BREAKING: Twins Designate Simeon Woods Richardson for Assignment

[Danchat]

I didn't see this coming now... I felt like there was some life when he was throwing in the 1-2 inning range. I'd be hesitant to give up on a guy who was a fairly decent starter last year. He will be claimed.

And they're doing this not to give up on him, but just for the spot in the bullpen? This team isn't in the midst of a playoff run and badly needs bullpen depth... strange move.

But it's not a corollary to Liam Hendriks, he was very bad in the majors and then after a good 3-4 years he re-emerged as a legit reliever. SWR was effective as recently as last season. Too bad they used one of his option years at the end of last year IIRC... whoops!

[Wedman13]

1 hour ago, just-a-fan said:

The talent is there when it comes to SWR as a big league pitcher.  I doubt we will ever know the real reason for the DFA but given the sudden decision I lean toward a mutual parting of the ways.  Twins will be fine.  TBD for SWR.

 

1 hour ago, just-a-fan said:

The talent is there when it comes to SWR as a big league pitcher.  I doubt we will ever know the real reason for the DFA but given the sudden decision I lean toward a mutual parting of the ways.  Twins will be fine.  TBD for SWR.

What is one pitch he has that is even average, let alone above average?  This is a huge nothingburger

[chinmusic]

4 hours ago, ashbury said:

Uffda.  Even if he passes through waivers and maybe makes a rebound with the Twins, this seriously degrades the rearview mirror grade on the Berrios trade.

Well, yeah; but Berrios hasn't exactly been a world beater with the Jays since the trade. Maybe slightly better than OK, and now he's seriously breaking down. (His best WAR years were with the Twins, I just checked) If Martin proves to be legit long term, then the trade was acceptable, imo

[LA Vikes Fan]

2 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Other than Morris, would you really miss any of these guys in a year or two? If so, how is the bullpen this awful?

Good question, not sure on any of these guys. Bullpen has actually been pretty good in May. The hitting and rotation, not so much. 

[Riverbrian]

48 minutes ago, chinmusic said:

Well, yeah; but Berrios hasn't exactly been a world beater with the Jays since the trade. Maybe slightly better than OK, and now he's seriously breaking down. (His best WAR years were with the Twins, I just checked) If Martin proves to be legit long term, then the trade was acceptable, imo

Agreed... If you look at the production that the Blue Jays got from Berrios and the contract they gave Berrios... it can almost be... 6 or half dozen. 

I don't think you win trades when they are made. You win the trades by developing what you acquire or you win trades by getting that player that puts you over the top. So... if Berrios didn't impress on the Blue Jays side of things. The bar is low for the Martin and SWR combo on the Twins side of things. 

Not sailing over the low bar... would be a concern. 

 

[KirbyDome89]

4 hours ago, LA Vikes Fan said:

While I would normally agree with you, who is that? Adams has already been optioned and the rest of the guys like Morris, Orze, and Gomez are part of the future bullpen hopefully. You could DFA Taylor Rogers I guess but I don’t see a lot of other candidates. Funderburk just came up and Banda has actually been good lately. I don’t think losing SWR is going to turn out to be a big loss. In fact, I would not be surprised if he is not claimed on waivers since he has no options left. I could also see him being claimed by a team desperate for starting pitching, pitching lousy there, and getting waived again. Hopefully he won’t get claimed and we wind up trying to work out his issues in Saint Paul.

TB literally just gave those guys away but they're part of the future for MN? Yeesh....

[Sjoski]

So......the Twins starting pitching is thin, the bullpen is weak, yet, some other team will certainly make room for SWR?

 

[KirbyDome89]

5 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

Berrios bWAR in the 1.5 seasons of control the Blue Jays received: 0.8. 

SWR bWAR, even with the debacle of this year: 2.5; Martin bWAR so far: 0.7 and counting. 

Yeah, if we want to pretend like Berrios ceased to exist post 2022 because an extension conveniently nullifies post production then sure, things look a lot better for the Twins.

Berrios put up 2.5 WAR in 2023 and hit that number again in 2024. He threw nearly 200 innings each season as well. He threw basically 2/3 of SWR's entire career IPs with MN in one season. Berrios was/is in a different class. 

Austin Martin has .7 career WAR in nearly 200 games played. I mean....

[karcherd]

4 hours ago, IndyTwinsFan said:

With 2 open spots on the 40 man, that would cover a Jenkins call up, if they want to go that route.  Not needed for Roden, as he's already on the 40 man.

That would leave at least one 40 man spot available, without taking into account other potential roster moves that may be coming.  Who else might it be for?

Other roster fallout would likely also occur as well.  Outman and Bell are two names that fans have been tossing around.  Then, how would all those spots be filled?

Lots of potential questions with no clear answers, as it now looks to me.

Fedko and Sabato, two simple answers

 

[Vanimal46]

24 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Yeah, if we want to pretend like Berrios ceased to exist post 2022 because an extension conveniently nullifies post production then sure, things look a lot better for the Twins.

Berrios put up 2.5 WAR in 2023 and hit that number again in 2024. He threw nearly 200 innings each season as well. He threw basically 2/3 of SWR's entire career IPs with MN in one season. Berrios was/is in a different class. 

Austin Martin has .7 career WAR in nearly 200 games played. I mean....

I do recall the narrative at the time here was Berrios being bound and determined to test FA. Then he signed that extension in a matter of weeks after he was traded to Toronto…

[Dman]

Not buying Shelton's response.  Twins must feel the younger arms are going to eclipse SWR and they are making this move early rather than later which very unTwins like.  Still did they try and work the phones and come up with a trade?  Seems like Colorado or the Angels would be willing to give something for a 25 year old starter who was pretty solid just last year.  Do they really think he is going to clear waivers just because of his ERA?  There were ways to make room if needed IMO.

I just don't think they feel Sim's upside is better than other options they have coming up. Seems like they have lost confidence and are in win now mode and don't want to carry him while he figures things out.

 

[TopGunn#22]

This HAD to happen.  SWR has been horrible.  You just can't keep giving guys chance after chance and get the same way below average result.  I can't believe Chris Paddack is still pitching.  Why is Outman still on the MLB roster much less the 40-man? 

There is no upside to SWR if he is exclusively a SP.  The fact that our BP is in the sorry state it is and the Twins don't even consider him an option is telling.

As to the 2 "open spots" on the 40-man roster.  The Twins don't seem to be in a hurry to fill them.  Maybe some future trades may require a couple additional spots on the 40 man.   

[karcherd]

41 minutes ago, TopGunn#22 said:

As to the 2 "open spots" on the 40-man roster.  The Twins don't seem to be in a hurry to fill them.  Maybe some future trades may require a couple additional spots on the 40 man.

There has to be a couple of late 20's, early 30's utility guys about to be DFA'd that we can trade for to fill those spots.  We do value versatility.

[Danchat]

6 hours ago, Danchat said:

I didn't see this coming now... I felt like there was some life when he was throwing in the 1-2 inning range. I'd be hesitant to give up on a guy who was a fairly decent starter last year. He will be claimed.

And they're doing this not to give up on him, but just for the spot in the bullpen? This team isn't in the midst of a playoff run and badly needs bullpen depth... strange move.

But it's not a corollary to Liam Hendriks, he was very bad in the majors and then after a good 3-4 years he re-emerged as a legit reliever. SWR was effective as recently as last season. Too bad they used one of his option years at the end of last year IIRC... whoops!

Correction, I was thinking of when SWR was optioned at the end of 2024, and he was already optioned back in April so optioning him in September didn't change anything. I must have forgotten in 2025 SWR was demoted to AAA for a month... at that point he only had an ERA at 5.02 after a bad start. Looks like Zebby Matthews replaced him in the rotation, but he was worse and SWR came back in June to supplant him. Using his final option year there seems to be a mistake in hindsight.

[JADBP]

10 hours ago, Nshore said:

SWR hasn't been injured, so he's like a foreign substance that had to be expelled!

Maybe they're clearing space for a big trade soon to come.  Who knows.

Oh Boy,  DREAM ON.

I have no prob losing SWR. Too bad but that was a bad trade and it’s now in the rear view mirror.  I am happy to see the Twins holding players accountable.  Sure, more to come.  

What this really shows is how thin the Twins team really is! We only have 3-4 dependable pitchers on the team-and some are injured.  We have 3-4 excellent fielders.  The rest, not so much.

I do hope they now call up the young new outfielders.  The Outman experiment is over.  Let’s see if some of this upcoming talent can fill some holes.  We need to know so we can fill them next season (if there is a next season). 

[LyleCole]

This is something that has to happen.  One thing I have pointed out many times with rebuilding teams is that not every prospect you bring up is going to be successful.   You have to give them their time, and if they fail move on.  Going back to the World Series team development, the initial SS for that group was Lenny Faedo not Greg Gagne.   The original CF was Jim Eisenreich, not Kirby Puckett

You have to weed out the failures (I will categorize that Jimmy Eisenreich was not a failure on the field) quickly.   And to make the rebuild work you need to "glut" your prospects together (Hrbek, Laudner, Gaetti, Brunsansky, Puckett, Bush, Viola) weed out the ones that do not, find better prospects that work, and then fill in the holes with guys like Jeff Reardon and Dan Gladden.  

The problem with the Twins is that they are refuse to "rush" their prospects and prefer to play replacement level players in the lineup who will never be part of a core group of a rebuild.

Specifically with Woods-Richardson the reason why he was DFA was he no longer had upside.   I get he wasn't given much of a chance working from the bullpen, but as a failed starter the writing was on the wall.  As a reliever he simply did not have enough upside to stick with the team.  

Of course, that only makes sense if the Twins utilize his spot on the MLB roster with a pitcher they are trying to develop in that rebuild, rather than bringing in another 31 year old waiver wire pickup special, their preferred type of guy.

I wanted to make a note about Josh Bell.  While I think signing over the hill players (but cheap) players is a stupid strategy for this team, I am very surprised how bad he is hitting.  Josh Bell was a 110 OPS+ player last season. 100 OPS+ the year before.  He has had only one season with a OPS+ under 100, that was 2020, an injury year after his All Star year in 2019.  He is a career 112 OPS+ hitter.    He is hitting 40 points below his career batting average, 63 points below his career OBP, and 106 points below his career slugging average.  

The reason why they will keep Bell is they are paying him what is for the Twins a huge contract of $7 million.  There isn't any reason to dump him now and they can hope that he starts to hit better so they can dump him at the trade deadline for a team looking for a veteran switch hitting bat.  

 

[twinstalker]

I would expect to see a trade here with this.  It. Will. Not. Be. Much.

[Bangkok Twins Fan]

18 hours ago, strumdatjag said:

I thought he had a chance in the bullpen.   But his stats were awful this year and the Twins see him on off-days.  I trust the team on this one and won’t be fretting over SWR.  Another player gets a chance to prove himself.  

Yeah, as shocking as this move was, I would still put some trust in the front office and the manager and coaches, who are better equipped to make these decisions. I also thought he would be given a chance in the bullpen for a while, All in all, a very puzzling move, but as you noted, another player, such as Klein, will have the chance to show he belongs. Keep bringing up more prospects. 

[karcherd]

7 hours ago, LyleCole said:

The reason why they will keep Bell is they are paying him what is for the Twins a huge contract of $7 million.  There isn't any reason to dump him now and they can hope that he starts to hit better so they can dump him at the trade deadline for a team looking for a veteran switch hitting bat.  

The problem is there will be no market for Bell at the trade deadline just like last year.  The Nationals could not find any takers for him at last year's deadline and as you noted his performance has declined even more this year.  So if they aren't willing to eat those dollars we will be stuck with him for the whole season.  And he is absolutely unplayable at 1B and doesn't hit well enough to be a full time DH.

[TopGunn#22]

I would just add that the reason I don't think the Twins had much interest in SWR in the BP is that he doesn't have anything dominating in his pitch arsenal.  Most BP pitchers throw mid to upper 90's or have a tremendous spin rate on a breaking pitch.  Everything in SWR's arsenal was pretty mediocre.  

[JD-TWINS]

20 hours ago, Seth Stohs said:

Not much surprises me anymore, but this one was shocking. That's very surprising. 

Makes little sense, unless he requested it. I expect there'll be more tiers to this story. 

They were stressed to make a move, no innings available from the group in PEN with 9 more straight days of baseball to be played - DFA for SWR is obviously not something that makes clear sense…………gotta think there was something off the field that started them in this direction…….,: maybe he snapped? said something negative he couldn’t take back? he’s certainly suitable for relief right now - maybe he didn’t like that path?

You pick, Travis Adams/John Klein or SWR for an inning at a time or two innings?

Makes no sense unless there’s some unrest  from one side or both.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

13 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Yeah, if we want to pretend like Berrios ceased to exist post 2022 because an extension conveniently nullifies post production then sure, things look a lot better for the Twins.

Berrios put up 2.5 WAR in 2023 and hit that number again in 2024. He threw nearly 200 innings each season as well. He threw basically 2/3 of SWR's entire career IPs with MN in one season. Berrios was/is in a different class. 

Austin Martin has .7 career WAR in nearly 200 games played. I mean....

Trades have to be viewed through the lens at the time. They didn’t have a contract with him past a year and a half. But the opportunity to extend him was traded away as well.

overall 1.5 years plus opportunity to extend Berrios for Austin Martin and a couple decent seasons of SWR is meh

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[TNtwins85]

22 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

I am amazed - you need a wow emoji.

But I am actually quite pleased to see the organization take bold moves with SWR, Lewis, Wallner.  In the past we just hung on to poor performances.  Now the team is saying produce or move on.  I like. 

What will be next?

A true meritocracy. If you’re not performing it’s the next man up regardless. Yeah you don’t want to blow up your 40 man but there’s a line in the sand. Mediocrity will only be tolerated for so long. This should’ve been started last august.

[David Maro]

Looking around the league SP are dropping like flies. He will get claimed by Monday afternoon. Maybe his new team will be able to get something out of him. His biggest problem is and has been walking himself into trouble. Watching him pitch this year has been hard. His splitter that was his out pitch was noncompetitive and he needed to to get away from using it. This team has far bigger problems than if SWR is on this weak roster. The last week should have told the fans just how bad this team really is. By next weekend you can put 5 more losses on their record.

[TNtwins85]

2 hours ago, Bangkok Twins Fan said:

Yeah, as shocking as this move was, I would still put some trust in the front office and the manager and coaches, who are better equipped to make these decisions. I also thought he would be given a chance in the bullpen for a while, All in all, a very puzzling move, but as you noted, another player, such as Klein, will have the chance to show he belongs. Keep bringing up more prospects. 

Yes, it’s surprising but if you can’t send him down and he hasn’t figured it out in 50 innings and his peak was what we seen the last few years what else are you supposed to do? At some point you need to cut bait and so far this regime seems to be quicker than the last. That’s a good thing to keep this team in a wildcard race that they’re surprisingly still in and for the good of the team long term.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

19 hours ago, LA Vikes Fan said:

While I would normally agree with you, who is that? Adams has already been optioned and the rest of the guys like Morris, Orze, and Gomez are part of the future bullpen hopefully. You could DFA Taylor Rogers I guess but I don’t see a lot of other candidates. Funderburk just came up and Banda has actually been good lately. I don’t think losing SWR is going to turn out to be a big loss. In fact, I would not be surprised if he is not claimed on waivers since he has no options left. I could also see him being claimed by a team desperate for starting pitching, pitching lousy there, and getting waived again. Hopefully he won’t get claimed and we wind up trying to work out his issues in Saint Paul.

DFA a 25 year old who was a decent starting pitcher for 210ish innings to avoid optioning a 28 year old reliever with 30 total ok innings in his career?

nope, this isn’t about the bullpen

[Richie the Rally Goat]

35 minutes ago, TNtwins85 said:

Yes, it’s surprising but if you can’t send him down and he hasn’t figured it out in 50 innings and his peak was what we seen the last few years what else are you supposed to do? At some point you need to cut bait and so far this regime seems to be quicker than the last. That’s a good thing to keep this team in a wildcard race that they’re surprisingly still in and for the good of the team long term.

You are right, but why cut bait now?

if this is about long term, and because they needed help in the bullpen, why DFA a 25 year old starter to avoid optioning a 28 year old reliever, or DFAing a 35 year old washed vet?

Sim earned this, I don’t have a problem with it, except that it doesn’t make any sense in the context being shared.

In 3 days Sim could have been throwing inning at a time, demote Orze, bring up CJ Culpepper (or whoever) to throw 4 innings as a piggyback demote him and bring up Fundy. They were at 39 players on the roster.

then they’d have been back at full strength in the bullpen, decent rest, and they could still DFA Sim or trade him, or whatever.