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Twins Place Byron Buxton On Injured List

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5:55pm: The Twins have now made it official, placing Buxton on the IL with right hip inflammation, retroactive to August 13. Julien was recalled as the corresponding move. They also optioned right-hander Louie Varland and recalled righty Ronny Henriquez.

4:20pm: Twins outfielder Byron Buxton has been dealing with a hip injury in recent days. Per Dan Hayes of The Athletic on X, there’s no structural damage but the club is going to place him on the 10-day injured list anyway. Hayes adds that infielder Edouard Julien is on his way to join the team, presumably as the corresponding move.

Buxton hasn’t played for Minnesota since Monday. He departed that game with right hip discomfort. He was sent for an MRI but it came back clean, per Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic on X. However, he has been kept out of the lineup due to ongoing discomfort and the club has been considering an IL stint just to avoid playing a man short, which will seemingly come to pass today.

It’s a fairly logical decision to make. The club is in a tight playoff race, currently holding the second Wild Card spot in the American League but with the Royals, Red Sox and Mariners all fairly close behind. Since Buxton has already missed a few days, his IL placement can be backdated, meaning he could theoretically be back by next weekend if he heals up between now and then. Rather than play shorthanded for a few days, the club can get reinforcements while giving Buxton a breather.

Buxton’s health has been an ongoing issue throughout his career, so it makes sense to play things on the cautious side. Although this is his tenth major league season, he has only once played more than 92 games in any individual campaign due to various maladies. Last year, the club limited him to designated hitter duties exclusively, but he still only got into 85 contests.

The knee issues that plagued him last year seem to be less of an issue this season. He did miss a couple of weeks in May with right knee inflammation but has otherwise been in the lineup. He has appeared in 90 games so far this year, taking his customary center field position in 82 of those. He’s also been incredibly impactful, as he’s hit 16 home runs and is slashing .275/.334/.528 for a 140 wRC+. He’s also swiped six bags and has received strong grades for his glovework, leading FanGraphs to credit him with 3.2 wins above replacement on the year.

Losing that production for a while will obviously be less than ideal for the Twins in the short term, but it will be worth it in the long term if Buxton can heal up and be back in form for the playoff race and the postseason itself.

Until then, the club will likely be using Manuel Margot and Austin Martin to cover center, with Max Kepler, Trevor Larnach and Matt Wallner also in the outfield/designated hitter mix. Martin has also been playing some second base this year, so Julien will give them an extra option there while Martin spends more time on the grass. Kyle Farmer is also on hand as a glove-first option at the keystone, compared to Julien’s more bat-first profile. With Carlos Correa and Brooks Lee also on the IL, Willi Castro is covering shortstop every day as Royce Lewis and José Miranda share third base and DH duties.

Mike Cubbage Passes Away

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Former major league infielder and coach Mike Cubbage has passed away after a battle with cancer, according to a report from Bradley Locker of the New York Post. He was 74.

Cubbage played parts of eight seasons between 1974-81. A left-handed hitter, he was drafted by the Washington Senators in the second round in 1971. The Senators had also taken Cubbage in the sixth round of the ’68 draft, but the Charlottesville native had honored his college commitment to the University of Virginia. A few months after selecting him for a second time, the Senators moved to Texas and became the Rangers.

After playing parts of four seasons in the minors, Cubbage made his debut with Texas early in the ’74 season. He nevertheless spent most of that year in Triple-A. Cubbage appeared in 58 MLB contests the following season. Texas included him in a four-player package to land future Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven from the Twins midway through the ’76 campaign. Cubbage played regularly for Minnesota over the next four-plus seasons. He topped 100 games on three occasions while working as the Twins’ primary third baseman. He hit .266/.336/.378 in just under 2000 plate appearances with Minnesota.

Cubbage signed with the Mets as a free agent going into the 1981 season. He finished his career with 67 games for New York. While he didn’t make a huge impact on the organization as a player, he quickly embarked on a lengthy run as a minor league manager in the New York system. Cubbage reached the MLB coaching staff in 1990, working as a hitting coach under Davey Johnson. He served as the MLB team’s interim manager for a week in 1991 and continued coaching throughout the decade. Cubbage was on the Red Sox’s staff in the early 2000s and subsequently worked in various scouting roles. He was a member of the Nationals’ pro scouting department during the team’s 2019 World Series season.

In just over 700 MLB games, Cubbage was a .258/.330/.369 hitter. He connected on 34 homers and drove in 251 runs. His playing days served as a springboard into a true “baseball lifer” career that spanned nearly four more decades. MLBTR sends our condolences to his family, loved ones, friends and the various people he impacted over his lengthy career.

Matt Bowman Opts Out Of Twins Deal

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The Twins released right-hander Matt Bowman, per an announcement from the St. Paul Saints, their Triple-A affiliate (hat tip: Bobby Nightengale of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, on X). The 33-year-old Bowman had been pitching well with the Saints and exercised an opt-out clause over the weekend (as first reported by the New York Post’s Jon Heyman). Minnesota had until today to add him to the 40-man roster but have instead opted to let Bowman become a free agent.

Bowman was in his second stint with the Twins organization this season alone. He inked a minor league pact with Minnesota back in January, was selected to the big league roster in mid-April, and wound up pitching 7 2/3 solid innings out of the ’pen. Bowman yielded only two runs in that first stretch, though his command was quite shaky. In addition to a pair of hits, he issued four walks and plunked a pair hitters while fanning six others. The Twins designated him for assignment and traded him to the D-backs for cash — the first in a lengthy series of transactions for Bowman in 2024.

Bowman spent about three weeks with the D-backs before being designated for assignment once again, this time clearing waivers and electing free agency. He inked a minor league deal with the Mariners and was selected back to the majors in mid-June, only to clear waivers and again elect free agency after just one appearance. Bowman quickly re-signed with Seattle on a new minor league deal, opted out before he got back to the big leagues, and then re-signed a new minor league deal back in Minnesota. He’s now a free agent once again.

It’s a fairly dizzying sequence that’s emblematic of the paths many journeyman of this ilk walk over the course of a given season. Bowman has pitched for six different teams in parts of six MLB seasons. He’s tossed 15 innings this season (5.40 ERA) and has a career 4.22 earned run average in 200 1/3 frames. The Princeton product was originally drafted by the Mets with their 13th-round pick back in 2012, and he’s fanned a below-average 18.8% of his big league opponents against a more solid 8.3% walk rate and a terrific 55.6% ground-ball rate.

This season, Bowman has been outstanding when pitching at the Triple-A level. He’s tallied 30 2/3 innings between Tacoma and St. Paul, logging a sparkling 2.05 ERA with a 28.9% strikeout rate and a 6.6% walk rate. Between that performance and his respectable track record in the majors, Bowman should get a look from another club seeking some bullpen help in the season’s final six-plus weeks.

Twins To Promote Zebby Matthews

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The Twins are calling up top pitching prospect Zebby Matthews, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. He’ll join an injury-plagued rotation and make his MLB debut the first time he takes the mound. Matthews isn’t yet on the 40-man roster, so Minnesota will need to make a corresponding move to formally select his contract.

Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey acknowledged last week that Matthews was very much in the mix for a call to the big leagues in the wake of Joe Ryan’s Grade 2 teres major strain — an injury that puts the remainder of Ryan’s season in jeopardy. The Twins currently have Tuesday’s starter listed as TBD.

Matthews, the Twins’ eighth-round pick in 2022, posted sub-2.00 ERAs in both High-A and Double-A before his recent promotion to Triple-A. He’s had two solid starts and two rough starts at the top minor league level. Collectively, the 24-year-old has logged a 2.60 ERA with an impressive 30.5% strikeout rate and a staggering 1.8% walk rate across those three minor league levels. He’s fanned a hefty 114 opponents and issued just seven walks in 97 innings this season.

Though he boasts elite command, Matthews is hardly the type of soft-tossing finesse pitcher one would expect for someone with that type of location. His heater sits in the mid-90s and tops out around 97 mph. Matthews is listed at 6’5″ and 225 pounds, though Baseball America’s scouting report notes that the “massive” righty “seems to be larger” than his listed height and weight. Matthews works with a five-pitch arsenal, complementing his four-seamer with a cutter, slider, curveball and changeup. Both BA and The Athletic’s Keith Law write that none of the five pitches are true plus offerings, but they each play up because of his precision.

Matthews has ridden his breakout season all the way to the No. 61 spot on Baseball America’s recent update to their top 100 prospects, where they note that he has perhaps the best command in minor league baseball. Law ranks Matthews 60th in the sport, and MLB.com has him as their No. 100 prospect.

With Ryan shelved perhaps for the duration of the season — manager Rocco Baldelli said his injury would take “weeks or months” to heal — Minnesota will lean on a rookie-heavy starting staff down the stretch. Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober give Minnesota some healthy veterans atop the staff, but they’ll need righties Simeon Woods Richardson, David Festa and now Matthews to step onto the staff. Right-hander Louie Varland, who opened the season as the No. 5 starter, could also factor in down the stretch, although he’s had a rough showing both in the big leagues and the minors this year.

Woods Richardson has emerged as a solid mid-rotation arm this year, logging 3.78 ERA with a 21.4% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate in 102 1/3 innings (20 starts). Festa, a fellow top-100 prospect alongside Matthews, was hit hard in his first two big league starts (12 runs in 10 innings) but has a 2.04 ERA in 17 2/3 innings since. He’s yet to work more than five innings in a big league game, however. Matthews will be the next man up. The Twins remain hopeful that Ryan will return this season, and righty Chris Paddack is also expected to rejoin the rotation at some point, but he’s still on the 15-day IL with a forearm strain.

Matthews won’t be able to pick up enough big league service time to get a full year in 2024, meaning he’ll still be under club control for an additional six seasons — even if he’s never sent back down from this point on. He’d currently be on track to reach arbitration eligibility in the 2027-28 offseason, although future optional assignments to the minors could impact both his arbitration and free-agent timelines. He’ll join a growing pitching pipeline in the Twins organization, where Lopez, Ryan and Ober are signed/controlled through 2027 and each of Woods Richardson, Festa and Varland are (like Matthews) controllable through at least 2030.

Twins Showing Interest In Rich Hill

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The Twins have been in contact with veteran left-hander Rich Hill, who hosted a showcase for big league scouts earlier today, reports Dan Hayes of The Athletic. The Red Sox were also in attendance for Hill’s showcase, WEEI’s Rob Bradford tweets, though it’s not clear whether they’ve spoken to Hill about a potential reunion. The Yankees and Dodgers were previously connected to Hill and thus presumably also in attendance this morning.

Minnesota’s interest comes at a time when Joe Ryan was just diagnosed with a Grade 2 strain of the teres major muscle in his right shoulder that puts the remainder of his season in jeopardy. Ryan joined righty Chris Paddack on the 15-day IL earlier today, leaving Minnesota with an inexperienced group of options — Simeon Woods Richardson, David Festa, Louie Varland — behind veterans Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober in the starting rotation.

Hill, 44, has said since last year that his plan for the 2024 season was to pitch — but only in the season’s second half. The southpaw signed a one-year deal with the Pirates in the 2022-23 offseason and pitched well early before beginning to show signs of fatigue. He still managed to eat up 146 1/3 innings between Pittsburgh and San Diego (who acquired him at last year’s trade deadline), but it was generally a tale of two seasons for Hill. The lefty notched a respectable 4.34 ERA and matching FIP through his first 15 starts, punching out 21.1% of his opponents against an 8.6% walk rate. In his final 63 1/3 innings, he was torched for a 6.82 ERA with a 17.7% strikeout rate, 9% walk rate and 1.71 HR/9.

Waiting until later in the season affords MLB’s elder statesmen some perks beyond potentially keeping him fresh. Most importantly, Hill has spoken on record before about the additional time he was able to spend with his family, coaching his son’s team (link via MLB.com’s Ian Browne). Signing in August also ensures that he’s able to land with a club that has a good shot at making the postseason.

Minnesota would fit that bill. The Twins have been in second place in the AL Central and holding onto an AL Wild Card spot for most of the season. At 63-50, the Twins are 3.5 games behind Cleveland in the division, but they’re also hosting the Guardians for a four-game set this weekend that would shake up the top of the division if Minnesota can manage a sweep. (They’re currently leading the Guards in Game 1 of today’s doubleheader.)

Hill is no stranger to the Twins organization, having pitched there during the shortened 2020 season. Injuries limited him to eight starts, but he posted a 3.03 ERA in 38 2/3 innings as a Twin and reached the postseason that year. Bradford spoke to a scout who was at Hill’s showcase this morning, noting that the lefty threw more than 100 pitches and looked “impressive” (X link). Hill himself tells Bradford that he believes he’s built up to the point where he’s ready to go throw five or six innings in a start right now (video link).

Hill isn’t the only reinforcement the Twins are pondering, though second alternative is nearly half Hill’s age. Top prospect Zebby Matthews has skyrocketed up prospect rankings this season on the back of a dominant showing in High-A and Double-A. He was recently bumped up to Triple-A St. Paul, and president of baseball operations Derek Falvey confirmed to the Twins beat that Matthews is under consideration for a promotion to the majors.

“I think Zebby’s definitely in the conversation,” Falvey said this afternoon (X link via KSTP’s Darren Wolfson). “Obviously, he’s pitched exceptionally well for the whole year all the way through levels he’s been at. He’s now at Triple-A and knocking on the door. With the injuries we have, he’s certainly in the conversation. As we think about the needs for next week, he’s certainly a name that we’re talking about.”

Matthews, the Twins’ eighth-round pick in 2022, already looks like a nice find for the organization. The right-hander posted sub-2.00 ERAs in both High-A and Double-A before his recent promotion to Triple-A. He’s had two solid starts and two rough starts at the top minor league level. Collectively, he’s posted a 2.60 ERA with an impressive 30.5% strikeout rate and a staggering 1.8% walk rate. Matthews has fanned a hefty 114 opponents and issued just seven walks all season.

Matthews has ridden that breakout season all the way to the No. 61 spot on Baseball America’s recent update to their top 100 prospects, where they note that Matthews has perhaps the best command in minor league baseball. The Athletic’s Keith Law ranks Matthews 60th in the sport, and MLB.com has him as their No. 100 prospect.

Falvey also added that the aforementioned Paddack is still expected back this season. He’s “tracking really well,” per the Twins’ baseball ops leader (X link via The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman) and could begin a throwing program in the near future. Paddack has had a Jekyll-and-Hyde season, at times looking dominant and others looking fatigued in his first full season back from the second Tommy John procedure of his career. He’s twice punched out 10 hitters in a game and allowed two or fewer runs in 10 of his 17 starts. However, he’s also had starts where he’s been rocked for seven runs and nine runs, leading to a 4.99 ERA on the season.

Paddack’s 88 1/3 innings this season are already more than his combined total from 2022-23 while he underwent and rehabbed from that Tommy John procedure. Nevertheless, the Twins plan to use him as a starter when he’s ready to return, per Falvey. There’s no clear timetable for that yet, but if he can begin a throwing progression soon, a return sometime next month seems feasible. Paddack last pitched on July 14 and has been out since with a forearm strain.

Joe Ryan Diagnosed With Grade 2 Teres Major Strain

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The Twins received bad news following right-hander Joe Ryan’s MRI, as he’s been diagnosed with a Grade 2 teres major strain that’ll threaten the remainder of his season, manager Rocco Baldelli announced to the Twins beat this morning (X link via Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com). It’s a more serious injury than the Twins initially anticipated, and while Baldelli didn’t entirely rule Ryan out for the remainder of the season, he acknowledged that it’ll take “weeks to months” for the right-hander to recover.

Ryan is headed to the 15-day IL for now, and the Twins have also selected the contract of right-hander Scott Blewett from Triple-A St. Paul in his place. Right-hander Brock Stewart, who is headed for season-ending shoulder surgery, was placed on the 60-day IL to open a spot for Blewett. Minnesota also reinstated infielder Kyle Farmer from the injured list, placed infielder Brooks Lee on the 15-day IL due to biceps tendinitis, and called up right-hander Louie Varland as the 27th man for their pivotal doubleheader against the division-leading Guardians.

The injury for Ryan is a gut-punch to a Twins club that was unable to acquire a starting pitcher prior to the trade deadline and has already seen its rotation depth stretched thin. The 28-year-old Ryan has been perhaps their steadiest starter in 2024, logging 135 innings of 3.60 ERA ball with a strong 27.3% strikeout rate against an outstanding 4.3% walk rate. He’s been a fixture in the Twins’ rotation since being acquired from the Rays in exchange for Nelson Cruz at the 2021 trade deadline, making 84 starts with a 3.92 ERA and consistently strong strikeout and walk rates.

With Ryan joining Chris Paddack and Anthony DeSclafani — who required season-ending surgery back in spring training — on the injured list, Minnesota will be forced to lean on a rookie-heavy rotation while trying to overtake Cleveland and fight off Kansas City in the AL Central race. Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober provide plenty of big league experience, but they’ll be followed by Simeon Woods Richardson, David Festa and likely Varland in the season’s final seven weeks or so. Right-hander Zebby Matthews, who has rocketed up prospect rankings in 2024 while dominating High-A and Double-A, could be called to the big leagues sooner than he otherwise would have with a healthier staff. Veteran righty Adam Plutko is also in Triple-A with the Twins and has pitched to a respectable 4.35 ERA there — including a 3.38 mark over his past seven starts.

Given the increased level of strain on the pitching depth, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see the Twins pursue some additional depth. Their avenues to doing so are limited now that the deadline has passed, but they still have some options. Rich Hill, who pitched for the Twins in 2020, is planning to sign for the stretch run and showcased for teams just today. Some depth options like Xzavion Curry (Guardians) and Jackson Wolf (Padres) were designated for assignment within the past week and could hold appeal — if they make it to the Twins on waivers. As MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald recently laid out for MLBTR Front Office subscribers, we could see a handful of notable veterans hit waivers later this month if their teams falter, although the Twins slashed payroll considerably this past offseason and ownership might balk at the notion of absorbing additional payroll for the stretch run.

In the short-term, the Twins will give Varland the first start and slot Blewett, who pitched for the 2020-21 Royals, into the bullpen. Varland opened the season in the rotation after an encouraging run late last year, but the Twin Cities native was hit hard early this season, optioned to Triple-A and eventually leapfrogged by Woods Richardson and Festa on the depth chart. He’s struggled in Triple-A overall but had rattled off a 1.48 ERA with 35 strikeouts and 14 walks in his past six starts there (30 1/3 innings).

As for Blewett, he inked a minor league deal in the offseason. The 28-year-old righty was a second-round pick by the Royals back in 2014 and has bounced around pro ball, also spending time in the White Sox and Braves systems in addition to a nice stint with the Uni-President Lions in Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League last year. He’s pitched 56 1/3 innings for the Saints this season and notched a solid 3.66 ERA with a 23.2% strikeout rate and 7.6% walk rate in that time.

The injury to Lee, 23, will open the door for Farmer’s return. Lee was the No. 8 overall pick in 2022 and currently stands as a consensus top-50 prospect in the sport. He missed the beginning of the season with a stress reaction in his back but returned to light fire to Triple-A pitching, hitting opponents at a .329/.394/.635 clip with seven homers in just 94 plate appearances before being summoned to the majors amid other injuries in Minnesota’s infield. He’ll head to the shelf himself now, leaving the Twins with Farmer and Willi Castro at second and short, Royce Lewis at third base and Carlos Santana at first base (in addition to Jose Miranda mixing in at the infield corners).

Twins’ Brock Stewart To Undergo Shoulder Surgery

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Twins right-hander Brock Stewart is headed for season-ending arthroscopic surgery to clean up his right shoulder, he tells Bally’s Audra Martin (X link). There’s no significant structural damage, and Stewart says he’s anticipating he’ll be ready for spring training after a projected rehab period of five to six months.

It’s a frustrating development for Stewart, who was away from major league baseball from 2020-22 due to the canceled minor league season in 2020 and a pair of elbow surgeries (Tommy John surgery and a procedure to remove a bone spur). Stewart signed a minor league deal with the Twins and not only made it back to the majors on the heels of that pair of surgeries but emerged as a lights-out option in manager Rocco Baldelli’s bullpen.

While this year’s 5.17 earned run average is an eyesore, that’s skewed entirely by his recent struggles coming back from a monthslong stint on the injured list due to pain in his balky shoulder. Stewart allowed one run with a 17-to-6 K/BB ratio in 13 1/3 innings to begin the season, hit the injured list for nearly three months, and clearly wasn’t at full strength when he returned. He was rocked for eight runs in 2 1/3 innings while working with a fastball and cutter that were both down nearly three miles per hour.

From the time Stewart’s contract was originally selected by the Twins in April 2023 to the time he first hit the injured list this past May, he was a legitimately overpowering force. An elbow issue sent him to the shelf for part of last summer, but Stewart pitched 41 innings for the Twins in that stretch and logged an incredible 0.66 ERA with a 34.8% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate. Most of the command troubles he encountered came early, too. For the better part of a year, he was a shutdown option thanks to a heater averaging nearly 98 mph and a cutter and slider that both missed bats in droves.

While the latest injury setback is surely a tough pill for Stewart to swallow, given his earlier elbow problems, this time around he’ll go under the knife knowing that he’s cemented himself in a big league team’s plans. The Twins control Stewart, 32, for another three seasons via arbitration. He’ll get a salary bump north of $1MM in his first season of arb eligibility this winter, but given the dominance he showed prior to this year’s shoulder problem and the remaining long-term control, it’ll be an easy call for the Twins to tender him a contract.

Twins Sign Giovanny Gallegos To Minor League Deal

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The Twins have signed veteran right-hander Giovanny Gallegos to a minor league deal, per a club announcement. Gallegos has been assigned to Triple-A.

The veteran righty, 33 next week, began his big league career with the Yankees back in 2017. Gallegos made just 20 appearances with New York before being dealt to the Cardinals partway through the 2018 season in the deal that sent Luke Voit to the Bronx. Gallegos made just two appearances in St. Louis down the stretch with 1 1/3 scoreless frames but emerged as a key piece of the Cardinals bullpen the following year.

From 2019 to 2022, Gallegos pitched to a sterling 2.84 ERA with a nearly matching 2.83 FIP with 33 saves in 228 1/3 innings of work with an eye-popping 32% strikeout rate. That four-season stretch saw Gallegos emerge as one of the most dominant relievers in the game: among relievers with at least 150 innings of work in that stretch, the righty’s ERA and FIP both ranked eighth while his strikeout rate ranked 11th and his SIERA ranked tenth. As impressive as those numbers were, things took a turn for the worse during the right-hander’s age-31 season last year.

Gallegos’s ERA and FIP ballooned to 4.42 and 4.36 respectively in 2022, figures that were actually slightly below average by measure of ERA- and FIP-. Those middling run prevention numbers were caused by two main factors: the right-hander’s strikeout rate plummeted to just 25.8% after sitting well above 30% for his entire Cardinals tenure to that point, and his home run rate skyrocketed. After allowing home runs on just 8.6% of fly balls from 2019 to 2021, the 2022 season saw that number shoot up to a whopping 15.3%. Just ten qualified relievers allowed more home runs than Gallegos’s 11 last year, and the combination of diminished strikeout ability and difficulties keeping the ball in the park gave the veteran the look of a pedestrian middle reliever rather than the shutdown leverage arm he had been in years past.

Gallegos ended his 2023 season on the IL due to rotator cuff tendinitis, and while and the Cardinals were both surely hoping for a rebound in 2024 the season proved to be anything but for the veteran hurler. Continued shoulder woes cost the right-hander nearly two months earlier this year, but even when he was healthy enough to take the mound his results were nothing short of disastrous. The righty surrendered a 6.53 ERA with a nearly matching 6.36 FIP in 20 2/3 innings of work for the Cardinals this year. That’s the 11th-worst ERA in the majors this year among relievers with at least 20 innings of work, and Gallegos paired those lackluster results with a career-worst 22.6% strikeout rate and a 10.6% walk rate that is not only the highest of his career but more than double his rate from just last season.

Those deep struggles led the Cardinals to designate Gallegos for assignment prior to the trade deadline in hopes of finding a team willing to trade for him, but no deal came together and he ended up electing free agency last week. Now, he’ll look to regain his previous form in a Twins organization that has struggled to get production out of the bullpen in recent weeks. Minnesota relievers have combined for a lackluster 4.60 ERA since the calendar flipped to July, and injuries to Brock Stewart and Kody Funderburk have further diminished the depth available in the club’s relief corps. If Gallegos can show improvement at the Triple-A level, it’s not hard to imagine the Twins believing in the veteran righty’s track record of success enough to give him a spot in the club’s bullpen over a pitcher like Josh Winder or Randy Dobnak.

Twins Release Josh Staumont

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The Twins have released right-hander Josh Staumont, as noted by The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman. Staumont was designated for assignment amid a league-wide flurry of transactions on the day of the trade deadline. Staumont is now free to sign with any major league club.

Staumont, 30, was a second-round pick by the Royals back in 2015 and made his big league debut for Kansas City back in 2019. He enjoyed a great deal of success out of the bullpen with the club early in his career with a sterling 2.93 ERA (159 ERA+) and a solid 3.95 FIP in 110 2/3 innings of work through the end of the 2021 season. He struck out a solid 26.7% of batters faced, though he struggled somewhat with throwing strikes as he walked 11.4% of batters faced. That lackluster command came back to bite him over his final two years with Kansas City, as he posted a brutal 6.09 ERA in 57 2/3 innings despite a 4.08 FIP that was largely similar to his previous efforts.

Staumont’s command was the clear culprit of these struggles as he saw his walk rate spike to 15.8% from 2022 to 2023 while his strikeout rate fell a tick to 25.3%. Those additional control woes may have been brought on by injury, however, as Staumont was limited to just 20 innings of work last year after undergoing surgery to correct Thoracic Outlet Syndrome in July of last year. The combination of injury and under-performance concerns led the Royals to non-tender Staumont last November, but he didn’t last long on the open market as the Twins snapped him up on a major league deal just before the new year.

The right-hander’s tenure in Minnesota was a fairly solid one. He posted a respectable 3.70 ERA with a 3.54 FIP in 24 1/3 innings of work for the Twins, though those overall numbers are somewhat inflated by a blow-up appearance against the Mets on July 29 where he surrendered five runs while recording just one out. Prior to that disastrous outing, Staumont boasted a sterling 1.88 ERA with a higher but still strong 3.17 FIP. That being said, Staumont’s peripheral numbers leave some room for concern about the sustainability of his success going forward. While he’s generating an impressive 47.7% groundball rate this year, his 13.7% walk rate is still quite high while no longer being balanced out by strong strikeout numbers as he’s struck out just 17.6% of opponents this year.

Even so, Staumont’s solid results and previous track record of success make it easy to imagine a club overlooking his shaky peripherals to offer him an opportunity in their organization, especially on a no-risk minor league deal. With the trade deadline now in the past, clubs are limited in their ability to make moves that bolster their depth and protect against injuries, and adding an accomplished veteran like Staumont who’s been squeezed off another club’s roster is often the best way to do that in the run-up to the end of the season.

Notable Draft Signings: 7/31/24

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Konnor Griffin and Braden Montgomery inked significant draft deals in recent days, both of which were covered this morning at MLBTR. Pre-draft rankings and scouting reports are provided by Keith Law of the Athletic, Baseball America, FanGraphs and ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel. A few other $2MM+ signings from this week:

  • The Twins signed Kaelen Culpepper at $3.9344MM, reports Jim Callis of MLB Pipeline (X link). The Kansas State infielder gets full slot value for the 21st pick. Culpepper generally ranked a bit below where he was selected on pre-draft prognostications. Evaluators credit him with a well-rounded offensive skillset and the tools to potentially stick at shortstop, though there’s some trepidation about his propensity to chase pitches outside the strike zone. The right-handed hitter put up a .328/.419/.574 slash with 11 homers and 17 stolen bases in his final season with the Wildcats. Trey Yesavage (Blue Jays) and Vance Honeycutt (Orioles) are the remaining unsigned first-round picks headed into tomorrow evening’s deadline.
  • The Pirates went above slot to ink second-rounder Wyatt Sanford away from a commitment to Texas A&M. Callis reports (on X) that the high school agreed to a $2.5MM bonus that’s above the approximate $1.98MM value for the 47th pick. FanGraphs writes that Sanford could be the best defensive player in the high school class, while Law calls him a potential plus gloveman at shortstop. He’ll need to fill out a 6’1″ frame to provide much punch offensively, but his glove had him as fringe first-round talent in the eyes of most evaluators.
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