Minnesota Twins Class No. 1: How will the Minor League-Deal additions work out?
The Minnesota Twins added Tzu-Wei Lin, J.T. Riddle, Keon Broxton, Rob Refsnyder, Glenn Sparkman, Luke Farrell, Andrew Albers, Chandler Sheperd, Derek Law, and Robinson Leyer were all added to the organization on minor league deals for the 2021 season, that’s a very interesting group of players.
Lin, Broxton, Riddle, and Refsnyder are all former highly-rated prospects who are hopeful for a new start will help them out. Albers, Farrell, Sparkman, Sheperd, Law, and Leyer are all guys who could latch on as depth relievers for a Twins team that loves to swap out relievers when possible. There are some interesting players here.
When you add a player on a minor league deal, the hope is always to have the player either find a new form like Eric Sogard or recover an older form like Mark Reynolds. With the way the Twins’ roster is built, a jump like that seems really unlikely for one of these hitters. These relievers on the other hand.
The Minnesota Twins spent all of 2019 (and 2020) juggling their forty man roster to make sure there were a multitude of relievers on the roster. After adding six relievers via minor-league deals, the likelihood that at least one makes a positive impact on the roster is actually pretty high. With so many innings to go around and injuries likely, the Twins did a solid job of adding help. Grade: B.