3 former Twins struggling mightily during 2024 spring training
Things aren’t going so great this spring for a few former Twins players.
Things seem to be off to a pretty decent start for the Minnesota Twins so far this spring. Nothing has jumped out to justify standing (mostly) pat during free agency, but the team has looked better than initial fears suggested.
It’s yet to be seen how the Twins will replace Sonny Gray and Kenta Meada — the latter of whom is off to a great start with his new team. The Opening Day lineup feels like it’s mostly set elsewhere on the roster, though, as the latest round of roster cuts suggests there’s a clear vision for what the position groups will look like.
Players like Bailey Ober, Jorge Alcalá, and Brooks Lee all flashed this spring, even if only one of them will be making the 26-man roster. New additions like Carlos Santana and Manuel Margot have also seemingly settled in nicely, even if the sample size is small.
The same can’t be said for a few former Twins players who are having a rough time this spring and are hoping things turnaround before the end of the month arrives.
3 former Twins struggling mightily during 2024 spring training
Sonny Gray
It didn’t take long for Sonny Gray’s St. Louis Cardinals career to hit some turbulence. In just his second start of Spring Training, Gray needed to be removed from the game due to tightness that was later diagnosed as a hamstring strain.
Gray had logged less than four innings of work before getting injured, but he at least looked good in the small sample size. He had only allowed three hits and zero runs, while striking out three batters, but the injury casts a shadow over everything.
Thankfully it seems like things aren’t as bad as they initially seemed. Gray has been slowing working his way back, throwing his first bullpen session this week since the injury, although it’s unclear if he’ll be ready for Opening Day.
It’s an unfortunate break for Gray, who was mostly healthy throughout his entire stay in Minnesota before bolting this winter to sign a $75 million deal with the Cardinals. That’s the context of this injury, which even if it ends up being minor is not the way anyone wanted his tenure in St. Louis to start.
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Joey Gallo
Last year was a rough one for Joey Gallo, and it seems things haven’t gotten much better for him.
Gallo signed a one-year, $5 million deal with the Washington Nationals after the Twins decided to move on this winter. He got off to a decent start after signing with Minnesota in December 2022, but things quickly fell off and he was ultimately left off the postseason roster.
He started the year on the right track, with Gallo hitting three home runs in his first four games and finishing April slashing .304/.360/.870 but that’s pretty much where he maxed out. Aside from getting some sweet revenge on the New York Yankees, Gallo struggled from May onward and never hit above .200 from the beginning of June through the end of the season.
Gallo’s hot start was halted by an injury in the Twins’ first home stand of the season, something that resulted in Edouard Julien getting called up. That will be his lasting legacy with Minnesota and it seems things have not gone much better since joining the Nationals this offseason.
So far in Spring Training Gallo is slashing .150/.190/.200 in seven games and 20 at-bats. Washington gave him a $5 million contract that already seems like a mistake, as the struggles Gallo suffered through in Minnesota don’t seem to have been fixed in the time since.
Michael A. Taylor
This one hurts, because unlike Gray and Gallo there’s nothing to base Michael A. Taylor’s Spring Training on because he still doesn’t have a team.
After turning in an impressive season as the surprise everyday centerfielder for the Twins, it was looking like Taylor would be able to parlay his success into a nice free agent deal. It’s been an abysmal year for the free agent market as a whole, and Taylor remains unemployed because of it.
He drew some early interest, as the Angels and Mets were both rumored to be eyeing him but nothing ended up happening. It got to the point where Minnesota re-entered the fray as a potential landing spot when the team was looking for right-handed hitting that doubled as insurance for Byron Buxton.
That’s the role Taylor so wonderfully filled last year. The Twins traded for him with the idea of platooning him with Buxton and forming one of the best defensive duos in baseball. After injuries keeps Buxton from being able to play the field, Taylor assumed the starting role and made the most of it.
He set a new career-high for home runs and finished the year with 51 RBI while also making some clutch defensive plays. Taylor might have saved the Twins season with a stellar catch in the AL Wild Card that in any other year might have careened off the wall and flipped the game in Toronto’s favor. Instead, Taylor made the play and Minnesota ended up snapping its miserable 19-year postseason losing streak.
The Twins ended up trading for Manuel Margot to replace Taylor, ending any hope that he’d be back. It’s puzzling that he’s still available, and really no good reason to explain it other than simple bad luck.
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