Minnesota Twins Opening Day Roster

[h2oface]

I wish I could have as much confidence in the starting pitchers and swingmen as most here. I, for one, expect starting pitching, other than Berrios, to be a wildcard, and hope for the best, but am not having a great feeling about it, especially Bailey. And Smeltzer, Dobnak, and Stashak? Can you say Scott Diamond? And Hill suffers from repeated blisters on his throwing fingers that take him out for 30 days at a time. And counting on Pineda to step in late in the short season and be effective? We will see......

 

Back strains are a mystery. But it seems many pitchers suffer from them. Even Kershaw was pulled today. Again, with back strain. It would seem, in this day of advanced tools, that exercises would be developed to almost eliminate them, and pitchers would be doing them daily year round to prevent a large share of these cases.

[twinstalker]

 

Whitefield will have to be added to the 40 man roster, but I believe they have a couple of open spots due to Pineda and Romero being on the restricted list.

The problem with Whitefield isn't putting him on the 40, it's taking him off the 40. Bring back Pineda or possibly Romero, and you have to expose Whitefield to waivers. Now it may be that he has to be put on the 40 in November anyway, and they just won't be able to do that, but teams make claims often just to expose a guy right away, and therefore they become the default team when everybody passes.

 

Basically, what I'm saying is that if the Twins were interested in keeping Whitefield, he wouldn't be on the 40. My guess is they think there's a decent chance other crap happens (like someone going on the 45 day), and he can stick through the regular season, or if nothing happens they dfa him when Pineda comes back.

 

As for Celestino, they definitely don't want to have him on the roster. A full year's service time if he stuck for the 60 games. They don't really want to start his clock until a while into 2022.

[jmlease1]

Tough beat for Blankenhorn who was probably right on the bubble. But Whitefield makes sense as insurance against Buxton not being ready or wanting to make sure they can find some rest for him, etc. I don't think they're going to be worried about service time issues with Whitefield or burning an option year like they might be with Celestino.

 

Overall the roster makes sense. I was rooting for Blankenhorn, especially with Astudillo down with the COVID test, but that's the way it goes. I still think he may have a future as a super-utility guy: positional flexibility will be his ticket to MLB and it was great to hear that he was taking reps at a lot of different positions in "2nd camp".

[Danchat]

 

The problem with Whitefield isn't putting him on the 40, it's taking him off the 40. Bring back Pineda or possibly Romero, and you have to expose Whitefield to waivers. Now it may be that he has to be put on the 40 in November anyway, and they just won't be able to do that, but teams make claims often just to expose a guy right away, and therefore they become the default team when everybody passes.

 

Basically, what I'm saying is that if the Twins were interested in keeping Whitefield, he wouldn't be on the 40. My guess is they think there's a decent chance other crap happens (like someone going on the 45 day), and he can stick through the regular season, or if nothing happens they dfa him when Pineda comes back.

 

As for Celestino, they definitely don't want to have him on the roster. A full year's service time if he stuck for the 60 games. They don't really want to start his clock until a while into 2022.

I see, so it seems they're playing a service time game with Celestino. Whitefield is a non-prospect and unlikely to be anything more than a pinch runner/fielder, so it makes sense to add him and is an easy DFA option.

[Jimv]

 

 

He (And all the players) get tested every other day, I believe. He just needs to have two straight negative tests to be cleared. That could have happened already, but nothing has been announced. They've said throughout that he's been asymptomatic. 

 

I hope that's right.  I know they said at the beginning he was asymptomatic, but hadn't heard anything since.  And typically, if you're positive at day one but asymptomatic, by day 10 or so you're negative or symptomatic.  So I hope he's negative but nothing has been announced.