stringer bell

They aren't going to add Prielipp with his injury history and limited experience. Maybe, if everything breaks right for him, sometime later in the summer. There will be a 40-man spot open (Castellano's spot) but that spot will be taken by whoever is the last guy in the bullpen.

What that means is another club could claim Castellano and they would be subject to the Rule V procedure, where he would stay on the active roster or be offered back to his original franchise.

The Twins have announced that Brock Stewart will start the season on the Injured List, along with Michael Tonkin and Royce Lewis. They currently have 31 rostered players in camp. With the subtractions of Tonkin, Lewis and Stewart, that would leave 28 players, so only two players would need to be cut to reach the 26-man limit. Subtracting the Injured List guys, there remain only 13 pitchers. That would mean that without an addition from off the roster, the pitching staff is set and Eiberson Castellano would make the team. There are two "extra" position players and it appears that the combatants for the last two positions are Edouard Julien, Austin Martin, DaShawn Keirsey Jr. and Mickey Gasper. My best guess is that one infielder and one outfielder make it for the last two positions, but any of the four has a case and most likely all four will see time with the Twins. The Twins could claim somebody cut loose by another team or they could keep a non-roster player for the last guy on the team. A couple of pitchers have performed well and have major league experience. Scott Blewett and Andrew Misiewicz have been pretty good. A lot can happen in five days. Another injury could occur and mess with projections or a player could be brought in from another team via trade or waiver claim. I'll believe Justin Topa is healthy and ready to contribute until they're playing the national anthem on Thursday. Brooks Lee has missed two days with a sore back. Who will be on the final 26 and who will be the last guys cut (or placed on the IL)? Please comment.

Bobby Nightengale is reporting that Brock Stewart, Royce Lewis and Michael Tonkin will start the season on the IL. There are currently 31 on the active roster, so reducing that by three leaves only two cuts to be made unless the club purchases a minor league contract.

I agree with your general sentiment, but I believe in 2022 the Twins were #2 in missed man/games and the players missing were high impact guys. They have gambled more than most on the health of guys with long injury histories IMHO, but every team gets hit hard by injury. As sobering and disappointing another Lewis injury is for the Twins, the Yankees starting staff led by their ace Gerrit Cole has suffered a devastating bad run early in 2025.

Provus announced that Paul Bunyan Communications was adding Twins games on a channel (558) for the 2025 season. I presume this will be the model for other cable operations. I'm not sure if they'll be on the same channel for everyone. Does MLB have to negotiate with every cable outfit in Twins Territory and also does the cable operator set the price and terms? I have friends who are wondering how they'll get their Twins on TV this year despite the news that mlb.tv was carrying Twins games. Edit to add: Paul Bunyan Communications is in northern Minnesota, covering an area from Bemidji to Grand Rapids. I googled them and they announced the Twins were coming to Paul Bunyan Communications. There is no indication about an additional charge to watch the games.

Gasper is behind the plate again today. There's been quite a bit of speculation about how viable he is as a catcher. It seems it is beyond the "emergency catcher" threshold of Kyle Farmer the last two seasons. Farmer came to the majors as a catcher, but hadn't played behind the plate for several years. Gasper seems more likely to be similar to Willians Astudillo, who actually started a few games at catcher in his Twins career. Having a third catcher would be a nice bonus, allowing Jeffers to DH some without the worry of losing the DH if Vázquez has to come out of a game or if the Twins would need to pinch run for a catcher late in the game.

I bolded the portion of the posting by @tony&rodney that illustrates to me what the recent injuries (after the two ACL surgeries) and the struggle have done to the fan's perspective. Lewis is no longer thought of as one of the coming megastars. Twins fans are hoping he can be a good regular player who is on the field most of the time. As far as the back and forth about training and injury prevention, yup every franchise suffers injuries and the Twins are no exceptions. If there is some blame to pass, I would say the FO has been willing to take risks on guys (Mahle, Paddack, DeSclafani) who were obvious injury risks and sometimes double down. Correa was re-signed because two other teams thought the risk for injury outweighed his talent and the Twins chose to downplay that risk (correctly, so far) but he's come up with injuries to both feet. I consider that bad luck. They also signed Buck to an extension despite his being on the IL every year, in large part because the terms were favorable. We Twins fans see "our" team's injuries and want to shake our fist at the sky. Most, if not every, other team has the same response. Every team runs into injuries and finding guys, like Carlos Santana, who never get hurt is pretty doggone difficult. I doubt training methods are much different through all the major leagues. Probably the most successful trainers and medical staffs success is more about communication than it is about methods.

Five days before the start of the season, Kyle Gibson finds a job with a contender. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/03/orioles-sign-kyle-gibson.html

Diego Castillo (the infielder) signs a minor league deal with the Mets. Eight PAs with the Twins in '24. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/03/mets-sign-diego-castillo-to-minor-league-deal.html

Pretty sure at some time I'm going to have to learn how to spell "Misiewicz". He might even make the club out of Spring Training, if both Topa and Stewart hit the IL.

I brought up the example of Cole Sands (2023) in another thread. Several factors came into play in Sands' case that may or may not play out in 2025. 1) The starting staff was toward the top of the league in innings. 2) The heart of the bullpen was healthy and available a great majority of the time. 3) Both the IL and Sands' option were used. If Sands didn't have an option, he might have had to perform in another game or two that had medium or high leverage, it is pretty tough to reconstruct the season with different constraints. The reality is that Sands was on the active list for most of the season and was almost always used in low leverage. I think it can be done, but situations have to play out according to plan and that is pretty rare. Also of note, it appears that almost all of the Rule V picks are being returned. I don't think it's a defeat if Castellano is returned. It's a gamble that didn't pay off.

A while ago, one of the last of the original Minnesota Twins passed away. His name was José Valdivielso, who had an unremarkable major league career mostly with the original Senators. While noting his passing, I checked on how many of the Opening Day Minnesota Twins were still living. That total is five, or seven if you count players who played for the team sometime during their inaugural season. The next step down the rabbit hole for me was to see how many Griffith family Senators (the Twins predecessor) have survived and that answer was seven including four 1961 Twins--Jim Kaat, Camilo Pascual, Pedro Ramos and Don Lee. Those four guys threw a majority of innings for the '61 Twins--Pascual was an All-Star, Ramos a solid starter as was Kaat in the beginning of a Hall of Fame career. Lee was a swing man in the era of four-man rotations. So naturally, I thought about other "dead" franchises. How many Brooklyn Dodgers are still drawing breath? How about the New York Giants? St. Louis Browns? Boston Braves? Philadelphia Athletics? For these franchises, I was aware of a couple of players, but a check at Baseball Reference revealed more information. First of all, the Boston Braves have no surviving players. Del Crandall started his career with Boston and passed away in 2021, marking the end of living Braves from their original home. All of the other franchises that moved in the '50s have survivors. The Giants and Dodgers both moved late in that decade and still have a few players living. Notable among the Giants is ex-Twin Al Worthington, the oldest survivor who played for the Giants and for the Dodgers Sandy Koufax, "the Left Arm of God", who retired early and has been in the Hall of Fame since 1972, that's eleven years longer than the youngest HOFer (Joe Mauer) has been alive. The St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore in 1954, so over 70 years ago, and two players are still with us. The more notable is Billy Hunter, who went on to a six-year major league career and later managed the Orioles. The Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City in 1955 and one Athletic remains. His name is Bobby Shantz, who will be 100 years old this year. Bobby Shantz was the AL MVP in 1952, before there was a Cy Young award and won eight Gold Gloves as a pitcher. He is the last living player to have played for Connie Mack. Here is a complete list of survivors of defunct teams that moved in the '50's and early '60's. Washington Senators (1901-1960)--Ken Aspromonte, Jim Kaat, Don Lee, Bob Oldis, Camilo Pascual, Pedro Ramos, Bob Ross. New York Giants (1883-1957)--Joey Amalfitano, Jackie Brandt, Ray Crone, Joe Margoneri, Bill White and Al Worthington. Brooklyn Dodgers (1884-1957)--Bob Aspromonte, Jim Gentile, Fred Kipp and Sandy Koufax. St. Louis Browns (1902-1953)--Ed Mickelson, Billy Hunter, Philadelphia Athletics (1901-1954)--Bobby Shantz. Photo of Shantz in a Philadelphia A's uniform in 1953.

First of all, I'm an idiot. I scrolled through the Twins' schedule and saw Twins vs. Red Sox and thought it was scheduled for today--nope. It's tomorrow, so I guess I'll find out if my subscription works then. Secondly, isn't it a certainty that there will be an additional charge to carry the Twins channel on cable/DirecTV? We had Bally/FanDuel etc. on a SportPac that I didn't want except for the Twins games and paid > $20 per month. I don't think the price will go down much if it is only Twins games on a dedicated channel.

Several teams have decided they couldn't keep their Rule V picks and only one (Athletics) has verified they will have their Rule V pick on the roster for Opening Day. There is a chance with Tonkin being injured that they can carry Castellano for the first couple weeks and hope his situation resolves positively.

Another of my favorite Immaculate Grid entries, Travis Blankenhorn signed a minor league deal with the Angels. Blankenhorn had four PAs with the Twins and has played for the Mets and Nats. He's totaled 100 PAs despite appearing in major league games in every year since 2020. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/03/angels-sign-travis-blankenhorn-to-minor-league-deal.html

I'm a bit older, but in the same boat. We cut our DirecTV over the winter and I signed up for twins.tv, but so far have only viewed games marked "Free Game of the Day". Tomorrow may be the first broadcast not so labeled.

I would say the number is reversed (80% from injury) and what little I saw of Lewis this spring, he looked quicker and not as hulking. Still he pulled a muscle before he got out of Florida.

It looks like the last spot on the pitching staff is Topa vs. Castellano. Neither has been particularly impressive, but Topa pitched yesterday, so he is healthy enough to proceed. Meanwhile, on the position player side, Gasper slid over to catch. It can't hurt his chances that he can fill in behind the plate for a few innings.

All of the competitors for the last spots on the team are playing (except Keirsey) and most are doing well today.

I think the training staff has examined and analyzed Lewis' soft tissue, lower body injuries and have tailored his workouts to recover from the earlier injuries and prevent further injury. Other than giving him orders to never "open it up", he may continue to be betrayed by his own body. To have a 25-year-old run like Giancarlo Stanton would irritate me to no end, but it seems like that is the path we are embarking on.

Regarding Gasper making the Opening Day roster—I don’t think it improves his chances that much. Julien and Gasper would be regarded as bat-first 2B/1B, and keeping both would be redundant. The team could afford to add a faster outfielder (Martin or Keirsey Jr.) and still have first, second and third covered defensively.

Miranda was my choice to get most PAs at DH. I’m seeing folks presuming he’s the primary 3B now (don’t dispute that), but does this mean a near regular role for Bader? It would appear so (don’t like that). Castro can play left some, giving DH duties to Wallner/Larnach and keeping HB on the bench. Julien can DH, with Larnach and Wallner playing the corners. If Lee and Castro are flanking Correa, who plays third and who plays second? There isn’t much platooning to be done except for Wallner and Larnach or Julien if he makes the team.

As far as scooping low throws, being a former catcher (like Santana, Morneau and Mauer) would seem to be of more benefit than height. Mauer played first a bit until the head injury forced him out from behind the plate, but I think he was very good when moved to first. At more than 6'4" he had the size and reach to steal a few outs, as well.

Nitpick here. It doesn't look like the Twins will purchase the contract of any non-roster players for Opening Day, even with the loss of Lewis and Tonkin (so far) to injury. The Twins won't put Canterino on the Il until they need to find a 40-man spot, so he likely won't have a full year of service. Whenever he would be on the major league 60-day IL is when he would start accruing service time. I'm not sure about the process for DFAing injured players. At some point, it would figure that he could and should be put on the open market, but it is possible they will have to hang onto him until the end of the season.