Twins Decline Option for Glen Perkins; Name Minor League POY’s

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Oct 18, 2017

Twins Decline $6.5 Million Glen Perkins Option for 2018:

In an expected move on Wednesday, the Twins cut ties with former All-Star closer, Glen Perkins, who would have been owed $6.5 million for 2018, had the Twins kept him on the roster. Perkins hails from Stillwater, MN and played his college ball at the University of Minnesota. So, it is a bit of a sad day to see a Minnesota boy go.

Perkins was an All-Star in 2013,14, and 15. In that 3-year span, Perkins was really good. He pitched 181.1 innings, collecting 197 K’s while picking up 102 saves (Baseball-Reference).

Unfortunately, after Labrum surgery, Perkins has only pitched 7.2 innings since that All-Star 2015 season. His ERA in those 7.2 innings from 2016-2017 was 9.39.

Although Perkins has said he is willing to take a pay-cut to come back to the Twins, the organization hasn’t shown any interest in doing that so far, according to La Velle E. Neal III of the Star Tribune. The Twins will pay Perkins a buyout of $700,000.

Twins Name Minor League Players of the Year:

Every season, the Minnesota Twins name two Minor League Players of the Year – one pitcher (Rantz Award) and one batter (Robertson Award). There have been some pretty good names on this list of winners, recently, including Jose Berrios who is a 2-time winner (’14,’15), Brian Dozier (’11), Byron Buxton (’13), and Max Kepler (’15).

This season, the hitting honors went to catcher, Mitch Garver. Garver got a shot at the big leagues this season and didn’t hit all that well, with an average of .196. However, he was really good in AAA, hitting .291 in 88 games. As Brandon Warne talks about here, we aren’t sure how Garver projects as a major league catcher. He is already 27 years old. Next season will be a telling one for him. But, we also don’t know what the Twins will do being they already have an established starting catcher in Jason Castro.

The Pitcher of the Year Award went to Aaron Slegers, who we also saw for a small time with the Twins, in 2017. Slegers is a tall righty, standing at 6’10”. He doesn’t throw hard. He hangs in the low-90’s. But he ate up minor league batters this season. In 24 starts and 148.1 innings, Slegers struck out 119 while only walking 29. That’s a really good ratio and also a lot of strikeouts for a pitcher who sits in the low 90’s with his fastball. I don’t know as much about Slegers but Warne says he projects as a back-end starter in the big leagues if he can pitch well, but Warne does allow this:

Slegers has consistently posted groundball rates in the 45-50 percent range, which is a good indicator that he’ll do so in the future. In lieu of a dominant repertoire, Slegers will do well to keep the ball on the ground as he looks to carve out a future as a back-end starter. His repertoire is intriguing, however — all four of his pitches had swinging-strike rates between 7.0-9.5 percent.

Eric Strack
Minnesota Sports Fan @RealMNSportsFan
MinnesotaSportsFan.com

Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images

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