Jason Kubel has been released by the Twins after being designated for assignment and passing through waivers unclaimed by the other 29 teams. Kubel rejected an assignment to the the minors, choosing to hit the open market again as a free agent rather than play at Triple-A for the Twins.
Kubel is only 32 years old and had a career-high 30 homers as recently as 2012, but he’s hit just .219 with six homers and a .609 OPS in 142 games since then and looked completely washed up during the past two months. He got off to a nice start for Minnesota, but then batted .177 with zero homers and 52 strikeouts over a 38-game stretch.
He made the Twins out of spring training on a minor-league contract, returning to Minnesota after playing there from 2004-2011, and earned $2 million on the deal.
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