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Jermaine Palacios

Tigers Re-Sign Four Players To Minor League Deals

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The Tigers have re-signed four players, according to their transactions tracker at MLB.com (hat tip to Evan Woodbery of MLive.com and @ebajek85.) The four players are infielder Jermaine Palacios, infielder/outfielder Brendon Davis, catcher Michael Papierski and right-hander Miguel Diaz. They have all been assigned to Triple-A Toledo and will presumably get invitations to major league Spring Training.

All four of these players are being re-signed since they were with the Tigers in 2022, but none of them have lengthy histories with the club. Diaz signed a minor league deal coming into 2022, while the other three all joined the organization on waiver claims this year. All four lost their roster spots earlier this month but will stick with the club and try to earn their way back on.

Diaz, 28, got into 72 games with the Padres over the 2017-2021 stretch before getting into three games with the Tigers this year. In 65 Triple-A innings this year, he posted a 4.29 ERA but with a 24.2% strikeout rate, 10.5% walk rate and 52.3% ground ball rate. A low strand rate of 62.4% led to a higher ERA than he likely deserved with FIP giving him a 3.91.

Papierski, 27 in February, bounced around quite a bit this season. He started the year with the Astros, got traded to the Giants, before going to the Reds and Tigers on waiver claims. He got into 39 MLB games and hit .143/.228/.187 there but hit .232/.329/.363 in the minors.

Davis, 25, only got into three MLB games this year, spending most of the season in Triple-A. In 139 games at that level, he hit 20 home runs and slashed .235/.340/.423 for a wRC+ of 99.

Palacios, 26, made his MLB debut this year with the Twins but struggled in his 30 games in the show. In 102 Triple-A games, he hit 14 home runs and slashed .283/.341/.462 for a wRC+ of 112. Both Davis and Palacios played all four infield positions this year as well as the outfield corners, with Davis also getting a brief look in center. Since Diaz is a pitcher and Papierski is a catcher, these four moves collectively bolster the depth all over Detroit’s roster.

Tigers Claim Jermaine Palacios, Designate Drew Hutchison

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The Tigers have claimed utility man Jermaine Palacios off waivers from the Twins, according to MLB.com’s transaction tracker. In a corresponding move, Detroit is designating starting pitcher Drew Hutchison for assignment. Chris McCosky of the Detroit News has confirmed the moves.

Palacios made his debut in the majors this year, appearing in 30 games for the Twins and slashing .143/.184/.229 with two home runs. That underwhelming offensive return was offset somewhat by the defensive versatility the 26 year old offered, logging time at all four infield positions. Palacios did hit a much healthier .283/.341/.462 with 14 home runs across 428 plate appearances at Triple A St. Paul, so there is some hope for his bat to develop a bit in the majors.

Palacios was signed out of Venezuela in 2013, and spent five years in the Twins organization before being dealt to the Rays in the 2018 trade for Jake Odorizzi. He elected minor league free agency at the end of 2020, and he rejoined the Twins that offseason and checked in as their 18th best prospect this year, according to MLB.com. He’ll add some defensive versatility in the Tigers infield, while they’ll look to unlock a bit of the potential he’s shown in the minors with the bat.

For Hutchison, it’s the third time he’s been DFA’d by the Tigers this year. After initially signing with the Tigers on a minor league deal he made the team out of spring training but wound up being DFA’d and released in May and June before immediately re-signing with the team. Hutchison logged 105.1 innings for the Tigers in 2022, pitching to a 4.53 ERA across 18 starts and ten appearances out of the bullpen. The 32 year old struck out just 14.7% of batters faced, while walking 9.1% of the time. Those numbers are largely in line with Hutchison’s career numbers, having pitched to a lifetime 4.89 ERA across nearly 600 innings in the big leagues.

Hutchison is arbitration eligible for another season, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting him to receive a $1.8MM salary. That always made him a likely non-tender candidate, so it’s not surprising to see Detroit take him off the roster when a player of interest popped up on the waiver wire. Hutchison seems likely to clear waivers and elect free agency, where he’ll seek out another opportunity this winter.

Twins Place Jorge Polanco On IL, Select Jermaine Palacios

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The Twins announced that they have placed infielder Jorge Polanco on the 10-day injured list due to left knee inflammation, retroactive to August 31. To take his place on the active roster, they selected the contract of infielder Jermaine Palacios. To open a spot for Palacios on the 40-man roster, catcher Ryan Jeffers was transferred to the 60-day IL.

Polanco, 29, has been dealing with this knee issue for a while, having last played on August 27. IL placements can be retroactive but only to a maximum of three days. Minnesota’s primary shortstop for much of his career, Polanco has slid over to second base for the past couple of campaigns, yielding to Andrelton Simmons last year and Carlos Correa here in 2022. His bat has been just as productive as ever this year, as he’s hit 16 home runs and is slashing .235/.346/.405 on the season. That production is 20% better than league average, by measure of wRC+, just shy of his career best wRC+ of 124, outside of a five-game cameo in 2014.

With Polanco on the shelf, Nick Gordon has been manning the keystone this week. For the season, he’s hitting .279/.322/.440 for a wRC+ of 118. That should allow the club to avoid a significant downgrade on the infield, though it means Gordon is subtracted from an outfield mix that has lost Byron Buxton and Alex Kirilloff to the IL in the past month. The Twins are just a single game behind the Guardians in the Central division and four games back of the Blue Jays for the final Wild Card spot in the American League.

Palacios, 26, briefly made his MLB debut earlier this year when selected as a “substitute” while Correa was on the COVID IL. He got into eight games before being returned to the minors. He’s played 101 Triple-A games and hit .283/.341/.462 on the year for a wRC+ of 112. Defensively, he’s played primarily shortstop but also spent some time at each of the other infield positions as well as the outfield corners, giving the club some extra depth all around.

As for Jeffers, this move is largely a formality as he has been out of action since mid-July due to a thumb contusion. He will now be ineligible to return until 60 days from his initial IL placement, which would be mid-September. He recently resumed baseball activities but hasn’t yet started a rehab assignment and was targeting a late September return to action.

Twins Reinstate Carlos Correa, Select Jharel Cotton

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The Twins announced they’ve reinstated Carlos Correa from the injured list, a bit more than a week after the star shortstop tested positive for COVID-19. Jermaine Palacios, who was selected to the majors as a designated “substitute” once Correa went on the IL, has been returned to Triple-A St. Paul in a corresponding move. Minnesota also selected reliever Jharel Cotton back to the big league club, filling the spot vacated when they designated Juan Minaya for assignment last night.

Correa is back in the lineup tonight against the Yankees, although manager Rocco Baldelli will ease him in with a start at designated hitter. Minnesota’s marquee offseason pickup has overcome a slow start to carry a quality .279/.344/.407 season line into play tonight. He’s only hit three home runs, but the 27-year-old has collected nine doubles and a batting average and on-base percentage well better than the respective .240 and .311 league marks.

The virus absence was the second of the season for Correa, who also landed on the shelf with a bruised finger. That proved a brief stay, one that was welcome after initial x-rays suggested he’d potentially suffered a fracture. Correa has only appeared in 35 of the Twins’ 57 games as a result, but the club has nevertheless built a four-game lead in the American League Central. They’ll hope the two-time All-Star — who can opt out of the final two years and $70.2MM on his deal next offseason — remains in the lineup for good through the summer months.

Palacios picked up eight starts at shortstop in Correa’s absence, struggling in his first look at big league pitching. He heads back to St. Paul, where he’s posted a .262/.325/.376 line through 163 trips to the plate. Palacios will no longer occupy a spot on the 40-man roster, and the Twins weren’t required to run him through waivers because he’d been specifically brought to the big leagues as a virus substitute. He’ll look to earn a more lasting promotion with the Saints.

Cotton followed that path, getting called up just two days after being returned to the minors. The right-hander was selected as a substitute for the players who went on the restricted list for the team’s weekend series in Toronto, but he was taken back off the roster when that group was reinstated on Monday.

This time around, Cotton is earning a more typical promotion to the majors. He’s now longer a substitute, so Minnesota would have to designate him for assignment and try to run him through waivers were they to again look to remove him from the 40-man roster. They’ve already done so once this year, as Cotton was outrighted off the roster last month but accepted an assignment to Triple-A and has worked his way back.

The 30-year-old has appeared in six games for the MLB club this year, tossing 9 2/3 innings of two-run ball with ten strikeouts but six walks. Cotton has had a strong showing in ten outings with St. Paul, allowing four runs in 11 2/3 frames while punching out a third of the batters he’s faced. He rejoins the big league bullpen as a result, taking the place of the struggling Minaya. Cotton is out of minor league option years, so he has to stick on the MLB roster or again be exposed to waivers now that he’s reclaimed a 40-man spot.

Twins Place Carlos Correa On Covid IL

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May 31: The Twins announced that Correa has been placed on the Covid-related injured list. Shortstop Jermaine Palacios has been selected to the roster as a substitute player in his stead and will make his Major League debut in Game 1 of today’s doubleheader in Detroit. Minnesota also tabbed righty Cole Sands as the 27th man for that twin bill, and he’ll make the first start of his big league career in Game 2 today.

Palacios, 25, was signed by Minnesota out of his native Venezuela as an amateur free agent back in 2013. The Twins eventually flipped him to the Rays in the 2018 Jake Odorizzi trade with Tampa Bay, but Palacios struggled throughout the bulk of his two-plus years in the Rays organization. Upon being released in the 2020-21 offseason, Palacios returned to the Twins on a minor league deal and placed himself back on the prospect map with a solid 2021 showing. MLB.com currently ranks him 29th among Twins farmhands, while Baseball America tabs him as the best defensive infielder in Minnesota’s system. Palacios hit .259/.340/.439 in Triple-A last year and is off to a .262/.325/.379 start in 2022.

Sands, 24, was the Twins’ fifth-rounder in 2018 and made his MLB debut with a pair of relief outings earlier this season. The Florida State product has had a rough showing in Triple-A so far, albeit in just five starts. He’s widely considered to be among the Twins’ 15 best prospects, thanks largely to a 2.46 ERA and 28.7% strikeout rate in 80 1/3 innings of Double-A ball last year. Sands hasn’t pitched more than five innings in an appearance since April 13, so he may be in for a relatively short outing today. He did toss three scoreless frames in his last Triple-A appearance a week ago.

May 30: Carlos Correa didn’t play in the Twins’ 7-5 loss to the Tigers today, and after the game, Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli told reporters that it was learned mid-game that the shortstop had tested positive for COVID-19.  Correa will be placed on the COVID-related injury list at some point prior to the Twins’ doubleheader tomorrow in Detroit.

There have already been quite a few ups and downs over Correa’s first two months with the Twins, as he also spent 10 days on the regular IL due to a contusion on his right middle finger.  Correa also got off to a pretty slow at the plate, but is now hitting a lot more like his usual self, with an overall slash line of .279/.344/.407 with three homers in 154 plate appearances.  This works out to a 122 wRC+/123 OPS+, only a little below Correa’s career average.

However, Correa is now sidelined for a minimum of 10 days following a positive COVID-19 test.  As per league rules, Correa can make an earlier return if he goes 24 hours without a fever, tests negative twice, and gets approval from three physicians (the Twins team doctor, a league-appointed doctor, and an MLBPA-appointed doctor).

Correa joins Joe Ryan and Gilberto Celestino on Minnesota’s COVID list, one sub-section of an overall injured list that is worryingly long for the Twins.  Once Correa is officially added, he’ll be the 13th player on the Minnesota IL, and the club will also be short a few more non-vaccinated players for a series in Toronto on June 3-5.

Former first overall pick Royce Lewis had filled in at shortstop during Correa’s previous IL stint, but Lewis himself was just placed on the injured list today after suffering a bone bruise on his right knee after a collision with the center field wall in yesterday’s game.  This leaves utilityman Nick Gordon or regular second baseman Jorge Polanco as the likeliest candidates to cover shortstop in Correa’s absence, and third baseman Gio Urshela also has experience as a shortstop.

Twins Acquire Jake Odorizzi

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The Twins have acquired right-hander Jake Odorizzi from the Rays, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports (Twitter link).  Shortstop prospect Jermaine Palacios is going back to the Rays in return, FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman reports.  Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan reported earlier tonight that the two clubs had agreed to some sort of a trade.  In a corresponding move, Michael Pineda has been placed on the 60-day DL to create space for Odorizzi on the Twins’ roster.

"<strongOdorizzi has been widely mentioned in trade rumors this winter, with such teams as the Orioles, Brewers, Yankees, Angels, Phillies, and Nationals also noted as having some interest in his services.  It’s probably fair to assume that just about every team in baseball with a need for starting pitching checked in on Odorizzi given his solid track record and his two remaining years of control.  Odorizzi recently defeated the Rays in an arbitration hearing and will earn $6.3MM in 2018, making him a particularly affordable asset for a smaller-market team like Minnesota.  The Rays and Twins had been talking pitching deals for much of the winter, with Minnesota focusing on both Odorizzi and Chris Archer, who carried a significantly higher asking price due to his team-friendly contract and four years of control.

[Updated Twins and Rays depth charts on Roster Resource]

Minnesota has been connected to virtually every available pitcher in the sport on both the trade and free agent fronts this winter, and in Odorizzi, the Twins have landed an arm that could be on the mound for them come Opening Day.  Rotation help was a key need for a Twins team that had a lot of youth and question marks beyond Ervin Santana, and even his frontline status took a hit with the news that Santana will miss some time at the start of the season due to finger surgery.  Odorizzi and Jose Berrios will now sit atop the Twins’ rotation until Santana returns, with Adalberto Mejia and Kyle Gibson lined up for jobs, Tyler Duffey and Anibal Sanchez battling for a fifth starter’s role and Phil Hughes also expected to return at some point during the season after recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome surgery.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty within that pitching mix, and it isn’t out the question that the Twins make another pitching acquisition (a signing or another notable trade) to further supplement the rotation.  Conversely, the club could just make another depth signing or two, such as another veteran like Sanchez on a minor league contract.

More pitching reinforcements could be an option for Minnesota because it can’t be ignored that Odorizzi’s performance took a big step backwards in 2017.  He was limited to 143 1/3 IP due to two separate DL stints for hamstring and back problems, and he posted a 4.14 ERA, 2.08 K/BB rate, and 7.97 K/9.  While these numbers seem solid, ERA predictors (5.43 FIP, 5.10 xFIP, 4.90 SIERA) had a much more pessimistic view of Odorizzi’s performance, as a .227 BABIP likely helped keep his actual ERA in check.  While he delivered a career-best 11.2% swinging-strike rate, Odorizzi also delivered the worst hard-hit ball (36.8%), home run rate (15.5%) and BB/9 (3.83) numbers of his four full MLB seasons.  Baseball Reference actually judged Odorizzi as below-replacement level (-0.1 bWAR) last season, while Fangraphs rated him barely higher with 0.1 fWAR.

Since Odorizzi has been the subject of trade speculation for well over a year now, Tampa Bay could well face criticism that they waited too long to move the righty, especially given the fact that Palacios is a fairly lightly-regarded prospect within Minnesota’s farm system.  ESPN’s Keith Law ranked the infielder 24th on his list of Twins prospects, with MLB.com rating Palacios 27th amongst Minnesota farmhands.  The 21-year-old Venezuela native was signed in 2013 and he has a .290/.345/.426 slash line over 1303 pro plate appearances, 263 of those PA coming at high-A ball last season.  MLB.com’s scouting report described him as “an offensive-minded middle infielder whose bat is a little bit ahead of his glove….He has some potential at the plate to hit for average and good extra-base pop.”  Palacios’s defense got solid reviews, though the assumption was that he would eventually have to change positions due to the number of other good shortstops ahead of him in the Twins’ system; the same could be true for him in Tampa given Willy Adames’ rep as the Rays’ shortstop of the future.

Between the Odorizzi deal and designating Corey Dickerson for assignment earlier tonight, the Rays have now moved roughly $11.2MM off their books, and that number could jump to $12.25MM if another team claims Dickerson or makes a trade for his services.  With their projected payroll still in franchise-high territory even after those moves and the Evan Longoria trade, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the likes of Denard Span, Alex Colome, Brad Miller, Adeiny Hechavarria, and the newly-acquired C.J. Cron all shopped before Opening Day.

Even without Odorizzi, however, the Rays still boast a pretty strong pitching staff — Archer, Blake Snell, Jake Faria, Matt Andriese, and Nathan Eovaldi are the projected starting five, with top prospect Brent Honeywell waiting for a call-up at Triple-A.  Some more work is likely necessary for the lineup and bullpen, however, and it will be challenging to both save dollars and add enough talent to remain competitive in a tough AL East.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

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