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Dylan Bundy Retires

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Veteran right-hander Dylan Bundy hasn’t pitched professionally in nearly a year, and in an interview with MASN’s Roch Kubatko this morning revealed that he has retired from baseball. The veteran right-hander pitched in parts of eight seasons in the majors with the Orioles, Angels, and Twins.

Drafted fourth overall by Baltimore out of high school in the 2011 draft, Bundy was long a consensus top prospect in the sport. He flew threw the minor leagues to make his big league debut in September of 2012 at the age of 19, throwing 1 2/3 scoreless innings across two appearances in the brief cup of coffee. Unfortunately, injuries would keep him from returning to the big leagues for several years after that. Bundy underwent Tommy John surgery back in 2013, and rehab cost him that whole season as well as the first half of 2014. Bundy then made just eight starts in 2015 due to shoulder issues.

The right-hander finally re-emerged at the big league level in 2016 at the age of 23. He split time between the Orioles’ starting rotation and bullpen throughout his rookie season, pitching to an above-average 4.07 ERA and striking out 21.9% of batters faced. That performance was enough to earn Bundy a rotation spot entering the 2017 season, and he delivered a solid back-of-the-rotation season for the Orioles with a 4.24 ERA and a 4.32 FIP in 169 2/3 innings of work. The highlight of Bundy’s 2017 campaign came on August 29, when he struck out 12 batters in a complete game shutout of the Mariners that saw him surrender just one hit and two walks.

Bundy was the club’s Opening Day starter in 2018 and remained with the Orioles through the end of the 2019 season as a dependable starting pitcher, ultimately posting a roughly league average 4.67 ERA with a 4.75 FIP and 602 strikeouts during his tenure in Baltimore. Bundy’s time with the Orioles came to an end in December of 2019, when he was traded to the Angels in a deal that sent a package of four youngsters to Baltimore, including current Orioles starter Kyle Bradish.

While the 2020 season was cut to just 60 games by the COVID-19 Pandemic, Bundy nonetheless went on to post the best season of his career during the abbreviated season. In 11 starts with the Angels, the righty pitched to a strong 3.29 ERA (138 ERA+) with an excellent 27% strikeout rate in 65 2/3 innings of work. The strong performance earned Bundy a ninth place finish in AL Cy Young award voting that year, and his sterling 2.95 FIP ranked behind only Shane Bieber, Zack Greinke, and Framber Valdez among AL starting pitchers.

The strong performance during the shortened season earned Bundy Opening Day starter honors for the second time in his career, but the righty struggled badly throughout the 2021 campaign and eventually found himself moved to the bullpen in late June. After returning to the swing role in which he started his MLB career, Bundy performed a bit better with a decent. 4.21 ERA in nine appearances (five starts) through the rest of the summer before his season came to a premature end in late August thanks to a shoulder strain.

Bundy went on to pitch for the Twins in 2022 after signing a one-year deal with the club. He made 29 starts for Minnesota, though he struggled to a relatively pedestrian 4.80 ERA and 4.66 FIP as his strikeout rate dipped to just 15.8%. That left Bundy to sign a minor league deal with the Mets during the 2022-23 offseason, though he made just six starts for Triple-A Syracuse before being placed on the injured list in May of that year and eventually being released from the Mets that July.

In his interview with Kubatko, Bundy discussed his decision to step away from the game, noting that “nothing was feeling good” during his stint in the Mets organization last year as he sat just 87-88 with his fastball, which had averaged 91.7 mph throughout his big league career. After departing the Mets last summer, Bundy decided to stay home for the rest of the 2023 season and while he considered returning to pitching during the offseason, he ultimately decided to step away from the game. Kubatko added that Bundy has now begun work as a real estate agent for Ary Land Company in his hometown of Sperry, Oklahoma.

In all, Bundy pitched 910 2/3 innings in 190 appearances across eight big league seasons. He finishes his career with 852 strikeouts, 54 wins, and a 4.74 ERA. We at MLBTR congratulate Bundy on a fine playing career and wish him all the best in retirement.

Sean Burroughs Passes Away

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Former big league infielder Sean Burroughs passed away this week at just 43 years of age, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports. Tragically, the former Little League World Series hero and No. 9 overall draft pick collapsed while coaching his son’s little league game.

The son of former No. 1 overall draft pick, two-time All-Star, and 1974 American League MVP Jeff Burroughs, Sean clearly had baseball in his DNA. He starred on the mound and at the plate while leading his Long Beach team to consecutive Little League World Series wins and eventually went on to be selected by the Padres with the ninth overall pick in the 1998 draft. Baseball America ranked him among the sport’s top-100 prospects in each of the next four years, including top-10 rankings each year from 2000-02. Burroughs represented the United States in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and won a Gold Medal.

Burroughs made his big league debut as the Padres’ third baseman on April 2, 2002 — collecting two hits in his first taste of MLB action. He struggled through the season’s first two months but returned from a Triple-A assignment to hit .377/.433/.410 in 67 September plate appearances. Burroughs was the Padres’ regular third baseman in 2003-04, hitting a combined .292/.350/.384 in 1142 trips to the plate. He struggled at the plate again in 2005 and was traded to the Devil Rays in a 2005-06 offseason deal that sent right-hander Dewon Brazelton back to the Friars.

Burroughs appeared in only eight games for the Rays plus another 37 with their Triple-A affiliate in Durham. He was out of baseball entirely for several years after that and had since candidly spoken about a subsequent spiral of drug addiction and alcoholism. In a heart-wrenching interview with ESPN’s Jim Caple in 2011, Burroughs described the harrowing experience of spending years living in cheap Las Vegas motels, eating out of trash cans and abusing virtually any substance he could find. “I would just try to fill myself with as much substances as I could, legally or illegally,” he acknowledged.

Despite that low point — which Burroughs likened to the Nicolas Cage film Leaving Las Vegas — Burroughs’ baseball career had a second act. He cleaned his life up, got a second chance from late D-backs GM Kevin Towers (who’d drafted Burroughs with the Padres), and played in 78 games with the 2011 Diamondbacks. Burroughs inked a minor league deal with the Twins that offseason and wound up appearing in ten games with Minnesota as well. Those would prove to be the final games of his MLB career, but he spent the 2014-17 seasons playing between several teams in the independent Atlantic League, as well as in Venezuelan Winter ball and in the Mexican League.

Burroughs’ big league career lasted all of 528 games and saw him bat .278/.335/.355. Despite that modest performance, he’ll be remembered as a remarkable talent — one who was thrust into a national spotlight at an early age and racked up more accolades than most players accrue in a lifetime before he even set foot on a major league field. His tragic passing will bring about immeasurable “what ifs,” but Burroughs also stands as a beacon of perseverance. Overcoming his yearslong battle with addiction to return to the major leagues and spend more than a half decade in pro ball is inspirational in and of itself — the type of story that transcends baseball and has the power to impact a far broader audience.

We at MLBTR offer our condolence to the Burroughs family and to his friends, former teammates and coaches, and countless fans around the world.

Twins Sign Austin Brice To Minor League Contract

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The Twins have signed reliever Austin Brice to a minor league deal, according to an announcement from their Double-A team in Wichita (X link). It’s the second time Brice has landed with the Minnesota organization. He finished last season with their Triple-A club in St. Paul.

Brice never got a major league call from the Twins. He returned to minor league free agency at the start of last offseason and inked a non-roster deal with the Phillies. The 31-year-old only pitched twice in the Philadelphia organization before he was released on April 7. He lands another opportunity a month later, although he’ll at least begin his second Minnesota stint in Double-A.

A former ninth-round pick of the Marlins, Brice has pitched in parts of seven MLB seasons. His best year came in 2019, when he turned in a 3.43 ERA with a league average 23.1% strikeout rate in a career-high 44 2/3 innings. Brice increased his strikeouts the following season after being traded to the Red Sox. Yet his walks also spiked and he allowed nearly six earned runs per nine innings. Brice struggled again the following season and was twice sent through waivers.

His most recent MLB action came via a four-game stint with the Pirates in 2022. He spent all of last season in Triple-A between the Arizona and Minnesota organizations. Brice struggled at the top minor league level, allowing a near-7.00 ERA. Some of that damage came in a disastrous three games for the D-Backs’ affiliate in Reno — one of the toughest places to pitch in affiliated ball — but he also managed only a 5.54 mark over 37 1/3 frames for St. Paul.

Twins Notes: Stewart, Topa, Lewis

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The Twins are baseball’s hottest team, as yesterday’s 5-2 win over the Red Sox extended Minnesota’s winning streak to 11 games.  A victory today would tie the fourth-longest streak in Twins/Senators franchise history — a 17-game streak in 1912 is the organization’s overall longest winning streak, while the Twins’ 15-game streak in 1991 is their longest stretch of consecutive wins since moving to Minnesota in 1961.

While the magic of the Rally Sausage has seemingly made the Twins unstoppable, plenty of injury concerns remain, including a pair of new players joining the injured list on Friday.  In addition to Byron Buxton being sidelined with right knee inflammation, the Twins also placed right-hander Brock Stewart on the 15-day IL due to tendinitis in his throwing shoulder.  Stewart’s placement is retroactive to May 2, and left-hander Kody Funderburk was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move.

Sending Stewart to the IL was a bit of a precautionary measure, as manager Rocco Baldelli told Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and other reporters.  Stewart’s shoulder has been bothering him for a week, and “this is us really trying to get ahead of something and not trying to let it get down the road where he’s missing a significant period of time,” Baldelli said.  “He’s still throwing the ball really well….But it doesn’t feel the way it needs to feel right now.”

It is understandable that the Twins would be careful given Stewart’s checkered injury history.  He missed all of 2021 recovering from Tommy John surgery, threw only 14 minor league innings in 2022 after returning from rehab, and then missed three months of the 2023 season with elbow soreness.

After posting a 6.05 ERA over 105 2/3 MLB innings with the Dodgers and Blue Jays from 2016-19 and then not getting any big league action in the next three seasons, Stewart’s limited work with the Twins has been outstanding.  The righty posted an 0.65 ERA and 35.8% strikeout rate over 27 2/3 innings for Minnesota last season, and had an 0.68 ERA and a 32.7% K% in his first 13 1/3 frames in 2024.  Though an unsustainably high 99.5% strand rate and an uninspiring 10.6% walk rate are red flags, the 32-year-old Stewart has looked like an entirely different pitcher during his time in Minnesota, and a big bullpen weapon if he can stay healthy.

Stewart’s performance helped the Twins’ bullpen not miss a beat when Jhoan Duran and Caleb Thielbar started the season on the IL, but now that both pitchers are back in action, the relief corps will take another hit due to Stewart’s own absence.  Justin Topa has also yet to pitch in 2024 due to right knee tendinitis, and though Topa has made three Triple-A outings, chief baseball officer Derek Falvey told Helfand and company that Topa will “take a little more time with the rehab assignment” before activation.

“[Topa] hasn’t felt at 100 percent yet.  He hasn’t felt like he’s really where he needs to be, but he’s progressing well,” Falvey said.  “We don’t want to rush that.  We want to make sure he’s back and feeling good and feeling like he can execute the pitches he wants to execute.”

In other injury news, Royce Lewis updated reporters (including The Athletic’s Dan Hayes) on the status of his recovery from the quad strain that has kept him out of the Twins’ lineup since he left partway through the club’s first game of the season.  Tests have revealed that the strain is healing at a usual pace, and Lewis has been able to increase his baseball activities to include some running and fielding work, as well as 80 swings in the batting cage.

As Hayes notes, the initial expectation was that it would take Lewis roughly eight weeks to return to action, though no timeline was ever fully established due to the uncertain nature of quad injuries in general, and the severity of Lewis’ strain.  While it would seem as though Lewis is making solid progress, he admitted to some frustration over “the mental challenge” of trying to work through the rehab process without having a target date in place.

“I’ve just got to keep continuing to wait,” Lewis said.  “The hardest thing is not having a timeline….When you have no idea and you feel so good, it’s the most challenging rehab I’ve ever had.”

Jose Miranda and Kyle Farmer have gotten the bulk of playing time at third base with Lewis out, and Willi Castro has also seen some action at the hot corner though he had to step into regular shortstop duty when Carlos Correa was on the IL.  Miranada has hit well while Farmer has struggled badly at the plate, and with Correa back and Castro now able to chip in more frequently at third base, the Twins should hopefully be able to make do at the position until Lewis is able to return.

Twins Place Byron Buxton On Injured List

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The Twins announced that they have placed outfielder Byron Buxton on the 10-day injured list due to right knee inflammation with infielder/outfielder Austin Martin recalled in a corresponding move. Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press was among those to relay the news on X prior to the official announcement.

Buxton departed Wednesday’s game after coming up limping on an attempted steal of second base. After that contest, the club announced that he was dealing with right knee soreness and was going for an MRI. President of baseball operations Derek Falvey says the MRI showed no structural damage, per Helfand on X, and they are hopeful Buxton can return after just 10 days.

While the club is downplaying the severity, there will be some skepticism among fans of the club, given the ongoing health problems of Buxton. Though he’s one of the game’s top talents, staying on the field has been a perpetual challenge. Though he debuted back in 2015, he has only once played more than 92 games in a season, which was back in 2017.

He got into 85 games last year but issues with that right knee prevented him from taking the field, as he stayed in a designated hitter role all year. He ultimately underwent arthroscopic surgery on that knee in October but he felt well enough by January to declare that he would be returning to center field in 2024.

He has played 28 games so far this year, starting in center field for 20 of those, but the offense hasn’t quite been back to his peak levels. He’s hit .250/.300/.391 so far this season for a wRC+ of 99. That’s similar to his showing last year while battling the knee issues, as he hit .207/.294/.438 in 2023 for a wRC+ of 98.

From 2019 to 2022, Buxton hit .258/.316/.558 for a 135 wRC+ while stealing 31 bases and providing excellent center field defense. He spent significant time on the IL during that period but showed what an impact player he can be when everything is clicking right.

The fact that he was healthy enough to take the field this year was an encouraging sign that maybe he could return to that level, but that he’s now dealing with knee problems again is understandably worrying.

Ideally, Buxton will be back in short order and can make some progress in his performance. But until then, the club will be using other options in center field. Willi Castro is in there tonight but they also have Manuel Margot and Martin to help cover that spot.

Twins, Adam Plutko Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Twins signed veteran right-hander Adam Plutko to a minor league contract, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. The CAA client will presumably head to Triple-A St. Paul once he’s built up, but he wasn’t with a team in spring training and could thus need some work at the team’s spring complex before joining an affiliate.

The 32-year-old Plutko spent the past two seasons pitching in the Korea Baseball Organization — for the LG Twins, coincidentally — and pitched quite well overseas. Through 285 1/3 innings out of LG’s rotation, he worked to a 2.40 ERA with a 21.7% strikeout rate, a 6% walk rate and a 46.5% ground-ball rate.

Prior to that run in the KBO, Plutko pitched in parts of five big league seasons between Cleveland and Baltimore, logging a 5.39 ERA in 273 2/3 innings while pitching both out of the rotation and in a long relief role. He’s fanned 17% of his big league opponents against a 7.2% walk rate. Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey worked in Cleveland’s front office from the time Plutko was drafted in 2013 until his eventual hiring in Minnesota following the 2016 season, so he should be quite familiar with Plutko.

Plutko gives the Twins some low-cost depth at a time when they’ve already seen their rotation thinned out. Righty Anthony DeSclafani underwent season-ending flexor surgery before Opening Day, and young right-hander Louie Varland struggled in his initial rotation look after showing promise in his first 22 MLB appearances in 2022-23.

Rookie Simeon Woods Richardson has stepped into the rotation and pitched well in three starts, but Minnesota’s options behind Woods Richardson and Varland aren’t plentiful. Left-hander Brent Headrick is on the 60-day injured list in the minors due to a forearm strain. Top prospect David Festa has pitched to a 2.18 ERA in Triple-A, but he’s also posted a 14.8% walk rate and has all of 33 career innings north of the Double-A level. Right-hander Randy Dobnak has an ERA just shy of 6.00 through his first six appearances of the season. Plutko doesn’t have a great big league track record, but he’ll add a needed depth option that’s had some recent success overseas.

The Twins’ Quietly Elite Catcher

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For years in Minnesota, the catching position was the strongest on the roster. Hometown kid and former No. 1 overall pick Joe Mauer went from ballyhooed prospect to three-time batting champion and 2009 American League MVP. He solidified the spot for a decade, hitting .323/.405/.469 in more than 5000 plate appearances from 2004-13.

When concussions forced Mauer over to first base, the Twins turned things over to a series of veterans as they struggled to develop an in-house replacement. Kurt Suzuki and Jason Castro both inked multi-year deals to serve as the starting catcher in Minnesota. Those contracts actually panned out reasonably well; Suzuki hit .263/.316/.364 in three seasons and made the 2014 All-Star team. Castro hit .229/.325/.390 in his three seasons and provided elite defense. Along the way, the Twins succeeded in developing one high-end offensive catcher — Mitch Garver — but struggled to keep him healthy. Garver was eventually traded to the Rangers for Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ronny Henriquez. Kiner-Falefa was then immediately flipped to the Yankees alongside Josh Donaldson in a swap that netted the Twins Gary Sanchez and Gio Urshela (while shedding the remainder of Donaldson’s $92MM contract).

Somewhat lost in the shuffle during that catching carousel was 2018 second-rounder Ryan Jeffers. The UNC-Wilmington product had a nice debut showing in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, slashing .273/.355/.436 in a small sample of 62 plate appearances. Jeffers, however, fanned in more than 30% of his plate appearances that year and experienced even more pronounced contact issues in the two subsequent seasons.

From 2021-22, he hit just .203/.277/.384 with a 32.4% strikeout rate. The power was apparent (21 homers, .182 ISO in 529 plate appearances), but Jeffers’ contact issues rendered him a well below-average hitter. The Twins, in win-now mode after a strong 2022 campaign, signed veteran Christian Vazquez to a three-year, $30MM deal that generally aligned with market expectations.

Heading into the 2023 season, Jeffers wasn’t relegated to a traditional backup role, but there was a clear expectation that he and Vazquez would be in a timeshare behind the plate — likely with the defensively superior Vazquez handling a bit more of the workload. Through the season’s first few months, that’s precisely how things played out, too. Vazquez received 202 first-half plate appearances to Jeffers’ 157. Vazquez provided his typical brand of elite defense but hit just .210/.287/.265 in that time. Jeffers, on the other hand, hit .256/.357/.421 — numbers more in line with his intriguing rookie showing from 2020.

Following the All-Star break, the balance of playing time tilted in the other direction. It was Jeffers who found his name called more often, picking up 178 plate appearances to Vazquez’s 153. While Vazquez improved a bit offensively in the season’s second half, Jeffers saw his production soar to heights not seen by a Minnesota catcher in years. In the final two-plus months of the season, the 26-year-old mashed at a .294/.379/.549 clip and belted 10 homers. By measure of wRC+, that was 54% better than the league-average hitter. And considering catchers tend to be about 12% worse than the average hitter, Jeffers’ breakout was all the more eye-catching.

It didn’t appear to be simple small-sample noise, either. Jeffers made notable gains in his contact ability, fanning at a reduced (but still higher-than-average) 26.4% clip post-break last season. That includes a strikeout rate of just 17.1% in the season’s final month. While he didn’t suddenly reduce his chase rate on pitches off the plate, Jeffers took a noticeably more aggressive approach overall and seemed to benefit from it. His 50.3% overall swing rate in September was markedly higher than the 43.7% of pitches at which he’d offered in the five months prior. He’d previously made contact on 57.5% of his chases off the plate and 82.2% of his swings within the strike zone; those jumped to 71.4% and 87.8%, respectively, in the final month of play.

We’re now five weeks into the 2024 season, and Jeffers has picked up right where he left off last September. He’s hitting .300/.393/.556 on the season and has already popped five homers in his 107 plate appearances. His 16.8% strikeout rate is an easy career-low. The more aggressive approach he showed late last year remains in place, as he’s swinging at a 47.4% clip with better contact off the plate and within the zone that he’d shown prior to last September.

Jeffers has made himself veritably indispensable in the Twins’ lineup. He’s appeared in 27 of their 30 games: 14 at catcher and 11 at designated hitter. Manager Rocco Baldelli has begun to bat Jeffers in the top-third of his lineup with regularity. Seventy percent of his plate appearances have come while batting first, second or third this year. Jeffers has long pounded left-handed pitching (career .267/.362/.487), but he’s now hitting .285/.368/.489 against righties dating back to Opening Day 2023 — a wild improvement over the .185/.256/.361 slash he posted versus righties from 2020-22.

And, for all the talk about Vazquez’s defense earlier, it should be noted that Jeffers is hardly a slouch himself in that regard. Statcast was down on his ability to block balls in the dirt last season (five blocks below average), but Jeffers has routinely drawn positive overall grades from Defensive Runs Saved. He’s been better than average in that regard in each other season of his big league career, however, and Jeffers has been an average or better pitch framer in his career as a whole, per both FanGraphs and Statcast. He has a slightly below-average caught-stealing rate in his career, but much of that stems from an ugly 13% caught-stealing rate as a rookie. Jeffers nabbed 25% of thieves in 2023 (league-average was 21%) and is 1-for-5 in 2024 (23% is league-average).

Since last season, there are 75 big league catchers who’ve tallied at least 100 plate appearances. Jeffers’ 146 wRC+ leads the pack by a massive margin; the Contreras brothers check in at 133 (William Contreras) and 132 (Willson Contreras) and stand as the No. 2 and 3 entrants on that list. Yes, it’s still only a sample of 442 plate appearances for Jeffers, but he’s been far and away the best-hitting catcher in the majors going back to last year, quietly topping stars like Will Smith, Adley Rutschman, Sean Murphy and the Contreras brothers on a per-plate-appearance basis. Granted, Jeffers isn’t going to top WAR leaderboards because of his more even timeshare with Vazquez and lesser defensive skills to names like Murphy, Rutschman, Patrick Bailey and others — but he’s nevertheless stepped out as one the game’s premier hitters at his position.

Perhaps the Vazquez addition took some pressure off Jeffers, but the breakout at the plate and the Twins’ efforts to scale back payroll this past offseason do combine to make that signing look superfluous. Vazquez is a flat-out elite defender, but he’s hitting .222/.273/.309 in 421 plate appearances as a Twin. For a team that was up against some pretty noticeable payroll constraints from ownership in the offseason, that $10MM-per-year salary could certainly be allocated in a more efficient way.

That’s not to disparage Vazquez; had Twins ownership merely allowed the front office to maintain last year’s roughly $155MM payroll, his salary wouldn’t even be all that cumbersome to manage — and there’s surely intangible benefit to him working with Jeffers and with the team’s pitching staff. Still, the Twins spent relatively heavily to install a starting-caliber option behind the dish, only to see one of their young, in-house options emerge as the cornerstone backstop they’d been seeking all along.

Jeffers remains highly affordable for the Twins, earning just $2.425MM this season in his first trip through arbitration. He’s well on his way to earning a major raise on top of that salary if he can continue to hit as he has going back to Opening Day 2023. He’ll be arb-eligible twice more and is controllable through the 2026 season. As a Boras Corporation client, Jeffers doesn’t stand out as the likeliest candidate to sign a long-term deal, but it’s hard to imagine the Twins wouldn’t be interested in hammering out some kind of deal to keep him in Minneapolis longer than he’s currently slated to stay.

D-Backs Acquire Matt Bowman From Twins

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The Diamondbacks announced they’ve acquired reliever Matt Bowman from the Twins for cash considerations. Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reported the move (on X) shortly before the announcement. Arizona optioned southpaw Blake Walston to Triple-A Reno in a corresponding active roster transaction. Starter Merrill Kelly moved from the 15-day to the 60-day injured list to clear 40-man roster space.

Bowman, 32, inked a minor league deal with Minnesota over the winter. The Twins selected his contract in the second week of the regular season. Bowman pitched five times, tossing 7 2/3 innings of two-run ball. He struck out six and issued four walks before being designated for assignment when the Twins welcomed Jhoan Duran back from the injured list. Bowman is out of options, so the Twins didn’t have the luxury of sending him back to Triple-A once they called him up.

A Princeton graduate, Bowman pitched for the Cardinals and Reds between 2016-19. He turned in three sub-4.00 ERA showings along the way, generally relying on huge ground-ball numbers to compensate for middling strikeout tallies. Injuries — most notably a September 2020 Tommy John procedure — kept Bowman out of game action for the next few years. He returned to health in Triple-A with the Yankees a year ago.

Bowman had a solid run for New York’s Triple-A affiliate. He posted a 3.99 ERA behind a 51.9% grounder percentage over 58 2/3 frames. The Yankees called him to the majors for a trio of appearances in September before waiving him at the end of the season.

Arizona is willing to install Bowman into the middle relief group. They’ll send cash Minnesota’s way to jump the waiver line. While Bowman doesn’t have much recent MLB experience because of the injuries, he’d gotten out to a strong start with Minnesota’s top farm team. He worked six innings and allowed only one unearned run with Triple-A St. Paul, striking out seven against a pair of walks.

The Diamondbacks have had a below-average relief group through the season’s first month. They entered play Thursday ranked 20th in ERA (4.34) and 28th in strikeout rate (18.7%). Arizona relievers have the fifth-highest walk percentage (11.3%) and have needed to shoulder the ninth-most innings.

The group was put under particular stress this week. After the now famous bee incident delayed Tuesday’s game, the D-Backs scratched Jordan Montgomery and used seven relievers to get through a bullpen game. Montgomery started yesterday but was knocked out after just three innings, requiring three more relievers (including a 3 2/3 inning stint from Walston in his MLB debut). Bowman adds a fresh arm to the middle innings.

Kelly suffered a shoulder strain that’ll require a lengthy absence. Manager Torey Lovullo was recently noncommittal on getting him back before the All-Star Break. He’s now out for a minimum of 60 days from the time of his original IL placement on April 20. He’s at least out of MLB action until mid-June.

Twins Select Caleb Boushley

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The Twins announced Wednesday that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Caleb Boushley from Triple-A St. Paul. Southpaw Kody Funderburk was optioned to St. Paul in a corresponding move. Minnesota already had an open 40-man spot after designating righty Matt Bowman for assignment yesterday.

Boushley, 30, is a Wisconsin native and UW-La Crosse product who made his big league debut with his hometown Brewers last summer. He faced ten batters, whiffing half of them, but also walked a pair of hitters and gave up a solo homer in his 2 1/3-inning cup of coffee. He’ll now suit up for another Midwest club after signing a minor league deal with Minnesota in the offseason.

It’s been a nice start to the season for Boushley in the Twins’ Triple-A rotation. He’s started five games for the Saints and posted an even 4.00 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate against just a 3.7% walk rate in 27 frames. He’s averaged one homer per nine innings pitched and kept the ball on the ground at a solid 43.9% rate. In parts of five Triple-A seasons, the former 33rd-round pick (Padres, 2017) has logged a 4.56 ERA, 19.3% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate.

Though he’s been a starter in the minors this season (and for the majority of his career), Boushley will give the Twins a fresh arm in the bullpen for the time being. They used five relievers yesterday, including 30 pitches from the now-optioned Funderburk. Closer Jhoan Duran tossed 15 pitches and picked up a save in his first appearance of the season after being activated just yesterday from a month-long stint on the IL due to an oblique strain. Lefty Caleb Thielbar has also worked on consecutive days and might not be available today as a result (though he threw only two pitches en route to being credited with the victory last night). The Twins will send right-hander Bailey Ober to the mound against the White Sox today as they look to extend their MLB-best nine-game winning streak to a tenth game.

Twins Designate Matt Bowman For Assignment

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The Twins announced that right-hander Jhoan Duran has been reinstated from the injured list, as had been reported on earlier this week. In a corresponding move, right-hander Matt Bowman has been designated for assignment.

Bowman, 33 next month, signed a minor league deal with the Twins in the offseason. He was added to the 40-man roster just over two weeks ago, after throwing six scoreless frames in Triple-A, and has since pitched 7 2/3 innings over five appearances in the majors.

He only allowed two earned runs in that time, which is why his earned run average looks nice right now at 2.35. However, the underlying metrics have been less impressive. He has six strikeouts and four walks, leading to respective rates of 19.4% and 12.9% thus far. His 57.9% ground ball rate is strong but he wasn’t going to maintain a .056 batting average on balls in play nor a 90.9% strand rate. That’s why his 5.64 FIP and 4.38 SIERA are much higher than his ERA in this small sample.

Since Bowman is out of options, the Twins had to remove him from the 40-man roster entirely in order to open an active roster spot for Duran. They will now have one week to trade Bowman or pass him through waivers. If the latter scenario were to come to pass, he has over three years of service time, giving him the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency instead. However, he doesn’t have five years of service, meaning he would have to forfeit the remainder of this $925K salary to return to the open market.

Elbow injuries, including Tommy John surgery, prevented Bowman from pitching in official game action from 2020 to 2022. He was able to return to the mound last year, tossing 58 2/3 innings for the Triple-A club of the Yankees with a 3.99 ERA. He struck out 22.6% of batters faced in that time while giving out walks at an 11.7% rate and getting grounders at an 51.9% clip. He also tossed four innings for the Yanks in the majors but was outrighted after the season, which allowed him to sign with the Twins.

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