The Twins and righty Darren McCaughan agreed to a minor league contract earlier this month, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. He’ll presumably head to big league camp as a non-roster invitee this coming spring.
McCaughan, 28, has spent the vast majority of his career with the Mariners, who selected him in the 12th round of the 2017 draft. He made his big league debut with the 2021 M’s and also pitched briefly for Seattle in 2023. The Mariners traded him to the Marlins for cash back in February, and McCaughan pitched a career-high 42 big league innings between Miami and Cleveland this past season.
In 56 major league innings, McCaughan has been hit hard. He carries a career 6.43 ERA with just a 15.3% strikeout rate. He’s done a fine job limiting walks (8.4%) and has avoided hard contact on a rate basis, but the hard contact he does allow is often of the maximum-damage variety. He’s yielded an average of 2.09 homers per nine innings in the big leagues.
Homers have been an issue for McCaughan throughout his pro career, as one might expect from a soft-tossing righty who averages about 90 mph on his fastball. He’s displayed decent strikeout and walk rates in the upper minors (21.7 K%, 6.4 BB%), but McCaughan has been tagged for 1.60 homers per nine frames even in Triple-A. He posted a 4.73 ERA with a 25.2% strikeout rate and 8.2% walk rate in 85 2/3 Triple-A frames last year.
What McCaughan can bring is some stability and durability to the Twins’ Triple-A staff. He’s pitched at least 127 innings in all of his pro seasons (and even in his 2017 draft year, if combining his NCAA and minor league innings). McCaughan has somewhat incredibly never gone on the injured list in the minors or in the big leagues.
The Twins have enough starters that McCaughan isn’t likely to crack the roster this spring unless it’s in a long-relief capacity. Minnesota’s rotation includes Pablo Lopez, Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober, Chris Paddack and Simeon Woods Richardson, although Paddack was widely regarded as a trade candidate even before the extremely player-friendly market for starting pitchers this winter made his $7.5MM salary look all the more affordable. David Festa, Zebby Matthews, Louie Varland, Marco Raya and Travis Adams are on the Twins’ 40-man already, giving them further options ahead of McCaughan.
