The Minnesota Twins have to make decisions on a bunch of players to see if they want to add them to their 40-Man Roster.
The top players they’ll have to decide have usually reached at least the AA level because a team has to be willing to carry that player on their Major League roster for the entire season in order to keep them in their organization. If players have yet to reach AA, they probably aren’t going to be much help on the major league roster and, although there are some teams that might not worry about that, those are less likely to be selected off another team’s roster.
Do we have to adjust some players, speculating where they would’ve started & ended this season were it not for the COVID-19 pandemic?
First off, the Minnesota Twins currently have 9 spots available on their 40-Man Roster because there are 9 players who are set to become free agents (10 if you don’t think they’ll bring back RHP Sergio Romo, who has a $250K buyout of his $5M option for next season.)
So…we’ll just go with the top prospects for now and we’ll go by the order of their Top 30 Prospects:
Two of the Twins top prospects are were listed in their player pool and they’re pretty easy decisions since one of them is their top pitching prospect, RHP Jordan Balazovic.
The other is LHP Charlie Barnes, who had reached AAA at the end of the 2019 season but he got hit pretty hard in 4 starts. He was promoted to AA in late May after a slow start. His fastball is basically high-80s/low-90s but his changeup is a good pitch. He struck a batter per inning but he has a relatively high WHIP at 1.360 in AA so with that velocity, I’d probably say the leave him available but since he’s a lefty, I’m going to go 50/50 on if they add him or not. Barnes is not currently on their Top 30 Prospects list. Unprotected
#9 Prospect SS Wander Javier – Low A
—He was left unprotected in the 2019 Rule 5 Draft so it’s hard to believe they now feel they should protect him now after this season of no games but…he is a shortstop so…you never know. Unprotected
#13 OF Akil Baddoo – High A
—Akil has only played 29 games at the High-A level and his career minor league average is .249 but he’s been fun to follow as a speedy outfielder. Unprotected
#22 3B/INF Jose Miranda – AA (just 1 game, though)
—Kind of the same as Akil Baddoo above. He hasn’t really hit enough for me to believe the Twins would protect him. Unprotected
#25 Yunior Severino – Low A
—Acquired after the Braves were penalized in 2017 & had to forfeit international prospects but the 21-year-old has barely played at the low A level. Unprotected
#27 C Ben Rortvedt – AA
—Good, defensive catcher who has made it to AA and shown some plate discipline. He’s 23 but he’s a catcher who’s one of their top prospects. Protected
#30 OF Gabriel Maciel – High A
—Acquired with RHP Jhoan Duran & OF Ernie De La Trinidad in the Eduardo Escobar trade, Gabriel is a speedy outfielder & a switch-hitting contact hitter with good plate discipline who can steal some bases. You could argue that he would’ve made it to AA in a normal 2020 season. Protected
Tomorrow, we’ll look at some other players who’ve already been unprotected and not selected in the Rule 5 Draft that the Twins might think about protecting since we have only 3 so far. It might be very doubtful they protect any players who were not plucked last season especially when you consider how this season went for them but it’s fun to look at more prospects.
Thanks for reading out ‘Takes! We’d love to hear your ‘Takes. After all, that’s why it’s…
