{"id":121125,"date":"2025-09-05T05:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T05:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/121125\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T05:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T05:39:07","slug":"twins-to-activate-pablo-lopez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/121125\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins To Activate Pablo Lopez"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Twins will activate\u00a0Pablo L\u00f3pez<\/a> to start tomorrow\u2019s series opener against the Royals, reports Dan Hayes of The Athletic<\/a>. He\u2019ll be activated from the 60-day injured list. Minnesota already has two vacancies on the 40-man roster, so they\u2019ll only need to option a pitcher to create an active roster spot.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez has been out of action for three months. He suffered a Grade 2 teres major strain in his throwing shoulder during his start on June 3. That injury was arguably the turning point of Minnesota\u2019s season. The Twins were seven games above .500 and in possession of a Wild Card spot at the time. Minnesota\u2019s rotation collapsed over the next few weeks. That wasn\u2019t all about L\u00f3pez\u2019s injury, as the struggles extended beyond call-up David Festa<\/a>, but their season never recovered.<\/p>\n

The Twins went 9-18 in June. A month later, they traded almost everyone from their bullpen and pulled off the surprising Carlos Correa<\/a> salary dump. A healthy L\u00f3pez would\u2019ve been a target for contenders as well. The Twins had no reason to trade him halfway through an injury, but it\u2019s not out of the question that they hear teams out this offseason.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez was off to what might\u2019ve been a career season. He posted a 2.82 ERA in 60 2\/3 frames spanning 11 starts. He fanned a quarter of opponents against a 5.7% walk rate. L\u00f3pez has been an above-average starter for a few years but has yet to post a sub-3.00 ERA over a full season. He might have been on that trajectory had he not gotten hurt.<\/p>\n

Minnesota\u2019s sell-off and fall down the standings raised some question about whether it\u2019d be prudent to shut L\u00f3pez down entirely. The veteran righty remained committed to making it back for a few turns through the rotation. That\u2019ll allow him to go into the offseason with more confidence than he would have had coming off a season-ending shoulder injury. It\u2019ll also give opposing clubs a few looks as they consider whether to make a big push to try to pull L\u00f3pez in an offseason trade.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez is wrapping up the second season of a four-year, $73.5MM extension. He\u2019ll make $21.5MM per season between 2026-27. That\u2019s below market value for a #2 caliber starter. L\u00f3pez would have trade value if the Twins shop him, but they could prefer to hold him as a veteran anchor of a young rotation while looking ahead to a potential deadline deal in 2026.\u00a0Joe Ryan<\/a>, who is down to his last two seasons of arbitration control, will also be one of the offseason\u2019s top trade candidates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Twins will activate\u00a0Pablo L\u00f3pez to start tomorrow\u2019s series opener against the Royals, reports Dan Hayes of The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,44198,82],"class_list":["post-121125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-pablo-lopez","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}