{"id":426304,"date":"2026-01-22T17:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/426304\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T17:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:47:08","slug":"twins-to-sign-taylor-rogers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/426304\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins To Sign Taylor Rogers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Twins are bringing old friend Taylor Rogers<\/a> back on a one-year, $2MM contract, per Ken Rosenthal and Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic<\/a>. Rogers, who\u2019s represented by Frontline Athlete Management, spent the 2016-21 seasons in Minnesota, spending the latter three as their closer and earning an All-Star nod in 2021. Minnesota has a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move to create space for Rogers (and another one for recently signed<\/a> catcher Victor Caratini<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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A reunion with the 35-year-old Rogers makes sense for a Twins club that\u2019s in dire need of steady arms in the bullpen. While the left-hander isn\u2019t close to the peak form he showed late in his original run with Minnesota, he pitched to a solid 3.38 ERA with an above-average 24% strikeout rate in 50 2\/3 innings between the Reds and Cubs in 2025. Rogers\u2019 10.4% walk rate was the second-highest of his lengthy career and more than double the 4.3% mark he posted over his best three seasons as a Twin (2019-21), but he was a useful middle relief arm in both Cincinnati and Chicago this past season.<\/p>\n

Beyond the decline in command, Rogers has seen a fundamental decline in the strength of his repertoire. He averaged 95.7 mph on his sinker and 84 mph on his slider back in 2021. In 2025, those pitches were carried respective average velocities of 92.7 mph and 78.4 mph. Accordingly, Rogers has seen a notable drop in his swinging-strike rate and significant upticks in his opponents\u2019 contact rate.<\/p>\n

Rogers was traded from the Twins to the Padres just prior to Opening Day in 2022 \u2014 a deal that brought Chris Paddack<\/a> and Emilio Pagan<\/a> back to Minnesota. (Brent Rooker<\/a> was also shipped to San Diego in that deal, but he was cut loose by both the Friars and Royals before breaking out with the A\u2019s.) He went on to sign a three-year, $33MM deal with the Giants, who traded him to the Reds late last offseason.<\/p>\n

The Giants seemed to quickly sour on using Rogers in high-leverage spots. He collected a dozen holds and a pair of saves while pitching decently in year one of his contract but was moved to a middle-relief capacity the following season. In terms of leverage index, Rogers has worked primarily in low-leverage spots over the past two seasons. On the whole, the results over the life of that three-year contract were sound (3.16 ERA), but Rogers\u2019 rate stats have faded steadily.<\/p>\n

Even a lesser version of Rogers than the one remembered and beloved by many Twins fans will be an improvement to a Minnesota bullpen that was gutted at last year\u2019s trade deadline. The Twins traded five relievers \u2014 Jhoan Duran<\/a>, Griffin Jax<\/a>, Louis Varland<\/a>, Danny Coulombe<\/a>, Brock Stewart<\/a> \u2014 as part of a fire sale that netted a combination of MLB-ready young players (e.g. Mick Abel<\/a>, Taj Bradley<\/a>, Alan Roden<\/a>) and well-regarded prospects (e.g. Eduardo Tait<\/a>, Kendry Rojas<\/a>). That slate of trades decimated what had been one of the best bullpens in the sport; Twins relievers posted the fourth-worst ERA in the sport following last year\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s virtually no certainty in the Twins\u2019 bullpen at present. Rogers immediately becomes the most experienced member of the group and, for now anyway, could be an option for high-leverage spots or even save opportunities. He\u2019ll join Justin Topa<\/a>, Cole Sands<\/a> and Kody Funderburk<\/a> (who excelled down the stretch following last year\u2019s fire sale) as the only current members of the bullpen with even one full year of major league service time.<\/p>\n

The Twins have a deep collection of young starters, several of whom could end up in the \u2019pen over the long run, but there\u2019s clearly room to add another veteran arm here \u2014 if not multiple arms. Rogers\u2019 modest $2MM guarantee bumps Minnesota\u2019s payroll to just under $109MM, per RosterResource\u2019s estimates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s around $25MM lower than last year\u2019s mark, so even with ownership scaling back payroll, the front office should still have sufficient resources to bring in another arm. Hard-throwing righty Seranthony Dominguez<\/a> is among the relievers to whom the Twins have reportedly spoken<\/a>, while other yet-unsigned relief options of note include Michael Kopech<\/a>, Nick Martinez<\/a>, Tommy Kahnle<\/a>, Paul Sewald<\/a> and Coulombe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Twins are bringing old friend Taylor Rogers back on a one-year, $2MM contract, per Ken Rosenthal and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82,18374],"class_list":{"0":"post-426304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-taylor-rogers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426304","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=426304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}