The Twins designated right-hander Pierson Ohl and catcher Jhonny Pereda for assignment, according to a club announcement. Those are the corresponding 40-man roster moves for the additions of Victor Caratini and Taylor Rogers. Minnesota finalized the signing of both free agent pickups this evening.
With a new reliever and catcher coming aboard, the Twins drop a depth player from both positions. Ohl is a 26-year-old who debuted with 14 appearances last season. He turned in a 5.10 ERA across 30 innings. Ohl did a nice job getting hitters to chase pitches outside the strike zone but doesn’t have huge raw stuff. His fastball clocks in around 92 MPH, while he uses a changeup and cutter as his most frequent secondary offerings.
A 14th-round pick out of Grand Canyon University in 2021, Ohl has a strong minor league track record. He has a 3.61 ERA in nearly 400 innings below the big league level. Ohl worked mostly as a starter for his first few seasons but switched primarily to long relief work last year. He went 3-4 innings at a time and put up a 2.40 ERA with a 30.3% strikeout percentage against a sub-4% walk rate across 71 1/3 frames. He has all three minor league option years remaining. There’s a pretty good chance he’ll land elsewhere within the next week, and it’s not out of the question another team trades the Twins cash or a low-level minor leaguer to jump the waiver order.
Pereda, 29, is a journeyman depth catcher. He made 30 appearances and tallied 78 plate appearances between the A’s and Twins last year. He’d also gotten into 20 games as a rookie with the Marlins in 2024. The righty hitter carries a .241/.299/.296 line without a home run in 118 trips to the plate. Pereda has a robust .296/.392/.419 slash over five seasons in Triple-A.
Caratini’s signing dropped Pereda to fourth on the catching depth chart. Minnesota isn’t guaranteed to keep third catcher Alex Jackson, who is out of options and would need to get through waivers before they could send him to Triple-A St. Paul. If they succeed in getting Pereda through waivers, he’d stick in the organization and get a non-roster invite to Spring Training. If another team claims him, they’ll probably look to add someone with MLB experience on a minor league deal. Minnesota has five days to trade Ohl and Pereda or to begin the waiver process.
Wow, very surprised about Pierson Ohl. He’s got some upside and someone will surely take him. Guessing someone will jump the line with a trade on this one.
Agreed, really wish we could have let him around. Probably a tough argument on who you’d DFA other than him though. Orze or Adams? I doubt they’d DFA one of the guys they added to the 40 man over the winter. Or you DFA Kreidler or Gray and balance out the roster later. Maybe they feel they can sneak him through waivers.
Honestly both of them are respectable ball players Ohl has been good enough in the minors I’m sure someone will want him and Pereda is a catcher and can actually hit okay so he could be a nice MLB backup catcher for someone.
Are they delusional??
Keeping both Julien and Outman.
And exposing these two to be lost.
WHY ???
Julien and Outman have at least shown upside at the MLB level. Pereda is a career minor leaguer. Ohl, i guess they think is worth the risk of losing through waivers
But how have they performed LATELY?
How can you justify keeping Julien, when his only REAL position is DH? And there is already a logjam of players for that position.
It seems from a lot of the moves for depth/the end of the roster likethey’re focusing on certain positional coverage and skills (backup SS and CF, RH hitter who hits lefties, etc) – but with so many players new to the org, they’re not totally sure who and what they have. So Outman is around because they need a backup CF, but maybe Kreidler can play CF and Outman isn’t needed, but maybe Gray can play SS and Kreidler isn’t needed…and so on.
Some of it certainly gets figured out in spring training and some probably works itself out with other cuts before that, but yeah, it seems like an excess of limited, bench players right now.
Could see the cards trading for ohl
Yes
Bad evening for RHPs with three letter last names starting with O. Ohl and Ort. Unless you go to a second last name, with de Oca.
The full last name is Montes de Oca, no? Maybe it’s a three-parter last name that’s the lucky charm
bad day to have a silent H in your name
What interests me is Jhonny Pereda. Listed as Catcher and pitcher. Looking briefly at his stats as both, very limited playing on either position but looked promising. They weren’t terrible, Of course I couldn’t pick him out of a crowd cause I don’t see much or follow those teams he’s been on.