{"id":712864,"date":"2026-05-30T15:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T15:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/712864\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T15:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T15:42:14","slug":"twins-designate-simeon-woods-richardson-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/712864\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins Designate Simeon Woods Richardson For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Twins announced that right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson<\/a> has been designated for assignment.\u00a0 Fellow righty John Klein<\/a> was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding 26-man roster move, and since Klein was already on the 40-man roster, Minnesota now has only 38 players on their 40-man.<\/p>\n

Woods Richardson has a garish 7.74 ERA over 47 2\/3 innings, with almost an even number of strikeouts (26) to walks (25).\u00a0 Minnesota removed SWR from the rotation two weeks ago, but he was pressed back into starting duty on Thursday when Kendry Rojas<\/a> was scratched due to an elbow problem.\u00a0 The hits just kept coming, as Woods Richardson allowed five runs over 2 2\/3 innings in the Twins\u2019 6-2 loss to the White Sox.<\/p>\n

While Woods Richardson tossed three scoreless innings over his two relief appearances, he allowed a walk and a hit in both outings.\u00a0 The Twins obviously didn\u2019t feel good enough about these performances to keep SWR around in a relief role, and since he is out of minor league options, Minnesota had to designate Woods Richardson and expose him to the waiver wire before trying to send him down to Triple-A.<\/p>\n

A .339 BABIP and a 57.9% strand rate haven\u2019t helped Woods Richardson\u2019s cause, but his 5.74 SIERA indicates that his struggles are due to more than just bad luck.\u00a0 Woods Richardson has already been tagged for nine home runs in his 47 2\/3 frames, continuing his issues at keeping the ball in the park against big league hitters.<\/p>\n

Over 302 1\/3 career innings in the Show, Woods Richardson has a 4.76 ERA for the Twins, with a 19.7% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk rate.\u00a0 His 11.5K% this season is a troubling dropoff even for a pitcher who didn\u2019t miss many bats to begin with, and an increase in the use of a splitter has proven disastrous, as Woods Richardson\u2019s split-finger fastball has been one of the least-effective offering of any pitch in baseball.<\/p>\n

Though Woods Richardson\u2019s peripherals have never been anything special, it is worth noting that he posted a respectable 4.11 ERA over 245 innings for Minnesota in 2024-25, starting 50 of his 51 games.\u00a0 Woods Richardson was also a top-100 prospect back in his days in the Blue Jays\u2019 farm system, before he was dealt along with Austin Martin<\/a> in the July 2021 deadline deal that sent Jose Berrios<\/a> to Toronto.<\/p>\n

As rough as things have been for Woods Richardson in 2026, his track record might get him a look on the waiver wire, if a rival pitching development staff feels it might have a fix.\u00a0 Woods Richardson is still only 25 and he has yet to reach arbitration eligibility, so he represents an interesting flier for teams in need of pitching depth, plus he could have a second act to his career if used strictly as a reliever.<\/p>\n

Rojas was placed on the 15-day injured list yesterday with left elbow inflammation, dealing another blow to Minnesota\u2019s rotation depth.\u00a0 While Woods Richardson was no longer in the starting picture and only went Thursday due to the emergency circumstance, the Twins are now without another pitcher they expected to be part of their 2026 rotation.\u00a0 Pablo Lopez<\/a> was lost to Tommy John surgery, David Festa<\/a> has yet to pitch in 2026 due to triceps and shoulder issues, and Mick Abel<\/a> hasn\u2019t pitched since April 14 due to elbow inflammation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Twins announced that right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson has been designated for assignment.\u00a0 Fellow righty John Klein was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,9223,3478],"class_list":["post-712864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-john-klein","tag-simeon-woods-richardson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116664293373833134","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}