The Twins protect two pitchers from the Rule 5 draft.
With the deadline to protect prospects from the Rule 5 draft looming, the Twins added two pitchers to their 40-man roster while leaving off a few notable names. Minnesota selected the contracts of Marco Raya and Travis Adams, moving them one step closer to the Big Leagues.
Raya has floated around the back end of Top 100 lists since Minnesota drafted him in the fourth round of the shortened 2020 MLB draft. He has the stuff, but has yet to have the breakout season Derek Falvey & Co. have been hoping for. The Twins have also been ultra-cautious with Raya’s workload, eclipsing 65 innings in a single season for the first time this past season. Raya spent most of 2024 at AA Wichita, but made a single start for the AAA St. Paul Saints before the end of the season to bring his season inning total to 97.2 with a 4.05 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate and 10.5% walk rate. He will likely see time with the Twins at some point next season.
Adams, meanwhile, should also expect to get some time with the Big League club in 2025. He is the latest in the Twins’ ever-growing list of mid-to-late-round college pitchers that have flown up prospect boards. At a mere 6’ 1” tall, Adams differs from his towering contemporaries like Bailey Ober, David Festa, and Zebby Matthews, but he’s still plenty effective. In 127 innings between AA and AAA last season, Adams compiled a 3.90 ERA, 22.6% strikeout rate, and 6.7% walk rate. He still needs to prove he can strike out higher level hitters, but the Twins saw enough out of him to add him to the roster.
Among the notable names the Twins left unprotected from the Rule 5 draft are left-handed pitcher Christian MacLeod and outfielder Kala’i Rosario. MacLeod is the most promising of the bunch. He missed all of 2022 with injury after being drafted in the fifth round of the 2021 draft, but has looked strong since then. He began 2024 in high A but finished in St. Paul, with the Twins pushing him aggressively. MacLeod still needs to add some fastball velocity, but the secondaries are encouraging enough that a move to the bullpen could make him an effective Big Leaguer in the Taylor Rogers mold.
Rosario has 25 homer power, but doesn’t do much else that well on a baseball field. He missed most of 2024 with injury, but wasn’t particularly effective when he was on the field, managing only a .726 OPS and .405 SLG in homer-happy Wichita. He struck out at a ghastly 30.4% clip and had some of the worst defensive highlights (lowlights?) you’ve ever seen from a corner outfielder. There’s still plenty to like in him as a prospect, but the Twins (likely correctly) determined that he wasn’t going to be a target by opposing teams in the Rule 5 draft. It’s hard to justify wasting a 26-man roster spot on a defensively challenged corner outfielder coming off of his worst offensive season.
With the additions of Raya and Adams, the 40-man roster sits at 37 with a few more spots likely opening up at the end of this week when MLB teams have to decide if they will tender contracts to their arbitration-eligible players.