After an offseason of much-criticized inactivity, the Twins have spent the last couple weeks making a few more moves. A common thread in the transactions? They all used to play here.
Taylor Rogers, Gio Urshela, and Liam Hendriks have all signed deals with the Twins recently. And it appears that might continue.
“Basically, we have Minnesota’s Baseball Reference page pulled up, and we’re going season by season to check in on everyone who doesn’t have a current team,” said a front office source with knowledge of the team’s internet history. “We just got to 2018. You wouldn’t happen to have a forwarding address for Robbie Grossman, would you?”
Sources say the team hopes to both fill roster gaps and curate some good feelings with an alienated fan base.
“There’s someone out there who caught a Darin Mastroianni foul ball, and it was the best moment of his young life,” said a source in the season ticket office. “Now he’s older, he has disposable income, and maybe wants to go out to the yard to see if Darin still has a little gas left in the ol’ tank.”
Mastroianni, 40, last played in the majors in 2016. Twins Daily was unable to confirm his current career, but Fangraphs projects him to be either in real estate, coaching, or liquor distribution.
While adding position players is nice, the focus for both the team and the fanbase remains the bullpen.
“Take a look at the 2013 bullpen,” said the latter source. “Caleb Thielbar is still playing. Ryan Pressly just hung it up. Michael Tonkin pitched for us last year! Glen Perkins works here, I bet he’s got all those guys’ numbers. Heck, I bet ol’ Glen could throw that fastball by a bunch of those young pups.”
A spokesperson for Perkins says everything is sore all the time and that Stu should leave him out of his fun comedy bits.