Twins hire experienced bench coach; goodbye, Alex Colomé [Twins Hyperlinks]
Jayce Tingler joins the fold after he was let go as manager of the Padres
I told you the Twins look to add some experience to the dugout. :-)
After he was fired in San Diego following two seasons as manager, Jayce Tingler will join the Twins as their new bench coach. That’s in line with what I’ve talked about as a desire to have some diversity of experience on a coaching staff following several significant departures and losses over the past two seasons.
The Padres were one of the best teams in baseball early on this season, but injuries and an incredible collapse led to Tingler losing his job after two years on the top step of the dugout in San Diego. During the COVID-shortened season, the Paders made the postseason and Tingler was second in the N.L. Manager of the Year voting (behind Don Mattingly).
Tingler would have a history with Twins GM Thad Levine, since the former worked in Texas’ organization from 2006-19, including a brief stint as a bench coach and a year as an MLB continued development coordinator (a role that’s becoming more en vogue around the league, it seems).
He’s also worked as the Rangers’ Dominican Summer League hitting coach and manager, minor league field coordinator, and assistant general manager. He joins David Popkins (hitting coach) as newly announced members of the Twins coaching staff under Rocco Baldelli.
Catching up on a bit of Twins business:
*The offseason officially is underway, as the club as decided to buy out the contract of problematic closer Álexander Colomé for $1.25 million. They could have chosen instead to bring him back for $5.5 million, and given how he pitched in the back half of their season after derailing it in April, I thought that there might have been a chance that they’d do it. Technically they still could bring him back next season, but now he’s in the large pool of available right-handed relievers free to sign with any club.
*They’ve also freed up 9 spots on their 40-man roster, some of which will need to go to young players like Royce Lewis, Jose Miranda, and a group of pitching prospects, to protect them from this year’s Rule 5 draft.
*The Twins also have claimed Jharel Cotton off waivers from the Rangers. The 29-year-old split time between Texas and Triple-A Round Rock last season, and he’s been with the Dodgers, Cubs, A’s and Rangers organizations in the past. In 30 ⅔ innings with the Rangers, he had a 3.52 ERA and a 30:15 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He’s been a fastball-circle changeup-cutter pitcher armed with a 93 mph heater.
Once a well-regarded pitching prospect, Cotton missed time after Tommy John surgery in 2017 and a hamstring injury that required surgery in 2019. Before returning to the big leagues this year, he had to wait more than 1,400 days between MLB appearances, and he was called up to the Rangers after Kyle Gibson was dealt to Philadelphia.
To make room on the roster, the Twins outrighted Rob Refsnyder off the 40-man.
Twins Hyperlinks:
There are 14 players who have received the Qualifying Offer. You won’t be surprised to hear that Minnesota’s pending free agents, Michael Pineda and Andrelton Simmons, were not among the group of players extended that one-year, $18.4 million pact.
The top 50 free agents, according to FanGraphs
We’re now getting our first look at ‘Carlos Correa, former Houston Astro?’ Michael Baumann for The Ringer makes the case for Houston bringing him back. A friend of mine whose knowledge is better than guess percentage is adamant that Correa will reunite with A.J. Hinch and join a Tigers team on the rise. We’ll see.
Popular belief right now says that Freddie Freeman is more likely to be back with the Braves than Correa is with the Astros. That also tracks with Ben Lindbergh’s findings: World Series winners are more likely to bring back their players than the World Series losers -- even though theoretically those teams are about equally matched.
(By the way, that Lindbergh article is fascinating because he wrote about the “cost of complacency” for a Red Sox team that had just won the 2018 World Series … the day before Boston embarked on an 84-win campaign and finished a distant third in the A.L. East.)
The Mets have had a tough time getting someone to agree to run their baseball operations department. They apparently were interested in Twins assistant GM Daniel Adler, but he reportedly has declined the opportunity to interview.
Royce Lewis returned to game action at the tail end of instructional league, just like he said he would in my latest interview with the team’s top prospect. And after getting a funny stop sign on his way to first base, John Shipley writes in the Pioneer Press that the brakes are nearly off for Lewis.
From MLB dot com, Miguel Sanó hit the longest home run of the 2021 MLB season. He also tied Trevor Story for the 10th longest, one of two players to appear twice on the 10 Longest Homers list (Adam Duvall).
You might also like…
*The top-25 free agent starters for the Twins
*The best free agents (non-pitchers) to consider
*A Byron Buxton contract extension and what it should look like
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