB level.
Roden still has a pair of minor league option years after this one. The Twins can keep him in Triple-A for the foreseeable future. He should be healthy entering Spring Training and can compete for an Opening Day roster spot. Minnesota has nine outfielders who’ll be on the 40-man roster at the beginning of the offseason.
Byron Buxton is the only one locked into a starting role. Matt Wallner should get a lot of playing time but could see more time at designated hitter rather than playing every day in right field. Former first-rounder Trevor Larnach stands out as a speculative change-of-scenery candidate. Roden could vie with Emmanuel Rodriguez and DaShawn Keirsey Jr. for roles. It also seems likely the Twins will add at least one veteran (ideally a right-handed bat) to raise the floor with so many unproven players.
Roden should put his thumb on the scale
Another head-first slide leading to a thumb injury
He initially injured it a couple days earlier when he ran into the wall making a catch. The slide just aggravated it.
Which makes it even stupider.
He’s already got a bad thumb and he still insists on diving into the base? Alan Roden isn’t a player who can just go about stupidly injuring himself willy nilly knowing that he’s always gonna get to go back into the lineup whenever he returns. Like, you know…Francisco Alvarez.
“Stupider”? Clearly he should be listening to you for nuggets of wisdom.
I may look like a fool sliding feet first like a 3rd grader but at least I have all my fingers and belly button in tact for the post season.
“in tact” or “intact?”
How does Varland only have .163 yrs of service? Arb start in ’27. FA in ’31
B-Ref only updates service time every January and Varland has Super 2 status.
Twins trading Varland was fine but it was such a mediocre return for how much team control he had
Rojas is the prize. Roden is the throw in.
As jays fan… didn’t like giving up either.
I definitely agree Rojas was the prize, but I don’t think Roden is a just a throw in…He has a career .301 average in the minors and hit .331 in AAA this year. He won the starting LF job in Toronto with an incredible spring training (.407 avg, >200 wRC+). The guy can obviously hit and is a plus defender.
Yes, he has struggled in limited MLB time (total of 145 PA), but we give up on players too early. There are definitely examples of players succeeding right away, Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson are examples from this year, but there aren’t as many examples on this side of the coin. There are many more examples where guys struggle for some time when they first arrive. Jarren Duran is a good example. He struggled in 2021 and 2022 before he started seeing success in 2023… There are many other examples, but I don’t think we need to state more for the purposes of this discussion.
You mean lottery ticket. No prize yet!
We need more righty bats in our outfield. Erod and Gabby Gonzalez will be good options going forward. I’m hoping we call up Fedko soon to give him a chance to bat at the major league level.
erod is a lefty
“Stupider” huh? Clearly he should be listening to you for nuggets of wisdom.
This is a huge blow.
DaShawn Kiersey Jr? vying for a spot? he shouldn’t even be on the 40 man. have you seen him bat?