Twins Select Contract Of Andrew Albers To Replace Scott Diamond

Although there was a little mystery ever since Scott Diamond was sent down to Triple-A following Thursday's loss to the Kansas City Royals, it was pretty clear that one man deserved the call-up over everyone else. The announcement was originally expected to happen after Friday night's game, but once it hit extra innings the Twins just went ahead and announced the move anyway that lefthander Andrew Albers would be added to the 40-man and active rosters and is expected to start Tuesday in Kansas City.

The 27-year old has easily been the best started for Rochester this year, going 11-5 with a 2.86 ERA with a 7.9 K/9 and 2.18 BB/9. He actually has been with the Twins since 2011 and pitched in the Can-Am independent league (the same league Chris Colabello was in) prior to being signed. If you look even further back, he was originally signed by the San Diego Padres in 2008 and made 5 appearances before going down with an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery.

A scouting report from 2010 stated that Albers threw in the high-80s with a 4-seam and 2-seam fastball, along with a decent slider and a big, looping curveball. The report added that Albers had an above-average change-up that he actually rarely threw in college, but apparently he made some big progress with it upon joining the Padres. The Twins' vice president of player personnel Mike Radcliff said just over a week ago that Albers' velocity is now around 85 MPH, which really is poor even for a lefty.

Thus, it's pretty clear that Albers is not going to overpower hitters. Instead, he's going to rely on keeping them off balance and induce weak contact, just like pretty much every other Twins pitcher we've seen this year. I don't have high hopes for Albers considering he's 27 years old and has so little velocity, but in this lost season, the Twins really should take a long look at every player that has nothing left to prove in Triple-A and Albers certainly fits into that category.