Twins Claim RHP Ralph Garza Jr. off Waivers

Tis the season of hope.  If we are going to sign a cast off, Houston is a good place to start.

Great write up.  I sounds like he would need protection at end of year, so hopefully he gets looked at I guess.

As long as you can keep him on the 40-man, he has more option seasons. When I saw him enter the waievr field, thought "oh, my!"

The Twins finally managed to get a Garza back.

Weird that Houston would let a live arm go. But then again, roster crunches happen. Might be a viable arm who just needs opportunity to show what he can do. Nothing to risk by bringing him on.

Try a little pitcher

Put him in your bullpen

You can always let him go.

My first inclination is we've seen enough of Burrows already. Replace him now with Garza and see what he has. I don't understand why a guy who's already been in AAA, even if for another club needs to go to your own AAA. If he's good enough to go after, and the big league team needs arms, and he's proven himself in AAA already, then just promote him and see what he can do. It's not like he's going to hurt the chances for this team anymore this year. It seems this organization is more concerned about their minor league teams than the major league team.

10 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

While I agree this makes sense, and they have nothing to lose.... The fact Burrows is still on the roster, and not someone from their system, makes me nervous that they just can't move on like they should sometimes.... And this guy might take a forty man place next year, even is he shouldn't.

Some guys get DFA many times in a single season bouncing around.  Sometimes it is about timing to get a guy through waiver claims.  The FO will see what they think of all their pen guys and many will get DFA to make room on 40 man to protect in rule 5 draft.  

Yeah, it's not uncommon for teams to claim players and then immediately DFA them to try and pass them through waivers. See our old friend Jake Reed. He may never play in another game this season as teams line up to DFA, claim, repeat. It does really feel like that's another thing the MLBPA should address.

If you think a player could be better if he just does "fill in the blank" then you have to keep him around long enough to see if he can learn how to do that. Grabbing waiver wire projects is fine for the rest of this season. I'm not concerned if they're learning in AAA or the big leagues as long as they have a plan for each of the acquisitions.

19 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

The fact Burrows is still on the roster, and not someone from their system, makes me nervous that they just can't move on like they should sometimes.... And this guy might take a forty man place next year, even is he shouldn't.

3 hours ago, DJL44 said:

If you think a player could be better if he just does "fill in the blank" then you have to keep him around long enough to see if he can learn how to do that. Grabbing waiver wire projects is fine for the rest of this season.

I also wonder if part of the reasoning for making moves like this now is:
Players who'll need to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason can come up in September without using an option (if I remember correctly). The Twins have a few of those players who should be on the verge of a debut (Miranda, Ryan, Winder) but they'll need to make roster space for them. So in a losing season, the next few weeks are the time to evaluate more marginal 40-man guys, and to use as much roster space as you have to cycle through them before you need to make room for more long-term additions.