Twins to Sign C Cameron Rupp to a Minors Deal

[Tom Froemming]

A good depth addition with Jason Castro out for the year. Darren Wolfson broke the news, here's a link to the MLB Trade Rumors post.

 

Rupp, 29, played 105 games for the Phillies in 2016 and is a career .234/.298/.407 hitter (.705 OPS).

[Brandon]

Solid move. Especially since it cost us nothing i wonder which catcher goes down when Rupp gets the call to go up.

[jorgenswest]

An interesting preseason take from The Good Phight blog.

 

https://www.thegoodphight.com/2018/1/24/16921130/phillies-cameron-rupp-catcher-break-out-season-2018

 

Hs bat certainly has more potential than Bobby Wilson’s particularly against lefties. He probably isn’t close to Wilson’s level defensively.

[Danchat]

This is looking like really good news to me. He really should be a backup catcher somewhere else right now, and he'd be a huge improvement over Wilson. His .736 OPS from 2016-17 is impressive for a backup. Not only that but he was hitting .886 OPS at Texas' AAA affiliate. That's pretty darn good.

 

Oh, and looking at catchers' defensive value from 2016-18, fangraphs ranks him 27th/86 catchers with a +12.2 Def (whatever that means) so he'd be a big improvement over Garver defensively.

 

This seems a bit too good to be true. Hopefully he'll be up in the majors soon.

[Thrylos]

Not a bad pick.  He will be with the Twins soon, otherwise he would had not opted out from playing AAA ball 20 miles from his Austin home to play AAA ball in Rochester, NY.  For. Sure.  

 

Bye bye Bobby

[Mill1634]

Love the move. Sad to see Bobby have to move on, but it totally makes sense production wise. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'd pump the brakes a bit on assuming Wilson is on his way out the door immediately.

 

The Twins' catching situation is dire. One more injury and they're royally screwed. I suspect they prefer Rupp over Wilson at the MLB level but probably want to figure out a way to keep both.... hell, they need to keep both. A team can't function with two catchers available. They need a third.

[Vanimal46]

I'd pump the brakes a bit on assuming Wilson is on his way out the door immediately.

 

The Twins' catching situation is dire. One more injury and they're royally screwed. I suspect they prefer Rupp over Wilson at the MLB level but probably want to figure out a way to keep both.... hell, they need to keep both. A team can't function with two catchers available. They need a third.

Molitor also shows a tendency to prefer defense first catchers. If Rupp isn't close to Wilson defensively I don't think it's that cut and dry he's taking his spot.

[Blake]

 

Molitor also shows a tendency to prefer defense first catchers. If Rupp isn't close to Wilson defensively I don't think it's that cut and dry he's taking his spot.

Well, after watching the misadventures of Twins catchers this year, I can see why a defensive backstop is valued over an offensive catcher.

[Vanimal46]

Well, after watching the misadventures of Twins catchers this year, I can see why a defensive backstop is valued over an offensive catcher.

Yep. Catchers are weird. You don't notice when you have a decently good one because things are going smoothly. You know when you have a bad one immediately.

[ewen21]

Where's Tom Prince hanging out these days?

[howeda7]

Call him up. 

[Doctor Wu]

 

Where's Tom Prince hanging out these days?

Good question. And i still like the idea of getting both Sal Butera and Nick Butera so share backstop duties for a while!

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Where's Tom Prince hanging out these days?

For those actually curious, Prince is the Pirates bench coach.

[yarnivek1972]

For those actually curious, Prince is the Pirates bench coach.

He’s going to make a great MLB manager someday soon.