10:25pm: The Twins are selecting the contract of right-hander Alex Wimmers and recalling left-hander Randy Rosario to fill the two spots in the ’pen, as respectively first reported by Seth Stohs of TwinsDaily.com (Twitter link) and Mariana Guzman of 95.7 FM radio (Twitter link).
Wimmers wasn’t on the 40-man after being previously outrighted, but the former first-round pick will receive another chance to establish himself in the Majors. Minnesota plucked Wimmers out of Ohio State University with the 21st overall pick back in 2010, and though he was touted as a polished starter that could move quickly through the minors, injuries derailed his first several seasons as a pro. Now working out of the bullpen, Wimmers has a 3.94 ERA with a 13-to-7 K/BB ratio through 16 innings in Rochester.
The 23-year-old Rosario, who will be making his MLB debut, has torn through Double-A hitters this year, logging a 1.90 ERA with 7.6 K/9, 2.3 BB/9 and a 54.8 percent ground-ball rate. As noted by Stohs, he posted an 18-to-2 K/BB ratio with just four hits and one earned run allowed in 13 2/3 May innings. MLB.com rates him as Minnesota’s No. 27 prospect, praising his upper-90s fastball but calling his slider inconsistent.
4:33pm: The Twins have designated left-hander Jason Wheeler for assignment and optioned right-hander Ryan Pressly to Triple-A Rochester, the team announced to reporters following today’s loss (Twitter link via Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune). Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN had first tweeted that Pressly would be optioned. A pair of corresponding roster moves will be announced tomorrow.
Wheeler, 26, saw his contract selected just yesterday and made his MLB debut on Tuesday. However, the former eighth-round pick struggled through a pair of relief appearances over the past two days, yielding three runs on six hits and four walks in three innings of work. Generally speaking, the Twins’ abysmal bullpen performance in a three-game sweep at the hands of the Astros (28 runs allowed) necessitated a shuffling of the pitching staff, which undoubtedly contributed to Wheeler’s quick loss of his 40-man spot.
Pressly’s significant struggles this season have been one of the primary reasons that the Twins rank last in the Majors in bullpen ERA. The right-hander had pitched to a 3.36 ERA over his past 131 1/3 Major League innings prior to the 2017 campaign and has steadily seen his fastball velocity rise over the years. Pressly is averaging nearly 96 mph on his heater this season and entered the day with a considerably above-average 13.4 percent swinging-strike rate. However, despite his knack for missing bats, Pressly has been exceptionally home-run prone and has also had quite a bit of poor fortune on balls in play (.356 BABIP). He’s yielded five homers in just 18 innings this season after surrendering eight in 75 1/3 innings last year.
And maybe start throwing strikes…. just saying
If I’m not mistaken, Wheeler can elect free agency due to a previous DFA about 2 seasons ago.
As a Twins fan….one can only hope.
As an Astros fan, I almost feel bad. We destroyed you.
Thanks for the almost well-wishes
He’ll accept the AAA assignment. His performance the last two games hasn’t been anything that would get another team excited about him, so a major league spot is out of the question. With the weakness of the Twins rotation, injury concerns for Hughes, and the potential of Santana getting traded; the Twins probably give him as good or better of a chance to make it back up to the major league club as anyone.
I could see someone possibly claiming him
Pressly is an example of where BABIP can be a horribly misleading statistic. From that it appears he’s been unlucky (as indicated by the writer), however his BABIP is not high because of pure bad luck. I’ve seen every game he’s pitched and we’re not talking about a bunch of seeing eye singles that just happened to make their way through the infield. Pressly has good stuff and can miss bats, but this year when he hasn’t missed them the batters are making very solid contact. BABIP is going to be inflated when a higher than normal proportion of the balls put in play are line drives smoked into the gaps or when the ball is flying over the wall. In his case BABIP isn’t an indication of luck, its another indication of just how poorly he’s been pitching.
Home runs don’t count in babip, because they technically aren’t in play
Yeah I think most people that actively use Babip tend to know that you need to look at splits as far as line drives/fly ball, etc
I think you meant THE Ohio State University
The Twins has been a pleasant surprise this year.
If they can figure out and put together a decent bullpen, they have a definite chance at a Wild Card or even the Division
I watched a lot of them in Spring Training, they could score runs, but their pitching Oy Vey would give the lead right back and now it’s apparently catching up to them.
I hope they figure it out, I would not mind seeing them back in the playoffs!!!
i dont see much of a chance at all really unless they trade away all there prospects. they have 2 good starters then 3 guys who are starting becasue they have nobody else to call up from AAA who could start. mejia is young and has a future but he has shown he is not ready. gibson and hughes have looked like they are playing slow pitch softball and santiago well it is santiago. the bullpen cant get a strikeout to save there lifes. and the twins top 4 relief prospects who they thought would be able to come up this year all have been hurt Jay just made his first appearance, chargois is about a month away to being back at AAA, reed has been on the DL all season and now the burdi injury. so unless they aquire 2 starters and at least 2 right handed relievers it would be a very long 2/3 of a season. i am ok with that kintzler santana and dozier should help bring back some very nice young starting pitching talent the twins will need for 2018 and beyond
Looking back on it, maybe Dozier-for-De Leon would have been a good move
if that is all they were going to give up not even close to worth it he got off to another slow start but had been really good in may