The Twins have designated righty Austin Voth for assignment and optioned young lefty Kendry Rojas to Triple-A St. Paul, per a club announcement. Their spots on the active roster will go to left-hander Kody Funderburk and right-hander Marco Raya, both of whom have been recalled from Triple-A. Raya will be making his big league debut the first time he takes the mound.
Voth, 33, was signed to a minor league deal late last month and selected to the big league roster this week. He only made one appearance as a Twin, last night, during which he was tagged for five earned runs on 11 hits and a walk over four innings of long relief. Voth drew the tough task of facing a powerhouse Dodgers lineup in relief of the now-optioned Rojas, who pitched two innings to open yesterday’s game.
The well-traveled Voth has pitched 10 big league innings this year between Toronto and Minnesota, surrendering 11 earned runs in that time. It’s been a rocky stretch of three appearances, but the veteran swingman has a better track record than he’s shown this year. Voth entered the 2026 season with a lifetime 4.70 ERA in 360 1/3 innings and notched a 3.69 ERA in 61 frames as recently as 2024 with the Mariners. He spent the 2025 campaign pitching for the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, where he logged a 3.96 ERA in 125 innings. Voth has pitched well in Triple-A between the Jays and Twins organizations this season, recording a 3.65 ERA over 11 starts.
Minnesota will have five days to trade Voth, place him on outright waivers or release him. Waivers would be a 48-hour process, so his DFA will be resolved in no more than a week. Voth has the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency if he goes unclaimed on waivers.
By sending Rojas back to St. Paul, the Twins will give the promising young southpaw a chance to stretch out as a starter. He’d moved into Minnesota’s rotation in late May after the team designated Simeon Woods Richardson for assignment but has yet to build all the way up to a starter’s workload. He hasn’t topped four innings in an appearance this season (majors or minors) and recently spent three weeks on the injured list due to inflammation in his left triceps.
The Twins acquired Rojas and outfielder Alan Roden last summer in the trade sending reliever Louis Varland to the Blue Jays. Rojas is widely seen as one of the organization’s top pitching prospects and a potential long-term option in the rotation. He’s posted a 1.65 ERA in his first 16 1/3 MLB frames and had fared well in St. Paul prior to allowing five runs in an appearance during his recent minor league rehab stint. He should be given a chance to build up in St. Paul and, health permitting, will very likely get a more earnest rotation look with the big league club later this summer.
Raya, 23, was the Twins’ fourth-round pick in 2020 and has consistently been regarded as one of their system’s better arms since. The quality of his stuff has rarely been in question, but the 6’1″, 170-pound Raya is slight of frame relative to other starting pitchers. Durability and command concerns have plagued him throughout his pro career, and Minnesota moved him to a bullpen role full time this season — a move that many scouting reports had pegged as a strong likelihood in recent years.
The move to relief work this season has produced mixed results. Raya’s 5.54 ERA in 39 Triple-A innings is unsightly, but that number is skewed heavily by one calamitous outing in which Raya served up six runs while recording only one out. He’s logged a 4.18 ERA in his other 24 appearances. Raya has also fanned a sharp 24.1% of his opponents against a tidy 7.4% walk rate. He’s sitting 96 mph on his four-seamer this season and combining that pitch with a pair of distinct breaking balls (slider, curveball) that sit in the 85-86 mph range. Raya also throws a more seldom-used cutter and changeup, both of which reside around 90-91 mph.
Minnesota has cycled through plenty of reclamation arms in its quest to cobble together some semblance of a competent bullpen this season. It hasn’t worked. After trading five relievers last summer and doing virtually nothing to address the ‘pen over the winter, the Twins predictably have one of the worst bullpens in MLB — if not the worst. Twins relievers rank last in the majors with a 5.35 ERA. They’re also tied for the fourth-lowest strikeout rate (20.3%) and fourth-highest walk rate (11.7%) of any big league club. Raya’s promotion is different in that the club likely views him as a legitimate long-term option. That’s not to say he’s any sort of lock to stick, but he has more staying power than the parade of DFA placeholders through which they’ve cycled this season (e.g. Justin Lawrence, Zak Kent, Luis Garcia, Voth).
