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Twins Designate Willians Astudillo, Charlie Barnes For Assignment

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The Twins are designating utilityman Willians Astudillo and left-hander Charlie Barnes for assignment, the club announced. Additionally, left-hander Devin Smeltzer and outfielder Kyle Garlick have cleared outright waivers. Minnesota added six prospects to the 40-man roster in advance of tonight’s deadline for Rule 5 draft protection: Royce Lewis, Jose Miranda, Blayne Enlow, Cole Sands, Chris Vallimont and Josh Winder.

Minnesota also announced that they’ve agreed to terms on a deal with outfielder Jake Cave on a major league contract. He’ll make $800K, reports Darren Wolfson of SKOR North (Twitter link). Cave had been projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $1.1MM salary via arbitration. It’s not uncommon to see players on the non-tender bubble (as Cave appeared to be) agree to salaries for a bit lower than projected in advance of the non-tender deadline, however.

Amidst this large flurry of Twins transactions it’s the one jettisoning Astudillo that may grab the most attention. While the 30-year old didn’t quite get it done at the plate this past season, producing a .236/.259/.375 slash, his Twins tenure has often left fans looking past his offensive contributions. Dating back to his 2018 debut with the Twins, Astudillo has lined up at every position except for shortstop, providing adequate defense and pitching as admirably as one can expect in mop-up duty (including a 2.25 ERA in four 2021 innings). The multi-talented Astudillo is now all but certainly headed for free agency, though a reunion with the Twins later in the offseason isn’t yet out of the question.

Barnes, 26, is a soft-tossing lefty and former fourth-rounder who made his big league debut out of necessity to help soak up some innings in an injury-ruined season for the Twins’ rotation. He was clobbered for a 5.92 ERA while striking out just 20 of the 175 batters he faced. The Twins now have a week to trade Barnes or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.

Also gone from the roster are Smeltzer, a former Dodger prospect who came to the Twins in the Brian Dozier trade, and Garlick, an offseason waiver claim last winter who played a platoon role in Minnesota early this season. Smeltzer logged a 3.86 ERA through 49 innings during the 2019 season, his debut campaign, but has battled injuries and seen his performance dip in the two years since. He missed nearly the entire 2021 season due to elbow troubles.

Garlick, meanwhile, hit .232/.280/.465 with five homers and eight doubles in just 107 plate appearances. He hit 10 extra-base hits (four homers, six doubles) in just 63 plate appearances against lefties but spent the majority of the season on the injured list himself.

Most of the Twins’ additions are wholly unsurprising. Lewis was the No. 1 overall pick in 2017 and, despite missing the season due to an ACL tear, was never going to be exposed to the Ryle 5 Draft. Miranda was the Twins’ minor league player of the year and posted video-game numbers in the minors, hitting his way into Top 100 consideration. Winder has battled injuries but might be Minnesota’s top pitching prospect based on stuff alone. Enlow was an overslot third-rounder who has had his own injury troubles but is still held in high regard. Sands and Vallimont both rank among the Twins’ more promising arms themselves, even though Vallimont had a down year in 2021. The former Marlins righty, acquired in the trade that brought Sergio Romo to Minnesota and sent first baseman Lewin Diaz to Miami, is a potential fourth/fifth starter who’s reasonably close to MLB readiness.

Agency Changes: Mercer, Minter, Enlow

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Let’s check in on the latest agency movement from around the game …

  • As he hits the open market, veteran shortstop Jordy Mercer will be represented by the Boras Corporation, per Robert Murray of The Athletic (Twitter link). At 32 years of age, the long-time Pirates stalwart figures to find interest mostly as a reserve. Mercer has failed to turn in more than a 90 wRC+ in any of the past four seasons and grades out as an average (or below-average) defender up the middle, so he seems destined for utility status. Of course, that could still change if a second-division club likes him and has a clear need.
  • High-end young Braves reliever A.J. Minter will henceforth be represented by Excel Sports Manager, also via Murray (via Twitter). Though he only just turned in his first full MLB season, and won’t reach arbitration until 2021, Minter is already building a case for a big eventual run through the arb process. The hard-throwing southpaw picked up 15 saves and a dozen holds while pitching to a 3.23 ERA in 61 1/3 frames.
  • Twins prospect Blayne Enlow is now with the Wasseman Media Group, Dan Hayes of The Athletic tweets. The 19-year-old hasn’t yet moved past the Class A level, so he has a long ways to go until his new reps are negotiating MLB contracts. But the recent third-round pick is generally tabbed as one of the organization’s top ten prospects.
  • As ever, you can keep up with current representation using MLBTR’s Agency Database.

Draft Notes: Lewis, McKay, Day 2, Gore, Greene, Wright, Beck

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No. 1 overall draft pick Royce Lewis will take his physical with the Twins soon, tweets Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. There aren’t expected to be any hangups in negotiations, per Berardino, who notes that the industry expectation is for Lewis to receive a bonus north of Dansby Swanson’s $6.5MM bonus from the 2015 draft. The top pick in the draft came with a slot value of $7.7MM, and MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger wrote this week that Lewis could sign for around $1MM less than that sum. That’d put his bonus in the $6.5MM to $6.7MM range, saving the Twins anywhere from $1MM to $1.2MM from the slot value. FanRag’s Jon Heyman pegs the expected value at “just a tick over” $6.7MM. Rays top pick Brendan McKay, meanwhile, is expected to sign for somewhere between $7MM and $7.2MM, according to Berardino. That’d be the largest bonus ever given to a college player under the current draft structure, surpassing Kris Bryant’s $6.7MM sum.

More notes on the draft…

  • The Twins “crushed” Day 2 of the draft, MLB.com’s Jim Callis opines. Adding high school right-hander Blayne Enlow, a potential first-round talent that dropped due to a strong commitment to LSU, kicked off a day in which Minnesota selected five players that ranked inside MLB.com’s top 200 draft prospects. Enlow, Callis writes, has the best curveball in the draft as well as a fastball that has touched 94 mph and has room to grow as his projectable frame grows. Callis also lauds the White Sox, Dodgers, Red Sox and Brewers for the talent they secured in rounds three through 10. ESPN’s Keith Law agrees that the Twins did quite well to land Enlow with the No. 76 pick and also gives quite a bit of praise to the Athletics, who landed a first-round talent (in his estimation) with the 81st pick by taking shortstop Nick Allen. Law opines that the undersized Allen, who is listed at 5’8″, would’ve been a top 10 pick if he were three inches taller.
  • FanRag’s Jon Heyman provides some insight into the progress being made with the top five picks in the draft. The Padres, according to Heyman, are expected to sign No. 3 overall pick MacKenzie Gore, a high school left-hander, for the full slot value of $6,668,100. Reds top pick Hunter Greene, meanwhile, is expected to sign for a deal “close” to the $7,193,200 slot value of his No. 2 overall selection, per Heyman. (Also of note for Reds fans: Heyman spoke to a rival exec who heaped praise on the Reds’ draft, opining that they “won the draft by far.”) And the Braves look to be going well over slot to sign Vanderbilt right-hander Kyle Wright, as Heyman reports that they’re discussing a deal worth close to $7MM, while the No. 5 slot carries a value of $5,707,300. Of course, Wright was long rumored to be a potential No. 1 overall pick, so it stands to reason that he’d come with a fairly sizable price tag.
  • Baseball America’s John Manuel reported yesterday that Stanford right-hander Tristan Beck, a potential first-round talent that missed the 2017 season due to a stress fracture in his lower back, will not sign and plans to head back to Stanford (Twitter link). That didn’t stop the Yankees from drafting him late (29th round), though New York would obviously need to give him a massive bonus in order to convince him to forgo a return to college, as a healthy Beck would do quite well in next year’s draft. The Yankees may not have the leftover money even to make a legitimate effort to sign Beck, though he makes for a nice contingency plan if the team unexpectedly finds itself with some extra pool money to play with.

Twins Expected To Sign Third-Rounder Blayne Enlow To Over-Slot Deal

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The Twins are expected to sign third-round pick Blayne Enlow for a bonus of roughly $2MM, reports MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger. That sum is more than two and a half times the size of the No. 76 overall selection’s slot value of $755,400.

Minnesota surprised many by selecting prep shortstop Royce Lewis over a more polished college product such as Louisville left-hander /first baseman Brendan McKay or Vanderbilt right-hander Kyle Wright — long rumored as the two favorites to go first overall — but Bollinger notes that Lewis is expected to sign for around $1MM under the $7.7MM slot value at No. 1 overall. That gives the team some added flexibility, and it seems that Enlow will be one of the primary beneficiaries of that maneuvering.

A high-school righty-hander out of Louisiana, Enlow was rated as the No. 14 prospect in the draft by ESPN’s Keith Law but fell to No. 76, perhaps in part due to a reported strong commitment to Louisiana State University. Baseball America ranked Enlow as the No. 29 prospect in the draft, according to Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com. He ranked 33rd on the lists of both Baseball America and Fangraphs.

Law notes that Enlow was a popular name among teams looking to go overslot later in the draft, which the Twins clearly appear to be doing. He draws praise across the board for his 6’4″, 180-pound frame that leaves him with room to add some size and likely some velocity to a fastball that sits in the low 90s. MLB.com notes that Enlow may have the best curveball of any high school arm in the class, and Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen notes that Enlow has the highest-measured breaking ball spin rate in the class. BA’s report on him notes that Enlow “is the kind of pitcher who sometimes makes it to [college], and if he does, blossoms into a potential front-of-the-rotation ace.”

The Twins have a bonus pool of $14.1MM in this year’s draft — the largest of any team in the league. That should give Minnesota the opportunity to spend a bid creatively even further down the line, whether on some of the players selected earlier today in rounds three through ten or tomorrow in rounds 11 and beyond.

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