The Diamondbacks announced they’ve traded reliever Taylor Rashi to the Twins for cash considerations. Arizona designated him for assignment on Friday to open a 40-man roster spot for infield prospect LuJames Groover.
Minnesota has an opening on the 40-man after designating outfielder James Outman for assignment on Saturday. Rashi has a full slate of minor league options, so the Twins wouldn’t need to make any corresponding moves if they assign him to Triple-A St. Paul.
It’s the latest bullpen dart-throw for a team trying to cheaply build a functional relief group. The Twins have also acquired Yoendrys Gómez and Justin Lawrence via in-season trades. They added mostly reclamation targets or minor trade pickups over the winter, taking a volume approach after tearing down an excellent bullpen at the 2025 deadline.
Rashi is a 30-year-old righty who has appeared in 13 MLB games over the past two seasons. He owns a 5.40 earned run average despite a near-30% strikeout rate over 20 big league frames. Rashi has a stellar 1.03 ERA over 26 1/3 innings with Triple-A Reno this year. He has fanned an above-average 25.5% of batters faced but walked nearly 12% of opponents.
Despite the Triple-A production, an Arizona team light on bullpen depth dropped Rashi from the roster. That’s explained mostly by his below-average velocity, as he averages around 91 mph with his fastball. He leans heavily on his secondary stuff as a result, mixing a slider, curveball and splitter.
The Twins have the sixth-highest bullpen ERA in MLB. They’ve been better of late, ranking 14th over the past month, but that has come in spite of the third-highest walk rate. Gómez and Anthony Banda have worked around some free passes to manage strong recent results as part of a committee approach to leverage spots.
Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic first reported the trade.
Rash decision
Close. Cash considerations.
I wish someone would consider giving me cash
I’d consider it, but would decide against it.
30 yo with 23rd round pedigree and middling minors #s supporting doggy doo doo majors #s. What’s not to like?
Cool to see the thousand year old Rabbi take up baseball as a second act.
I expected more insightful commentary on Rashi.
I once saw Wade Boggs drink 25 beers on a cross country flight
Nice, didn’t think anyone here would have a clue who Rashi was.
No room for SWR, a former top prospect who’s 25 years old but room for a 30 year old who made his debut at 29
4 shutout innings for Simeon today.
Just an embarrassingly bad organization top to bottom
This absolutely does not make any of this okay, but SWR was out of options and this dude has 3 years to drive back and forth between the Twin Cities. Again, still not good on its face.
And the twins bullpen continues to be filled with doodoo
They had plenty of room for him
Does this transaction warrant an entry?
The Twins, like many teams, would rather shuffle AAAA pitchers back and north to St Paul like a deck of cards, than have the kind of strong bullpen with defined roles they had at this time last year.
Trouble is they aren’t playing with a full deck anymore.
They had a strong bullpen last year but traded it away.
We need someone to replenish our depth after all the opt outs and DFA’s. I doubt he will do much but at least some of the numbers look good.
Ken Kendrick needs all the cash considerations he can get to put towards that payment to Zac Gallen on July 1, 2034 for $4.675M.
A nice addition to add to the ever-running train of mediocre pitchers between Minneapolis and St Paul, all thanks to the Poorhouse Pohlads.
Another worthless move by Minnesota. It’s like trading 5 pennies for a nickel. Zero value in and of the guys they just picked up. They just want it to appear like they’re trying to do something, when in reality this team will barely tread water u til the Pohlads are out as owners.