Notes, quotes and comment

Sean Poppen popped back onto the Twins roster as the eighth bullpen arm and picked up the final two innings of Thursday's blowout win in Chicago.

A roster move of more significance: Byron Buxton was reactivated, with Jake Cave optioned out. Buxton started in center and hit a pair of doubles.

The Twins are now 49-23 this season when Buxton starts, 13-17 when he doesn't.

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The Twins made an exceedingly minor deal on Thursday, shipping minor league catcher Brian Navaretto to the Yankees in a cash deal.

Navaretto is a good defensive catcher with a great arm who hasn't hit at any level. (He was hitting .177 in Double A this year, which ought to get one sent back to high-A.) The Yankees needed somebody to catch in Double A after the domino effect of putting Gary Sanchez on the injured list after their series in Minnesota, and the Twins wanted to open up the slot at Double A for Ryan Jeffers, their second-round pick last year.

I've noted this repeatedly, but I'll hit it one more time: The Twins in the 2013 draft took three catchers in the first nine rounds: Stuart Turner in the third, Navaretto in the sixth and Mitch Garver in the ninth. (Turner and Garver were collegians, Navaretto taken out of high school).

The Reds took Turner in the Rule 5 draft and carried him on their roster for the full 2017 season only to outright him the following spring, which made his Rule 5 season rather pointless. He not only hasn't been back in the majors since, he's played so little in Triple A that I suspect he's had injuries.

So two of the three are out of the organization. But I think Garver has more than made up for the misses on the two higher-drafted backstops.

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Both Jeffers and Trevor Larnach, their first-rounder from 2018, are now at Penascola. They're moving up the ladder at a pretty rapid clip.

Jeffers' numbers at Fort Myers (the Twins high-A affiliate) aren't nearly as impressive as Larnach's, but he's a catcher. Presumably part of the promotion is that he's improving his play behind the dish, which was seen as a bit suspect at the time of the 2018 draft.

Larnach's promotion hints that the lefty-hitting outfielder might be used as a trade chip in a pitching trade over the next few days. I'm not automatically opposed, but of course, it depends on who the Twins get in said deal.