The Twins designated catcher Steve Holm for assignment in order to add lefty Phil Dumatrait to the 40-man roster according to a team press release. Dumatrait was recalled along with Anthony Swarzak, while Jose Mijares hit the DL and Jim Hoey was optioned to Triple-A Rochester.
Holm, 31, had just two hits in 18 plate appearances with the Twins this season. He was recalled after Joe Mauer hit the disabled list, and produced a .231/.400/.269 batting line with Minnesota's Triple-A affiliate this year. MLBTR's Mark Polishuk took a look at Minnesota's bullpen woes last week.
Every time I see the name “Steve Holm,” all I can think of is Arrested Development and shouts of STEVE HOLT!
Think about Steve Holm a lot?
You weren’t the only one. STEVE HOLM! is gone.
A little off topic, but the Twins look terrible and have no one to blame but themselves. Trade Morales for nothing, trade Ramos for an expensive reliever, trade hardy for Hooey and Jacobsen, start casilla when he clearly can’t hit, and finally let Rauch go to the Jays for 3.5 mil. If the goal was to completely destroy depth, then they were really successful.
The weather is nicer in DC anyways.
Then who’s the Catchers on the Roster if Holm is sent down and Mauer still on DL?
Drew Butera and Rene Rivera.
Holm was already down. He was just taken off the 40 man roster because it was full. He didn’t provide anything anyway.
Why wasn’t Chuck James recalled? Do they actually think Anthony Swarzak will fare any better this time around?
Dumatrait is even worse. The AAA era looks great, but he’s walking as many batters as he is striking out. The Twins have almost nothing in the upper minors.
Just another bad decision in a long line of them..
As much as people give crap to the Twins for gambling on Casilla at short or Mauer playing full time at catcher, the real roll of the dice was in the bullpen. The kept Capps in case Nathan wasn’t ready, but after that the whole thing came down to hoping Perkins wouldn’t suck again, hoping the callow Mijares would be effective in a later role, hoping that Neshek would magically improve after his first year post-surgery was such a mess, and then the kids would have to step up. I understand not handing out a lot of three year deals to relievers, but they didn’t have the arms in-house to cover the inevitable cases where things didn’t go right.
To be fair, they did a decent job of covering most of these injuries. The real reason they’re sitting thirteen miles from relevance right now is that the guys who were on the field are sucking the chrome off of trailer hitches right now.
While Chuck James was more deserving of being called up, it seems like the Twins were looking for someone to only keep Mijares’ roster spot warm until he comes off the disabled list. If it was James, they’d risk losing him on waivers when it was time to send him down to the minors. As for Dumatrait, there’s a very small chance that any team would want to claim him, so while James was probably the better choice, this way the Twins are able to keep him.
However, I’d have to think that with how bad the bullpen has been this year, the Twins should really start looking for players to actually improve the team, instead of just finding placeholders. The Twins started the season with three lefties in the pen (Mijares, Perkins, and Dusty Hughes), why can’t they have James, Perkins, and Mijares there 2 weeks from now?
As for Swarzak, I’m not a fan of promoting him either, but his Triple-A numbers this year are decent, so recalling him is a little defensible.