I came across an interesting rule that I was not aware of. Players can only be outrighted to the minors once in there career without their consent.

Burroughs was outrighted last year by Arizona, and if he cleared waivers he could have forced the Twins to release him rather than accept a minor league assignment.

I can see the argument made that they didn't want to actually lose anyone, and IF Hughes cleared waivers, they could keep him and bring him up later if needed, whereas it's not unlikely that Burroughs would have refused the assignment and sought out another club.


As far as why they kept Plouffe over Hughes, my only guess is that they hope he'll eventually settle into a cuddyer-like role of adequate OF with a decent bat who can back up everyone.

I came across an interesting rule that I was not aware of. Players can only be outrighted to the minors once in there career without their consent.

Burroughs was outrighted last year by Arizona, and if he cleared waivers he could have forced the Twins to release him rather than accept a minor league assignment.

I can see the argument made that they didn't want to actually lose anyone, and IF Hughes cleared waivers, they could keep him and bring him up later if needed, whereas it's not unlikely that Burroughs would have refused the assignment and sought out another club.


As far as why they kept Plouffe over Hughes, my only guess is that they hope he'll eventually settle into a cuddyer-like role of adequate OF with a decent bat who can back up everyone.

They kept Plouffe over Hughes because Plouffe has a significant amount of more upside, and Plouffe has shown more offensive and defensive value in his short time in the majors then Hughes.

The Twins had hughes for 9 years in the system, and have seen over 2800 PA and 650 games from him. They basically realized he was never going to be an everyday player, and due to his lack of having any + skill, didn't make much sense as a bench guy either.