{"id":208374,"date":"2026-06-02T12:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/208374\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T12:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:52:11","slug":"the-twins-should-capitalize-on-carmen-mlodzinskis-awkward-standoff-with-pittsburgh-pirates-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/208374\/","title":{"rendered":"The Twins Should Capitalize on Carmen Mlodzinski\u2019s Awkward Standoff with Pittsburgh Pirates – Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLast Friday, Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Jared Jones<\/a> returned to the PNC Park mound, making his first major league start since undergoing Tommy John<\/a> surgery in May 2025. The home crowd celebrated Jones\u2019s return, as the 24-year-old pitched 4 1\/3 innings against the Minnesota Twins, surrendering five earned runs over 21 batters faced. However, the hard-throwing righty\u2019s return to Pittsburgh\u2019s five-pitcher rotation was partially overshadowed by how Carmen Mlodzinski<\/a> (who held Pittsburgh\u2019s fifth rotation spot for most of 2026) responded to Pirates decision-makers informing him that he would be transitioned back into the bullpen upon Jones\u2019s return.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c(I\u2019m) still communicating with the organization and the people in my corner, whether that\u2019s my family or my agency, about what is next,\u201d\u00a0Mlodzinski said, when asked about transitioning back to the bullpen during a media scrum last Thursday.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tUnsurprisingly, Mlodzinski\u2019s quote took off among national baseball media, with many criticizing the 27-year-old\u2019s dejected response to returning to the bullpen. Many of those critiquing Mlodzinski are doing so solely to profit from the salaciousness of a conflict between player and team, but for those viewing the situation more clearly, it’s easy to see why Mlodzinski would be upset about the change in roles.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\tThrough 55 innings pitched, Mlodzinski has generated a 3.76 ERA, 3.31 FIP, and a 19.3% strikeout rate, while making nine proper starts. According to Wins Above Replacement at FanGraphs (fWAR), the righty has been Pittsburgh’s fourth-most valuable starting pitcher, coming in behind Braxton Ashcraft<\/a>, Paul Skenes<\/a>, and Mitch Keller<\/a>. Mlodzinski is firmly above the Pirates\u2019 fifth-most valuable starting pitcher, Bubba Chandler<\/a>, earning 1.0 fWAR over 44 innings pitched as a starter compared to Chandler\u2019s 0.2 fWAR over 52 innings. Still, Pittsburgh opted to keep Chandler in the rotation over Mlodzinski, seemingly due to Chandler\u2019s far superior raw stuff and higher ceiling as a starter.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tPittsburgh placed Mlodzinski on the restricted list on Sunday, citing the pitcher expressing that he wasn\u2019t ready to pitch in the series finale against Minnesota. Big-leaguers are unpaid while on the restricted list. However, the 24-year-old\u2019s stint on the list was short-lived, as he was reinstated Monday night. In effect, they suspended him for two days and docked his pay for the missed time.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\tAccording to Jason Mackey of MLB.com, Mlodzinski didn\u2019t request a trade<\/a>, and is expected to pitch out of the bullpen in a bulk role during the club\u2019s Tuesday night contest against the Houston Astros. Still, animosity between Mlodzinski and Pittsburgh lingers, making a trade of the 27-year-old likely before the trade dealine on August 3. If that is the case, Twins top baseball executive Jeremy Zoll should aggressively pursue an early-June trade for Mlodzinski, handing the talented righty a solidified role in Minnesota\u2019s five-pitcher starting rotation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\tLike Pittsburgh, Minnesota entered the 2026 campaign with a surplus of high-end starting pitching talent, headlined by Joe Ryan<\/a>, Bailey Ober<\/a>, and budding stars Taj Bradley<\/a> and Mick Abel<\/a>. However, injuries have quickly decimated the club\u2019s rotation depth, with Ober, Abel, and talented, young lefty Kendry Rojas<\/a> on the 15-day IL for the foreseeable future. Losing these three arms, Minnesota is down to a four-pitcher rotation, headlined by Ryan, Bradley, a struggling Connor Prielipp<\/a>, and an inconsistent Zebby Matthews<\/a>. Mike Paredes<\/a> is on the 26-man roster as a long reliever, at least for the moment, but even after the team picked up another Pirate (Justin Lawrence<\/a>, a short reliever) in a cash deal Monday night, it’s not clear who will start Thursday evening against the Royals. Minnesota is still in dire need of starting pitching depth, particularly if the club wants to remain in postseason contention as the dog days of summer near.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“”Yeah, I think everything needs to be on the table,” Zoll told reporters Monday about the apparent hole in the rotation. “We’ve worked through all the considerations … but I think when you go true bullpen games, that can be challenging, but we probably need to see how we get through the next day or two and the state of the bullpen before we finalize any plans.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tPrimarily throwing a four-seamer, splitter, sinker, and curve, Mlodzinski would instantly slot in as a valuable member of Minnesota\u2019s starting rotation, likely filling the third spot behind Ryan and Bradley. Even if Ober, Abel, and\/or Rojas return soon, Mlodzinski would be in position to retain a rotation spot, given Prileipp\u2019s, Matthews\u2019s, and Rojas\u2019s inconsistency this season and the team’s desire to keep Prielipp and Rojas from taking on too large a workload too quickly. Though it’s hardly ideal, the team might well switch to a six-man rotation for some stretches, giving their young starters an extra day between appearances to both optimize recovery and slow their accumulation of innings.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\tAny team that acquires Mlodzinski would want to avoid recreating the awkward series of events that has led to the promising righty\u2019s falling out with Pittsburgh\u2019s decision-makers. Given the injuries Twins starting pitchers have sustained this season, Mlodzinski would be all but guaranteed a rotation spot with Minnesota for the rest of the 2026 season, potentially playing an integral role in the club\u2019s ability to return to the postseason for the first time since 2023.\u00a0Besides, there’s one person we know likes Mlodzinski as a starter, and who gave him that job<\/a> for the first time at the end of spring training last year: then-Pirates manager Derek Shelton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“I think through the spring, we saw him not only increase in velocity, but saw him maintain the velocity, which was something that really made us feel confident that he can be a starting pitcher,\u201d Shelton said after Mlodzinski returned to the rotation last March, having spent the previous two seasons working in relief. \u201cIt wasn’t one time through the order; we saw it maintain in the fourth inning, fifth inning in Spring Training.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThere’s familiarity between the manager and this prospective addition\u2014and a history of the kind of trust and faith the pitcher clearly needs to feel from his superiors. There’s also a glaring need. Presumably, the Pirates won’t give up Mlodzinski for nothing\u2014he remains under team control through 2029 and isn”t even arbitration-eligible until this winter. If the cost of acquiring him has been dramatically reduced by the tension between employers and employee, though, the Twins should swoop in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last Friday, Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Jared Jones returned to the PNC Park mound, making his first major…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[69005,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-208374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-carmen-mlodzinski","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}