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As the Twins’ roster clean up continues, yet another player is gone. This time it was Nik Turley, who the Pittsburgh Pirates claimed today off waivers.
It’s not a huge loss, to be quite honest. The 28-year-old made ten appearances for the Twins this year, including his major league debut against the Giants back on June 11th. He gave up four earned runs over four innings in that game, and it didn’t get much better as the season went on. Over the 17.2 total innings Turley pitched for the Twins in 2017, he gave up 22 earned runs. That’s... kind of a lot.
Turley was a lot more impressive in Triple-A this season, where he held a 2.66 ERA with 79 strikeouts over 67.2 innings. However, like I mentioned, he’s already 28-years-old, so it’s unclear how much more he is going to develop. He seems like a fringy-MLB player at best, and the Twins have better long-relief options, such as Tyler Duffey.
Turley is the third player the Twins have lost on waivers over the past week. LHP Randy Rosario and outfielder Daniel Palka were also claimed by the Cubs and White Sox respectively.