After nearly 70 days and a quarter of the season, Royce Lewis is finally going to be playing baseball for the Minnesota Twins again.
It's impossible to overstate just how exciting it is to have Lewis back in the lineup, or how perfectly timed his return is. The Twins are headed to the Bronx for a potential revenge series against the New York Yankees, one in which they'll need all the help they can get.
Part of Lewis returning meant someone losing a roster spot, and that ended up rather surprisingly being Edouard Julien. Minnesota optioned him to Triple-A St. Paul on Monday as the corresponding move to activating Lewis from the IL, and it left some fans a bit perplexed.
It's not that Julien was undeservingly sent down; he's been struggling at the plate more than anyone would like to see and this assignment with the Saints allows him to iron things out. He was hitting .206 and had the most non-swinging strikeouts in the league, all of which is a farcry from the offensive giant he was for the Twins last season.
While optioning Julien makes sense from a certain point of view, so too did a few other moves the Twins could have made but opted not to.
3 moves Twins could have made instead of optioning Edouard Julien
DFA Kyle Farmer
Why It Made Sense
There might not be a bigger disappointment so far this season than how poorly Kyle Farmer has been playing. It's been a rather stunning fall from grace for a guy who made such an impact as a utility player last season and the team invested $6 million in this winter.
Farmer is dealing with perfect storm of reasons a player in this situation would have gotten DFA'd over optioning someone else. He's hitting an abysmal .163/.274/.239 with a -0.3 WAR, which is hardly what the Twins paid for when they brought him back after settling his arbitration case over the offseason.
Minnesota was unwilling to spend on starting pitching and essentially salary dumped Jorge Polanco, yet the most money the team put on its books was bringing Farmer back. So far the deal hasn't paid off on the field and it feels like he might be running out of time if things don't turn around.
His struggles at the plate are slowly boxing him out of a spot in the lineup defensively. Jose Miranda took over as the everyday third baseman after seemingly rediscovering his groove, while Willi Castro figures to replace Julien as the starter over at second base. With Lewis back, Miranda will likely get more looks at DH, which probably isn't an option for Farmer given how badly he's slumping.
Why It Didn't Happen
Had the Twins decided to open Farmer's roster spot for Lewis it would have likely ended his tenure with the team. Minnesota optioning Julien is a temporary measure, where Farmer would have been DFA'd and likely picked up elsewhere in the league.
Farmer is also highly respected in the clubhouse, and even though he's struggling the blow to morale losing him would have had might not be worth trying to navigate just yet.