The Twins Sign Ageless RHP Jesse Chavez, 40, to bolster their depleted bullpen.
There is not a single penny left in the Minnesota Twins’ dwindling 2024 baseball budget. The gaps they still have and their unwillingness to fill them, regardless of how good a deal the pricing might be, have made that much obvious.
The only place to shop when you’re a broke front office in MLB is the discount aisle, which typically contains the bins of MLB free agency that read “coulda been,” “if healthy,” and “probably should have retired by now.” To be honest, the Twins have spent many years getting to know this offseason aisle.
However, even these bins are heavily sifted through during opening week when you’re perusing the sale section. Enter Jesse Chavez, the new right-hander for the Twins. He is a 40-year-old journeyman who signed with Minnesota on Sunday, only hours after being released from the Chicago White Sox camp, according to Twins Daily.
Throughout his Major League career, which started in 2008 when he was 24 years old in the Pittsburgh bullpen, Jesse Chavez has spent time in and out of the bullpen. In 2009, he made his major league debut for the Pirates with a 4.01 ERA (104 ERA+) in 67.1 innings.
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But after that, he had trouble. Chavez traveled the length of the continent in shipping between 2010 and 2012. In 2010, he was moved to Atlanta prior to the deadline, then relocated to Kansas City, Toronto, and finally Oakland. His ERA skyrocketed to 7.29 (57 ERA+) in 95 innings pitched during that period. But what transpired during his final visit to Toronto altered the trajectory of Chavez’s career. During his time with the Blue Jays, he started two games in the first half of the season.
