Top Pitching Prospects Kendry Rojas, Connor Prielipp to Join Twins in New York for Mets Series

Top left-handed pitching prospects Kendry Rojas and Connor Prielipp will travel with the Twins to New York this week, as the team takes on the New York Mets in Queens. Rojas, 23, will officially be added to the team's roster to replace fellow southpaw Kody Funderburk, according to Dan Hayes of The Athletic. Funderburk will go on the paternity list, and could meet the team in St. Petersburg for their weekend series against the Rays. Prielipp, 25, is on the taxi squad, a COVID-era invention still utilized by teams to keep fresh players ready during road trips when there's some belief that they might need them.

For Twins fans who mentally entered rebuilding mode as soon as the team undertook a selloff at the 2025 MLB trade deadline, Rojas and Prielipp have taken on outsized significance as symbols of the team's future. Rojas, at least, now looks to be part of their present, though his stay on the roster could be brief. The Twins have a travel day Monday before taking on the reeling Mets beginning on Tuesday.

Some chance exists, of course, that the addition of Rojas (or even that of Prielipp, which isn't yet a true call-up but puts him at the ready for one) will prove permanent. A few weeks in, it's become suddenly clear how much the Twins need to upgrade their bullpen if they hope to remain competitive. After climbing to 11-7, they've lost four straight, and on Saturday and Sunday, they lsot consecutive games which they led by multiple runs after six innings.

Justin Topa, Funderburk, Eric Orze and Cole Sands—the closest thing the team currently has to an 'A' bullpen—blew their lead one run at a time over the final three frames on Saturday. In Sunday's series finale, manager Derek Shelton tried to get a two-inning save from rookie Andrew Morris, who went to pieces in the second of those frames, giving up three runs to flip the score in the top of the ninth. Shelton hadn't trusted Garrett Acton enough to turn to him until the horses left the barn in the ninth, but he then stuck with Acton (amid a defensive meltdown) rather than turn to Anthony Banda against a left-handed batter in the Reds' three-run 10th. 

The Twins face a major deficit of trustworthy, bat-missing relievers. At their best, Rojas and Prielipp are eminently capable of ameliorating that. Rojas sits on the high side of 97 miles per hour with his fastball. If he makes his debut amid an electric New York atmosphere, he could touch 100 MPH. He also has a changeup and a slider that could be plus, if he can locate them well enough.

So far, consistency—in location, for sure, but even in shape and broader execution—has proved too much to hope for with Rojas, but his arm is one of the system's most electric. He was the co-headliner of the Louis Varland trade with the Blue Jays last summer, and is certainly the higher-upside of the two prospects the team acquired in that deal.

Prielipp is homegrown, and though he's older and doesn't throw quite as hard, he might have an even higher ceiling. Even on the other side of multiple surgeries, he flashes a top-of-the-scale slider. The two-plane curveball he's added to the mix this spring shows tremendous promise. 

In the long run, the Twins would like both Rojas and Prielipp to stick in the starting rotation. However, their track records with regard to both health and performance suggest that their best roles could be in the pen. For now, Rojas will be asked to reinforce a bullpen that hasn't garnered much confidence from Shelton. How long that remains his job might depend not only on when Funderburk returns, but on how Rojas and several of the incumbent arms in the pen perform in the days ahead.