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  • Roster Shuffle: Buxton And Kepler Out, Meyer And Santana In

    Nick Nelson

    By Nick Nelson

    The Minnesota Twins announced a wave of roster moves this afternoon, altering their personnel as they head into a six-game AL Central homestand in which they badly need to rebound after a brutal weekend in Washington.

    Young outfielders Byron Buxton and Max Kepler were optioned to Class-AAA Rochester. Right-hander Alex Meyer was promoted to the majors, where he'll work out of the Minnesota bullpen. Danny Santana was also reinstated from the disabled list.

    Image courtesy of Brad Rempel, USA Today

    Twins Video

    Buxton, who won an Opening Day roster spot in spite of an unimpressive debut last year and spring this year, has started 13 of the Twins' 19 games in center field but has been flat-out overmatched by major-league pitching. As you can see below, he leads baseball in strikeout rate by a wide margin. Equally disturbing as the raw numbers was the quality of his at-bats, which were consistently poor.

    https://twitter.com/NickNelsonMN/status/724616792371425281

    It's important to remember that Buxton is only 22, and has played only 13 games at Triple-A. The hope is that he'll be able to iron out his plate approach against lesser pitching and return within a couple of months. Meanwhile, Kepler will get the chance to play every day in the Rochester outfield after being unfortunately mired on the Twins bench for the past couple of weeks.

    Santana, who was activated following a minor-league rehab stint, will fill the vacancy in center field along with Eddie Rosario.

    Meanwhile, Meyer will join a beleaguered bullpen that was badly in need of reinforcements after Sunday's marathon 16-inning loss. There's a good chance we'll see him pitch tonight, and it will be interesting to see how his improved results at Triple-A, where he had a 1.04 ERA and 0.87 WHIP in three outings, translates to the majors his second time around.

    What do you think of these moves?

    Nick is a co-founder of Twins Daily who's been writing about the team for more than 15 years.
    Follow Nick Nelson on Twitter: NickNelsonMN

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    Featured Comments

    Rosterman

    Rosterman 3,922

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    Get Buxton to work on bunting. Just get Kepler at bats. But Meyer? Grooming him as a starter again and then throwing him into relief...of course, Milone is expected to go five innings, so maybe Alex can pitch 4.

     

    And I do wish we were bringing up a catcher (instead of possibly ANOTHER aging outfielder). Having that THIRD catcher would mean that you could change catchers out in a 16-inning fiasco and not worry about that dreaded injury to a catcher...right!?

     

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    USAFChief

    USAFChief 58,010

  • Community Moderator

    • Posted

    Looking at the big picture here, it's pretty darn inexcusable for a MLB team to find itself--in late April, no less, with all winter to plan--in a position where they have a game tonight and feature a 25 man roster with no less than 14 pitchers, and a 40 man roster short a man, but featuring only 17 position players.

     

    I mean, I could see if a rash of injuries tore up a plan, by maybe July or August.  That's not the case. They've had a couple injuries, but nothing out of the ordinary or not faced by lots of teams, lots of times. They had all winter to plan this out, and come out of spring training with this mess.  

     

     

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    gmarais66

    gmarais66 142

  • Provisional Member

    • Posted

     

    Hard to argue with demoting a guy who is striking out 53% of the time. 

     

    I am guessing Murphy and Duffey are swapped shortly

    Who would they swap Murphy for? They just gave away their only decent upper minor league catcher to the Tigers, because... Well, no one is really sure why they put him on waivers, but the fact remains that Hicks is gone, leaving a scrap heap of catchers that would not be much better than Murphy.

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    tobi0040

    tobi0040 4,125

  • Provisional Member

    • Posted

     

    Looking at the big picture here, it's pretty darn inexcusable for a MLB team to find itself--in late April, no less, with all winter to plan--in a position where they have a game tonight and feature a 25 man roster with no less than 14 pitchers, and a 40 man roster short a man, but featuring only 17 position players.

     

    I mean, I could see if a rash of injuries tore up a plan, by maybe July or August.  That's not the case. They've had a couple injuries, but nothing out of the ordinary or not faced by lots of teams, lots of times. They had all winter to plan this out, and come out of spring training with this mess.  

     

    Are you saying some relief help this off-season may have made sense?   Seemed like we had that covered.

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    Mike Sixel

    Mike Sixel 41,021

  • Old-Timey Member

    • Posted

     

    Looking at the big picture here, it's pretty darn inexcusable for a MLB team to find itself--in late April, no less, with all winter to plan--in a position where they have a game tonight and feature a 25 man roster with no less than 14 pitchers, and a 40 man roster short a man, but featuring only 17 position players.

     

    I mean, I could see if a rash of injuries tore up a plan, by maybe July or August.  That's not the case. They've had a couple injuries, but nothing out of the ordinary or not faced by lots of teams, lots of times. They had all winter to plan this out, and come out of spring training with this mess.  

     

    From where we sit, it appears there is no plan. Just a bunch of hope. 

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    alarp33

    alarp33 2,765

  • Provisional Member

    • Posted

     

    Hard to argue with demoting a guy who is striking out 53% of the time. 

     

    I am guessing Murphy and Duffey are swapped shortly

     

    I'm the biggest Buxton backer there is, and I have no issue with demoting him.  However I will scream until I'm red in the face about how they chose to do it.  Danny Santana, who hit like Buxton over 91 games last year is the replacement, David Murphy who should be playing across the river in St. Paul is going to get major at bats, Kepler for some reason was not an option, etc.  Complete and utter incompetency 

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    jud6312

    jud6312 2,491

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    This series of moves isn't surprising, but I don't particularly care for some of the things that could have been set in place today:

    • Duffey sticks around to make sure Santana can make his next start (which is probably a smart move) or he sticks around in case Milone implodes again and they decide it's time for him to go to the bullpen. If Ervin's good and Tommy doesn't go all Milone the second time through the order, Duffey back to AAA. I'm OK with the reasoning here.
    • That empty spot on the 40-man roster and the lack of bats on the bench makes me believe that ever-aging Murphy and never worthwhile Mastroianni are being considered for bench duty on this team.
    • I like that Meyer has been called up. I hate that he's been called up to pitch out of the pen. I think last year (a.k.a. the Lost Year) had just as much to do with comfort and a feeling of "what do I have to do to finally get my shot with this team?" as anything else. He regains his confidence as a starter and starts pitching really well again and he gets called up to pitch out of the pen. Why mess with what appears to be a good thing? I think TR has made his mind up that Meyer is a bullpen arm and that's the end of it.
    • Not calling up Berrios has made my life 100 times more difficult. Now I'll have to hear countless friends complain about the Twins being cheap and his "service clock."
    • 2-man bench for tonight. Not that I expect they'll need more than that, but they've really handcuffed themselves for it being so early in the season.

    There's time to turn it around, but this is really starting to look like a trainwreck of a season.

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    jud6312

    jud6312 2,491

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

     

     

     Kepler for some reason was not an option, etc.  Complete and utter incompetency 

     THIS!!! So much this. A young Kepler is going to give you the same, if not more, than an aging Murphy. He might not hit as much right away (although I do stress might), but he's better defensively and on the bases. Enough retreads. Lumps will be taken this season, let it be with the young guys. At least it's something to enjoy.

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    alarp33

    alarp33 2,765

  • Provisional Member

    • Posted

     

     THIS!!! So much this. A young Kepler is going to give you the same, if not more, than an aging Murphy. He might not hit as much right away (although I do stress might), but he's better defensively and on the bases. Enough retreads. Lumps will be taken this season, let it be with the young guys. At least it's something to enjoy.

     

    The explanation I keep hearing is "Kepler needs to play every day"... umm, ok, the Twins have an opening in CF.  Every day. Problem solved. 

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    ScrapTheNickname

    ScrapTheNickname 3,577

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    • Posted

     

    The explanation I keep hearing is "Kepler needs to play every day"... umm, ok, the Twins have an opening in CF.  Every day. Problem solved. 

    I agree. Play Kepler in CF for 2 or 3 weeks and see if you can handle it. If can, his major league is off the ground.

     

    Playing Santana anywhere in the field makes no sense to me.

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    Otto von Ballpark

    Otto von Ballpark 20,320

  • Community Leader

    • Posted

     

    • Duffey sticks around to make sure Santana can make his next start (which is probably a smart move) or he sticks around in case Milone implodes again and they decide it's time for him to go to the bullpen. If Ervin's good and Tommy doesn't go all Milone the second time through the order, Duffey back to AAA. I'm OK with the reasoning here.

    If Ervin Santana can't make his next start, they can retroactively DL him and they don't have to wait 10 days to recall Duffey.  (The 10 day rule is waived for DL injury replacements.)

     

    As for Milone, they've got either Meyer or Berrios lined up to take Milone's next turn, they don't need to hang on to an inactive Duffey for that purpose.

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    tobi0040

    tobi0040 4,125

  • Provisional Member

    • Posted

     

    I'm the biggest Buxton backer there is, and I have no issue with demoting him.  However I will scream until I'm red in the face about how they chose to do it.  Danny Santana, who hit like Buxton over 91 games last year is the replacement, David Murphy who should be playing across the river in St. Paul is going to get major at bats, Kepler for some reason was not an option, etc.  Complete and utter incompetency 

     

    You don't worry about stunting the development of a guy like Santana.  But Kepler has had a whopping 14 PA in 9 games. If they would not keep him around and give him a shot, why even bring him up?

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    jud6312

    jud6312 2,491

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

     

     it is pretty hard to figure out the plan.

    Plan? You, sir, you are the winner of the internet today! I think it's pretty obvious that TR made a plan back in the '90s - win the baseball matches - and he hasn't strayed from that plan in all these years :)

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    tobi0040

    tobi0040 4,125

  • Provisional Member

    • Posted (edited)

     

    To be accurate, as stated in the article, Buxton has struck out in 49% of his plate appearances.

     

    Ahh, I was adding his 3 from yesterday. I didn't think they were updated.

    Edited by tobi0040
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    jud6312

    jud6312 2,491

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

     

     

    If Ervin Santana can't make his next start, they can retroactively DL him and they don't have to wait 10 days to recall Duffey.  (The 10 day rule is waived for DL injury replacements.)

     

    As for Milone, they've got either Meyer or Berrios lined up to take Milone's next turn, they don't need to hang on to an inactive Duffey for that purpose.

    They could do that, but that doesn't seem like something they like to do. The M.O. is to wait, wait some more, play shorthanded, wait, send him out there when he "feels ready" and then, either through, fatigue, injury or illness hits and you're pretty much unable to field a full roster, then you put him on the DL.

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