The Twins have claimed infielder Ehire Adrianza off waivers from the Brewers, as per a team press release. To make room on the 40-man roster, Minnesota designated right-hander Pat Light for assignment.
Adrianza has now been designated for assignment and claimed on waivers twice this week, as Milwaukee claimed him from the Giants on January 31. The Giants DFA’ed the 27-year-old to make room for Nick Hundley, while the Brewers quickly designated Adrianza themselves after claiming Jesus Aguilar off waivers from Cleveland (though Brewers GM David Stearns said that his team was hopeful of keeping Adrianza if he cleared waivers).
Adrianza has a .220/.292/.313 slash line over 331 career plate appearances in the big leagues, all with San Francisco from 2013-16. While the switch-hitter has never delivered much at the plate even at the minor league level, Adrianza has displayed defensive versatility as a shortstop and second baseman, plus a handful of games at third. He’ll join a fellow switch-hitter in Eduardo Escobar as the Twins’ primary reserve infielders, and while both could end up competing for a lone job, the Twins could have particular need for infield bench depth. Miguel Sano’s ability to handle third base is still up in the air and Jorge Polanco is still largely unproven as a major leaguer. Polanco will obviously get a lot of time to prove himself, though Sano could ultimately be moved to DH if he can’t manage to be at least passable at the hot corner.
Light, 25, made his MLB debut in 2016 and had a rough introduction to the Show. The righty posted an 11.34 ERA over 16 2/3 innings with the Twins and Red Sox, allowing four homers in his brief amount of mound time and issuing as many walks (16) as strikeouts. The hard-throwing Light came to Minnesota from Boston at the trade deadline in exchange for Fernando Abad. The 37th overall pick of the 2012 draft, Light posted a 4.35 ERA, 7.4 K/9 and 2.16 K/BB rate over 297 2/3 IP in the minors, though his results improved after being moved to full-time bullpen work in 2015.
Red Sox need to scoop up Light they messed up when they traded him for Abad but now is their chance to get him back and DFA Elias
Yes!! Exactly.
Exactly.
From my standpoint it looked like Light had a serious case of the yips in the Majors.
Light had pretty much no control in the minors either. he may be able to throw 100mph, but a pitcher needs to be able to get the ball close to the platen to be of any use. Boston cut loose 2015 draft pick Kevin kelleher after 1 season who had NO control and could reach 100. They let Sim on Mercedes leave as a MiLB FA because he’s got no control and can hit 100.. Light is the same way.
This talk reminds me of one Daniel Bard, who did pretty well before he became a starter.
Hey Robert Newton/Long John Silver,
Don’t give up on him.
Sometimes it takes a while for the Light to come on….
I understand the worries about Light’s control, but I’m still surprised to see him DFA’d like this. I’m willing to bet that it isn’t long before someone decides to claim him to try to take advantage of his stuff.
Danny Santana will never be DFA’d apparently.
It is his versatility that is keeping him around
Versatility is an interesting word considering he’s bad at every position he plays. Might as well say Sano is versatile since he’s played SS in the minors and RF in the majors.
He may not be a standout player at any one position, but he is passable at 2B, SS, and CF. That versatility teamed with his speed make him a VERY useful bench player.
Have you and I been watching the same player? You are the very first person who has ever said “passable” for him and I read three different Twins related areas, the Twins site and the reporters that follow the team.
No one has ever said passable or good when talking about anything regarding Santana, until you just did (I know you didn’t say good, but passable is closer to good than it is bad so that’s why I said that).
not really if you’re below average everywhere and can’t hit your not valuable it’s not like we have a one-man bench
He’s overrated. Had one good year but that’s it. Blame it on injuries or what have you but he just hasn’t lived up to his potential.
If grossman wasn’t such a terrible defender they’d be more inclined to dfa D-san but he’s really the only decent fielding 4th of option
I’d rather play Grossman. At least he brings a bat. Santana can’t defend or hit. Isn’t that what baseball is? I would assume he can’t pitch either but we haven’t seen that yet.
Rosario and Kepler can play CF in a pinch. Buxton gets hurt, Granite is a phone call away after a game ends. I don’t know about Granite’s defense but I’d take a chance on him before I’d ever play Santana again.
Being freed of the Twins is a blessing.
They will be good again soon
Need to deal dozier to get better than an okay farm system before that happens
Three picks in the top 40 of the MLB draft will help too. Every team gets a bump from the draft. Think they were said to be middle of the pack right now, which isn’t horrible since they’ve just graduated 4-5 top 100 prospects in the last 1-2 years. Could have been a way worse drop.
they just need those guys they graduated to stop being rather meh
so the giants got nunez, initially to fill the role of adrianza as a semi permanent utility guy (before moving injured duffy to the rays) from the twins, in part moving duffy so they didn’t have to DFA adrianza and in the end adrianza through 2 claims ends up moving to minnesota…..
No, they had to move Duffy in order to get Matt Moore. If they could have kept Duffy and DFAed Adrianza to get Moore, they would have.
Is this guy worth a spot on their 40 man? Isn’t this essentially Eduardo Escobar? Being serious. I don’t know much about Adrianza.
Similar to what I was thinking. This guy is 2B, 3B, SS based on defense. Escro is SS or 3B. If you were going to go with one over the other at one spot specifically, it seems this guy is better at defense at SS.
Having a good defender at SS is important with Sano at 3B. I think Escobar is only average there. Not sure if numbers back that up, might not even be enough data to say one way or another, but that’s what my eyes say about him.
bad bat good glove SS
he is a guy who is decent all around the IF but the giants have been waiting to break out offensively, which he seemed to do every time he was brought up for like 2-3 weeks and then fizzled out.
Short answer, probably not. Giants fans threw a party once he was finally cut loose.
Not all Gfans; only those who don’t value defense.
Look for the twins to still add another free agent and then adrianza is the guy DFA’d to make room on the roster