What was your favorite Oliver Ortega Twins moment...

[puckstopper1]

Ortega was claimed on January 6th and DFAed on January 10th.

I hope he enjoyed his stay in Minnesota! ?

Maybe they will resign him to a minor league deal if he passes thru waivers.

[chpettit19]

27 minutes ago, puckstopper1 said:

Ortega was claimed on January 6th and DFAed on January 10th.

I hope he enjoyed his stay in Minnesota! ?

Maybe they will resign him to a minor league deal if he passes thru waivers.

Someone can, and will, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Ortega is still under team control for a number of years. So if he passes waivers he wouldn't need to sign a minor league deal as he'd still be under contract with the Twins and they'd simply be able to assign him where they want (likely St Paul). My guess is this was their plan all along. And it won't be the last guy they try to get through waivers and to St Paul.

[puckstopper1]

19 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Someone can, and will, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Ortega is still under team control for a number of years. So if he passes waivers he wouldn't need to sign a minor league deal as he'd still be under contract with the Twins and they'd simply be able to assign him where they want (likely St Paul). My guess is this was their plan all along. And it won't be the last guy they try to get through waivers and to St Paul.

Thanks for clarifying chpettit. 

I am confused then as to why the Twins did not just outright him vs designating him for assignment vs. exposing him via waivers.  I'm assuming doing it this way saves an option.

Also looks like he was DFAed to make room for Axely on the 40 man.

[CRF]

I always liked his taco shells and salsa.

[chpettit19]

18 minutes ago, puckstopper1 said:

Thanks for clarifying chpettit. 

I am confused then as to why the Twins did not just outright him vs designating him for assignment vs. exposing him via waivers.  I'm assuming doing it this way saves an option.

Also looks like he was DFAed to make room for Axely on the 40 man.

Outrighting him would be the next step to get him to the minors. When a player is designated for assignment the team has 7 days to either trade them or place them on outright waivers. Assuming they don't work out a trade with another team for him before Friday they will place him on outright waivers. At that point the other teams all have a chance to claim him over the next 3 days (I believe it's still 3 days for those waivers), but they would then have to add him to their 40-man. Often times the process then starts again shortly thereafter as the player is typically viewed as being worthy of having in your system, but not on the 40-man. So guys will get claimed, DFAed, outrighted, claimed, DFAed, outrighted, claimed, etc. a handful of times until every team who wants to take their shot at him takes their shot and then it's just last man standing finally gets him through to their minors.

Teams will use the DFA to see if anybody wants to give up a low level guy for the player (like Twins giving up Jimenez for Alexy). Mostly it just gives them another week to make final decisions on things (they can't un-DFA them, though). Sometimes a team will DFA a guy and track the waiver wire and 40-mans of other teams to see if there's a time during that week to outright him to give themselves the best chance of getting him through waivers.

It's all the "game within the game."