Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Twins Rumors

Quick Hits: Cain, Int’l Prospects, Bush, Boras

By | at

Matt Cain has been placed on the 15-day DL in order to recover from a cut on his right index finger that already cost him one start earlier this week.  While making a sandwich in the Giants’ clubhouse last Tuesday, Cain dropped a knife and tried to catch it in mid-air, cutting his finger in the process.  While the injury isn’t serious and Cain could return to the rotation as early as Saturday, the Giants ace may have earned himself a mention in future lists of oddball MLB injuries.

Here are a few notes from around the baseball world…

  • The Rangers have done the best job of signing international prospects since 2006, as ranked by Baseball America’s Ben Badler.  Not only has Texas signed 14 international players (the second-most of any team in that span), but several of them are making waves in the minors and the likes of Martin Perez, Leonys Martin and Jurickson Profar have contributed to the Major League club.  The Royals, Pirates, Twins and Red Sox round out the rest of the top five in Badler’s rankings.
  • Former first overall draft pick Matt Bush is halfway through a 51-month prison sentence and he talks to FOX Sports’ Gabe Kapler about his regrets and his battles with alcoholism.
  • Scott Boras’ inability to adapt to the new qualifying offer system in free agency is why clients Kendrys Morales and Stephen Drew are still waiting for new contracts, Scout.com’s Kiley McDaniel opines.  While Boras has pulled impressive deals seeming out of nowhere for many clients in the past, McDaniel argues that teams have more information now and are less apt to give up a draft pick or commit major dollars to “second tier free agents.”
  • Fangraphs’ David Laurila catches up with right-hander Mike Ekstrom about playing in Italy and his Baseball Round The World website, which chronicles the experiences of Ekstrom and other players who continue their careers in far-flung locales.  Ekstrom pitched 61 Major League innings with the Padres, Rays and Rockies from 2008-12 and spent last season at the Triple-A level in the Athletics’ and Angels’ systems.

AL Central Notes: Buxton, Sierra, Nieto, Benoit

By | at

The Twins have activated top prospect Byron Buxton from the 7-day disabled list, so he’ll soon make his 2014 debut, MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger explains. The Twins are sending him to Class A+ Fort Myers even though he hit .326/.415/.472 in a half-season at that level last year. “If he gets rolling and it looks like he’s in mid-season form and ready to go, we’ll move him up to [Double-A] New Britain where we planed to have him be,” says assistant GM Rob Antony. “He played his way out of this league last year but we’ll give him enough time here to get going.” MLB.com ranks Buxton the top overall prospect in baseball. Here are more notes from the AL Central.

  • The White Sox claimed Moises Sierra from the Blue Jays in part because of injuries to outfielders Adam Eaton and Avisail Garcia, CSN Chicago’s Dan Hayes writes. “It’s another piece,” says manager Robin Ventura. “With Eaton going down, we’re light in the outfield area. You can have Leury (Garcia) go out there, but it adds another piece to us and being right-handed keeps us more balanced that way.”
  • The White Sox are satisfied with Rule 5 pick Adrian Nieto’s progress so far this year, Hayes writes. When the team selected Nieto from the Nationals last offseason, he had never played above the Class A+ level, but he’s held his own in 11 games so far in the big leagues, hitting .280/.280/.360. That includes three hits on Friday.
  • In the wake of the Joel Hanrahan signing, John Lowe of the Detroit Free Press explains that the reason the Tigers did not simply keep Joaquin Benoit is that Benoit wanted “closer-type money,” and the Tigers were already paying Joe Nathan to be their closer. They also wanted Bruce Rondon to slot into a late-inning role.

Zach Links contributed to this post.

AL Central Notes: V-Mart, Hunter, Zimmer

By | at

We’ve already had one batch of AL Central news items earlier today, but here are a few more from around the division…

  • It seems “certain” that the Tigers will extend a qualifying offer to Victor Martinez this winter, MLive.com’s Chris Iott writes as part of a reader mailbag.  Though Martinez turns 36 in December, he’s still swinging a live bat, bringing an .859 OPS over 99 PA into today’s action.  This is just my speculation, but given Martinez’s age and defensive limitations, I wonder if he could actually accept the one-year qualifying offer (which should be worth roughly $15MM) to stay in a familiar situation in Detroit rather than risk facing a Kendrys Morales -esque extended wait in free agency.
  • Torii Hunter did a bit of recruiting to bring Joel Hanrahan to the Tigers, both players tell MLB.com’s Jason Beck.  Hunter and Hanrahan are both represented by agent Larry Reynolds and work out together during the offseason.
  • Kyle Zimmer, the fifth pick of the 2012 draft, skipped Spring Training and will see his first game action this coming week, Jim Callis writes for MLB.com.  While Zimmer is presently healthy, he had a bout of late-season biceps tendinitis and said his arm still didn’t feel when throwing in December.  As such, the Royals are taking it very easy with their star prospect and plan to cap him around 148 innings, though they could call on him for a pennant race.  “If he pitches like we expect him to, we’ll have a fresh Kyle Zimmer in September,” Royals assistant GM J.J. Picollo said.  “He’s as important as anybody in the organization for this year and the future, and this just made more sense.”
  • In other prospect-workload news, Twins assistant GM Rob Antony hinted to Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press that Alex Meyer could see roughly a 30-percent increase in his innings from 2013.  “I think 30 percent is pretty much the standard,” Antony said. “It’s kind of the guideline you work under. You monitor it….We just want him to stay healthy throughout the year and continue to progress.”  This projects to around 156 IP for Meyer in 2014, and since he’s pitched so well in five Triple-A starts, the big righty could be a late-season callup.  Antony didn’t address that possibility other than to say “The intensity is a lot different (in the minors).”

AL Notes: Rays, Cano, Johnson

By | at

Tonight, the Rays play their 1,000th game since changing their name from the Devil Rays, MLB.com’s Bill Chastain notes. Their name change was not, obviously, the cause of their change in fortunes, but the name switch came just as they emerged as an AL East powerhouse. They played ten seasons as the Devil Rays, never winning more than 70 games in a season. Their first season as the Rays was 2008, which was also their first winning season, playoff appearance and World Series appearance. Since then, they’ve had five more winning seasons in a row, also going to the playoffs in 2010, 2011 and 2013. Here are more notes from the American League.

  • Upon his return to New York, Mariners second baseman Robinson Cano expressed contentment about his choice to leave the Yankees for Seattle, Tyler Kepner of the New York Times writes. “Being in Seattle, I can’t tell you that much about Seattle. We’ve had two homestands there,” Cano says. “I could tell you, through the year, what’s different, but right now, I can tell you one thing: I’m happy there, the way they’ve embraced me — the fans, the organization and my teammates.” Cano is off to a .301/.353/.387 start in the first year of a ten-year deal with his new team.
  • Kris Johnson will be the 26th man and start the second game of the Twins’ Thursday doubleheader against the Dodgers, the Twins have announced. The start will mark Johnson’s regular-season debut with the Twins. Johnson was a first-round pick of the Red Sox in 2006, but they released him 2011 after he struggled in Triple-A. The Pirates signed him for the 2012 season, and he emerged as a very good minor-league starter who’s reasonably well suited to spot-starting in the big leagues. The Twins, after struggling through 2013 with a very weak rotation, acquired Johnson in a minor deal for reliever Duke Welker, and now Johnson is in position to help out, if only for a day.

AL Central Notes: Baker, Twins, Abreu

By | at

With Rangers right-hander Scott Baker’s May 1 opt-out date fast approaching, MLB Daily Dish’s Chris Cotillo hears that both the Indians and White Sox could have some interest in the former Twins and Cubs right-hander (Twitter link). Baker’s career has stalled since 2012 Tommy John surgery, and Cotillo reported yesterday that he’d only opt out if he were to receive a big league opportunity elsewhere. Baker’s strong performance in Triple-A — a 2.81 ERA with 7.3 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in his first 32 innings — could be enticing to teams with rotation issues. Elsewhere in the AL Central…

  • Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN has a couple of draft-related items for Twins fans (Twitter links), as he reports that Minnesota “loves” Texas prep right-hander Tyler Kolek, though the team is fairly certain he’ll be taken prior to their No. 5 overall selection (MLB.com has Kolek ranked third among draft prospects, while ESPN’s Keith Law ranked him second last month). Also, Wolfson reports that the Twins and Blue Jays are both interested in Minnesota prep left-hander/first baseman Sam Hentges.
  • Wolfson’s colleague Phil Mackey takes on the MLB All-Star nomination system, blasting it for its failure to keep up with technology. Mackey uses Chris Colabello, who is not on the ballot, as a prime example of the system’s failures. He asks why MLB can’t adjust on the fly after projected starters are submitted early in Spring Training, concluding: “Presumably because they already printed out millions of hanging-chad paper ballots to be distributed throughout ballparks in an era where two out of every three adults owns a smartphone in this country.”

Twins Links: Colabello, Hunter, Catching

By | at

A 12-11 record usually isn’t anything to write home about, yet the Twins will happily take even a slight winning record following their dismal 195-291 record over the last three seasons.  Here’s some news from the Gopher State…

  • Chris Colabello has been one of baseball’s top hitters over the season’s opening month, and the unlikely star’s long road to the Majors is chronicled by Peter Gammons in his latest piece for his Gammons Daily site.
  • Many of the Twins’ problems over the last three seasons could’ve been avoided had the team simply kept Torii Hunter in the fold, Patrick Reusse of the Minneapolis Star Tribune opines.  Before Hunter left to sign a free agent contract with the Angels following the 2007 season, Reusse argues that the Twins should’ve used some of their incoming funds from the approved Target Field to lock Hunter up to a long-term extension in 2006.
  • There’s enough catching depth in the Twins’ farm system that the pipeline is “a little stacked up,” Minnesota VP of player personnel Mike Radcliff tells Phil Miller in a piece for Baseball America.  “We’re juggling a little bit, or having a couple guys try other positions to get at-bats. I don’t think we expected quite so many to (show improvement), and some guys have really surprised us.”  Miller’s article highlights Alex Swim, a 22nd-round pick from the 2013 draft who has played well enough to earn a trip to low-A ball but can’t make the team since the Twins already have three catchers on the low-Class A roster.  Josmil Pinto, of course, is Minnesota’s young catching hope of the future if he can settle his defense, while the 2014 Baseball America Prospect Handbook ranked backstop Stuart Turner as the 30th-best prospect in the Twins’ system.

AL Notes: Cano, Tigers, A’s, Baker

By | at

Robinson Cano will be making his first trip to the Bronx since signing his ten-year, $240MM contract when the Mariners open a series against the Yankees on Tuesday. Cano explained the differences between Seattle and New York to Newsday’s Anthony Rieber. “Here it’s more relaxed. It’s not as intense as New York,” Cano said. “In New York, when the game is over, everyone is looking at what’s wrong. Here we don’t have that.” Cano is hopeful there won’t be many Bronx cheers from the Yankee faithful upon his return. “They understand that this is a business and I don’t have anything against the fans, the team, anybody. I can tell you I’m excited to go back and be able to see guys that I played with for a long time. Be able to see [Derek] Jeter play in his last year. Just looking forward to going back.” 

In other news and notes from the American League:

  • The Tigers may start to see additional dividends from the Doug Fister trade, reports Chris Iott of mlive.com. Left-hander Robbie Ray, acquired from the Nationals in that December deal, is a leading candidate to replace the injured Anibal Sanchez in the rotation. Ray has posted a 1.93 ERA, 6.2 K/9, and 1.9 BB/9 in his four starts for Triple-A Toledo. The Tigers have yet to decide who will fill in for Sanchez; but, if Ray is their choice, they will need to create roster space since the 22-year-old isn’t on the 40-man roster.  
  • The A’s bullpen has had mixed result this season and the coaching staff is trying to navigate the fine line between a closer-by-committee and the comfort provided by having well-defined roles, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser.
  • The Twins were called this weekend about the prospects of signing right-hander Scott Baker, but have no interest, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500ESPN.com. Baker is currently pitching for the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate (2.77 ERA, 7.3 K/9, and 2.1 BB/9 in 26 innings covering four starts), but has a May 1st opt-out date.

Twins Claim Kenny Wilson From Blue Jays

By | at

The Twins have claimed outfielder Kenny Wilson off waivers from the Blue Jays, the club announced. Wilson, 24, has yet to see MLB action.

Interestingly enough, Wilson hit the waiver wire after being designated for assignment by the Jays in order to make room for the claim of fellow outfielder Darin Mastroianni from Minnesota. In effect, then, the clubs swapped the two players.

In Wilson, Minnesota is adding a toolsy player with upside who seemingly still needs some time to develop. The 22nd ranked prospect in the Jays system entering the year, according to Baseball America, Wilson has not yet mastered Double-A. He started there this year after a solid (if unspectacular) run in his first go at that level at age 23. According to the Twins’ announcement, Wilson will begin his time with the Twins at that level as well.

Blue Jays Claim Darin Mastroianni, Designate Kenny Wilson

By | at

The Blue Jays have claimed outfielder Darin Mastroianni off waivers from the Twins, the club announced via press release. To make room on the 40-man roster, Toronto designated fellow outfielder Kenny Wilson for assignment.

Mastroianni originally came to Minnesota from the Jays via waiver claim in February of 2012, as Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press notes on Twitter. The 28-year-old has not produced much in limited MLB time since,: he possesses a .220/.228/.295 career line, virtually all of which has come with the Twins. Mastroianni is known for his ability to get on base: he has a lifetime .372 OBP at both the Double-A and Triple-A level, having spent parts of four seasons at each.

Wilson, 24, has yet to see time in the bigs or the highest level of the minors. He is off to a slow start at Double-A (.210/.239/.306 in 68 plate appearances) after putting up a .259/.333/.375 line with 16 stolen bases in 242 plate appearances in his first stint at that level last year. Wilson opened the year at the 22nd spot on Baseball America’s list of the team’s prospects. The speedy center fielder is said to have starter upside if he can translate his tools into production.

Twins Still Looking To Improve Bench

By | at

The Twins have been active in seeking bench help in the past week or so, acquiring Eduardo Nunez from the Yankees (in exchange for lefty Miguel Sulbaran) and claiming Sam Fuld off waivers from the A’s. It doesn’t sound like the team has any plans to stop actively seeking bench upgrades on the waiver wire, however, reports Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Neal spoke with manager Ron Gardenhire, who expressed a continued emphasis on improvements:

“We aren’t finished. We’re going to get better. We’re going to continue to get better. We’re going to keep changing around until we get what we want and get a feel for what we want off the bench. How we can move people around. And we are still working on it.”

As La Velle E. Neal of the Minneapolis Star Tribune pointed out, Darin Mastroianni was an unfortunate roster casualty following the Fuld claim. The Twins had hoped that Jason Bartlett’s retirement papers would be processed by the time the Fuld claim became official, but the holiday weekend worked against them and they had to designate Mastroianni. The silver lining for them, he adds, is that there will now be a free spot on the 40-man roster, which will make it easier to make an additional move on the waiver wire or trade market.

Based on Berardino’s writing, it seems as if the Twins will give Nunez a test run as their shortstop based on Pedro Florimon’s offensive woes. Nunez’s poor defense might lead to further moves down the line, however, as he’s graded out very poorly there per Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved. Gardenhire sounded adamant in insisting that changes should be expected: “We had three years to make adjustments. Now it’s time. Everyone is tired of watching that other stuff. I’m tired of it. You’re tired of it. The fans are tired of it. We see something we like, go get it.”

Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top