Tom Froemming

Twins System Recap: The Mussels were Mighty this weekend. Teen slugger Luis Fragoza flexed in particular, crushing two homers on Sunday. His teammate Murphy Hernandez brings the speed, as he's averaging nearly a stolen base per game, but he also homered in a big game. On the mound for the Mussels, Jason Reitz pitched the longest outing of his young career while not surrendering a run. Also, the Saints got two big names back from the IL in Hendry Mendez and Kaelen Culpepper. View full video

Twins System Recap: Ryan Sprock won't stop hitting! He's already extended his hitting streak three more games this week and is on the verge of breaking the all-time Fort Myers record. He was a standout performer, but so was teammate Quentin Young. It's been a tough season for Young, but he had a couple of good games this week, including one in which he ended with a walk-off homer. Among the many other players discussed in this one include Marco Raya, Walker Jenkins, Brandon Winokur, Eduardo Tait, and Jayson Bass. View full video

Twins System Recap: Eduardo Tait is killing it so far this week. He had a two homer game and drove in five runs on Tuesday before adding another homer while driving in six on Thursday. He has seven homers in just 13 games so far this month. Fellow catchers Andrew Cossetti and Enrique Jimenez also had big performances this week, Marek Houston continued his hot month, and Alan Roden had a triumphant return to the Saints. View full video

You already forgot what they did at last year's deadline?

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images Yoendrys Gómez has me wondering: Can we have nice things? With the scars of last year’s trade deadline selloff still mending, I’m not ready to get hurt again. That’s why I’m shielding myself from falling for Gómez, a breakout bullpen sensation. Gómez has been brilliant since being plucked from the scrap heap. Perhaps this is outdated logic I’m applying to the current Twins brass, but I believe he’s more likely to be pitching for a contender come August than to be a long-term piece here. If the Twins continue to operate with the same mentality that Derek Falvey and Joe Pohlad did last July, Gómez is as good as gone. Will Jeremy Zoll and Tom Pohlad take a different approach? We’ll see. The thirst for bullpen help at the trade deadline is nearly unquenchable. Twins fans know this as well as anyone. The Twins may end up being among the teams seeking relief help. Thanks to a middling American League, they’re just two games out of a Wild Card spot despite being 35-40 entering Thursday's play. But, as Cody Christie recently wrote, decision time is coming, one way or another. Should the Twins fall further from contention, Gómez will be a commodity. Given his lack of a track record, he wouldn’t be any team’s first choice, but there will be no shortage of suitors if he continues to pitch well. Gómez had been used as a long-,relief mop-up man with the Rays, pitching at least two innings in six of his nine outings. After the Twins acquired him in early May, he worked himself into high leverage in short order. The role looks good on him, and a few minor adjustments are doing wonders. As Matthew Lenz recently pointed out, the Twins have Gómez throwing more sweepers and fewer of his other secondaries. Also, among the many items Aaron Gleeman recently called out in his lengthy profile of Gómez was that he dropped his arm slot (link to article here, subscription required but highly recommended). Gómez has a 1.53 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, and 29.2 K% in 17 2/3 innings as a Twin. In 20 outings, he’s already earned seven saves and five holds. This is exactly the type of guy the Twins desperately needed to find. As if the early returns weren’t exciting enough, the righty is also under team control for ages. Though this is the fourth season in which he's pitched in the majors, he didn't even start the campaign with one full year of official service time. He's likely to become artbitration-eligible as a Super Two guy after 2027, but he still won't hit free agency until the end of 2031 campaign. Relievers are frustratingly fickle, and Gómez embodies that. Still, there’s a real chance he could be a high-leverage reliever for the Twins for another five seasons. On the other hand, he could turn back into a pumpkin at any moment. After all, this guy had pitched so poorly that the Twins were able to acquire him for cash considerations. In the past two seasons, he has been claimed off waivers twice and traded twice. Before joining the Twins, Gómez had 93 1/3 career innings in the big leagues. In that time, he had a 5.11 ERA, 5.60 FIP, 20.2 K% and 10.5 BB%, and had recorded just a pair of saves (one of them being a three-inning save in a 9-2 blowout). In his pre-Twins days, Gómez particularly struggled to keep the ball in the park. From the start of the 2023 season to the point that he joined the Twins, he was among 524 pitchers to log 90+ innings. Among that sample, he had … The fourth-worst Barrel% (12.6%). The 20th-worst HR/9 (1.83). The 24th-worst xERA (5.52). It was easier to envision him being DFAd again by now, rather than him even simply finding his footing. Is this run he’s on sustainable? The one thing we can say for certain is that Gómez will eventually give up another home run. It might not feel like there’s any rush for the Twins to come to a conclusion on Gómez’s future outlook, but that conversation changes once teams start to ask about him. And they will. Maybe things will be different this time around. Jeremy Zoll inherited a mess. Even with Gómez stabilizing the late innings, this bullpen is in disorder. You can’t build a good team around a bullpen, but you also can’t build a good team without one. Zoll and his front office clearly saw something in Gómez. Maybe he’ll want to relish in this victory of an addition and keep him around as a building block of a more functional future bullpen. While he hasn’t done much to back it up, Tom Pohlad has talked a lot about the Twins' intention to win. Since he’s been every bit as penny-pinching as all his relatives before him, the fact that Gómez will be dirt-cheap over the coming several seasons should endear him to Pohlad. This is an affordable potential building block, albeit a minor one. If the payroll is going to continue to be limited, these are the types of players the Twins need to prioritize holding onto. At the end of the day, everyone has a price. It all comes down to value. Perhaps trading Gómez would turn out to be the smart move, but the Twins' bullpen is in dire straits due to a series of previous “smart moves.” If Zoll and Pohlad are content to simply sell off Gómez to the highest bidder, it’ll be a signal to expect more of the same. But if they aren't, maybe there's something genuinely different happening. View full article

Walker JenkinsKaelen CulpepperEmmanuel RodriguezDasan HillKendry RojasEduardo TaitMarek HoustonRiley QuickCharlee SotoBrandon WinokurHendry MendezGabriel GonzalezRyan GallagherQuentin YoungJames EllwangerKyle DeBargeYasser MercedesBilly AmickAdrian BohorquezKhadim Diaw

Walker JenkinsKaelen CulpepperEmmanuel RodriguezDasan HillKendry RojasEduardo TaitMarek HoustonRiley QuickCharlee SotoBrandon WinokurHendry MendezGabriel GonzalezRyan GallagherQuentin YoungJames EllwangerKyle DeBargeYasser MercedesBilly AmickAdrian BohorquezKhadim Diaw

No, the next Willi Castro is Greggory Masterson.

Twins System Recap: Breakout hitter of 2025 Kyler Fedko has kept rolling this season and is being promoted up to the big leagues to make his Major League debut. It was tough for him to just find playing time with the Saints to open this season, but opportunities opened up and he's taken advantage of them. Today's recap starts with some discussion on Fedko, how long he figures to stick around and why Kaelen Culpepper wasn't promoted. Down on the farm, Walker Jenkins started a rehab assignment, Kala'i Rosario helped break Wichita's losing streak, the Kernels scored 23 runs in a game and the Saints went unbeaten over the weekend thanks to some help from guys called up from A-Ball, including a monster game from Graham Brown in his Triple-A debut. View full video

Twins System Recap: The Saints beat up Justin Verlander in a rehab outing, slugging four homers off the three-time Cy Young Award winner. Aaron Sabato continues to bring the thump for St. Paul, along with Kyler Fedko and Gabriel Gonzalez. Also this week, Khadim Diaw continued his hot streak, and fellow Kernel Riley Quick set career single-game highs in innings and strikeouts. View full video