The Twins announced Friday that they’ve passed right-hander Noah Davis through waivers and assigned him outright to Triple-A St. Paul. That’ll be the corresponding roster move for Pablo Lopez’s previously reported reinstatement from the 60-day injured list, which is now official.
Davis landed in Minnesota back in July, coming over from the Dodgers in a cash swap after he’d been designated for assignment. The 2018 eleventh-rounder made four short relief appearances for the Twins and allowed multiple runs in all of them. He’s been tagged for 22 runs in 11 innings between Minnesota and L.A. this season, further inflating the already unsightly 7.71 ERA he logged in parts of three seasons with the Rockies (51 1/3 innings).
Though Davis has been hit exceptionally hard in the majors, he has a more encouraging track record in the upper minors. He’s pitched 176 2/3 innings in Triple-A, logging a 4.79 ERA despite most of his time being spent in an exorbitantly hitter-friendly setting (Colorado’s Albuquerque club in the Pacific Coast League). Davis has pitched 43 1/3 innings between the Triple-A clubs for the Dodgers and Twins this year and turned in a solid 3.95 ERA with a strong 26.1% strikeout rate.
This is the second career outright for Davis — the Rockies outrighted him last September — which gives him the right to reject the assignment to Triple-A in favor of free agency, should he prefer to seek a change of scenery.