{"id":626302,"date":"2026-04-23T19:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T19:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/626302\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T19:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T19:01:14","slug":"twins-claim-christian-roa-from-astros-dfa-eric-wagaman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/626302\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins Claim Christian Roa From Astros, DFA Eric Wagaman"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Twins claimed right-hander Christian Roa<\/a> off waivers from the Astros, who\u2019d designated him for assignment earlier in the week, Houston announced Thursday. Minnesota designated infielder\/outfielder Eric Wagaman<\/a> for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, per Dan Hayes of The Athletic<\/a>. Roa has been optioned to Triple-A St. Paul.<\/p>\n

Roa, 27, brings some velocity to a patchwork Twins bullpen that hasn\u2019t recovered from last July\u2019s fire sale, wherein Minnesota shipped out five relievers (Jhoan Duran<\/a>, Griffin Jax<\/a>, Louis Varland<\/a>, Brock Stewart<\/a>, Danny Coulombe<\/a>). He\u2019s pitched briefly in both 2025 and 2026, totaling 11 2\/3 big league innings. Roa has held opponents to only five runs (3.86 ERA) on 11 hits, but he\u2019s also issued 10 walks and plunked three batters while only recording nine strikeouts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a small sample, of course, but command has long been the biggest knock on Roa\u2019s game. The 6\u20194\u2033, former Texas A&M standout was the No. 48 overall pick by the Reds back in 2020. He\u2019s drawn praise for a plus slider and average or better fastball and changeup over the years, but he\u2019s regularly received 30 and 40 grades (on the 20-80 scale) for his command along the way. Roa has pitched to a 4.52 ERA in parts of four Triple-A seasons, fanning 25.5% of his opponents there but also issuing walks at a dismal 13.9% clip.<\/p>\n

While Roa\u2019s overall numbers in Triple-A don\u2019t look like much, most of the damage against him there came in 2023-24. He tossed 60 1\/3 Triple-A frames last year and notched a tidy 2.83 ERA with a 26.1% strikeout rate and an improved (but still too high) 11.4% walk rate. He tossed one scoreless inning there so far in 2026.<\/p>\n

Roa has sat 96.2 mph with his four-seamer in limited big league action. His slider has been as advertised in the majors; he\u2019s finished off 11 plate appearances with the pitch, four of them resulting in strikeouts and only one resulting in a base hit (a single). He also mixes in a sinker and a very occasional changeup.<\/p>\n

This is the second of Roa\u2019s three minor league option years. The Twins can shuttle him back and forth across the Mississippi River as needed both this year and next, assuming he sticks on the roster. For now, he\u2019ll open in St. Paul, but given the state of the club\u2019s bullpen, there\u2019ll surely be opportunities over on the Minneapolis side of the Twin Cities.<\/p>\n

Turning to the 28-year-old Wagaman, he\u2019ll now find himself in DFA limbo for the second time in the past six months. Minnesota originally acquired him after he\u2019d been designated for assignment by the Marlins over the winter. The Twins shipped minor league reliever Kade Bragg<\/a> to the Marlins in that swap, though he hasn\u2019t exactly stood out in Double-A this year (12 walks and a hit batter, 46 batters faced).<\/p>\n

The hope in picking up Wagaman was that he\u2019d be a righty-swinging bench option who could fill in at all four corner spots. The former Yankees and Angels farmhand spent the whole 2025 season on Miami\u2019s roster despite a sub-par .250\/.296\/.378 batting line (85 wRC+) in 514 turns at the plate. Wagaman was decisively overmatched by fellow righties but knocked left-handers around at strong .283\/.321\/.462 clip with the Fish.<\/p>\n

Wagaman has experience at all four corner positions but has worked primarily at first base in recent seasons. He\u2019s in the first of three minor league option years but has gotten out to a dismal .159\/.284\/.254 start in his first 74 plate appearances with the Saints.<\/p>\n

The Twins will have five days to place Wagaman on outright waivers or trade him to another club. Since waivers are a 48-hour process, we\u2019ll know the outcome of Wagaman\u2019s DFA within the next week. If Wagaman passes through waivers unclaimed, the Twins will assign him outright to St. Paul. He hasn\u2019t been outrighted in the past and doesn\u2019t have three years of big league service, meaning he won\u2019t be able to reject an outright assignment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Twins claimed right-hander Christian Roa off waivers from the Astros, who\u2019d designated him for assignment earlier in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,87616,303394,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-626302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-christian-roa","11":"tag-eric-wagaman","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}