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Thought the Twins were done selling after trading Eduardo Escobar to the Arizona Diamondbacks earlier today? Of course you didn’t! This is a full on fire-sale baby!
After the Twins’ 4-3 loss to the Red Sox in extra innings, the team announced that they had traded right-handed reliever Ryan Pressly to the Houston Astros. Pressly is a talented reliever who I am sad so see go, but I am at least somewhat comforted by the idea that maybe this is why the Twins decided to use Matt Belisle in the game Friday night. Please, just let me live in the comfort of this delusion for at least a couple hours.
In exchange for Pressly, the Twins received Jorge Alcala and Gilberto Celestino. Alcala is a 23-year-old starting pitcher who has played in High-A and Double-A this year, while Celestino is a 19-year-old outfielder who has been playing in Low-A and Double-A.
Over 47.2 innings for the Twins this year, Pressly has a 3.40 ERA with a 1.354 WHIP and a nice 69 strike outs (tied for third in the league). Over his career, Pressly has a 3.75 ERA with 282 strikeouts over 317.0 innings. The Twins originally received Pressly in the Rule 5 draft from the Red Sox, and amazingly were able to hold on to him for the whole year, which they haven’t been able to do with recent Rule 5 draft picks.
Pressly seemed to be figuring things out in the past couple years, but honestly? I’m perfectly fine with the Twins dealing him — and the return actually looks pretty good, too.