Twins release prospect catcher for tipping pitches to opponent

Minnesota Twins prospect Derek Bender reportedly just wanted his season to be over.

Now his career with the organization, and perhaps his career in baseball, is over instead.

The Twins released Bender, their sixth-round pick from the 2024 MLB Draft, after it was found that he was tipping pitches to opposing hitters during a Florida State League game with playoff implications.

According to a report from ESPN's Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel, Bender, who was playing for the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels, was telling opposing hitters from the Lakeland Flying Tigers what pitch was coming during at-bats.

Lakeland ended up winning the game, 6-0, after scoring four runs in the second inning. That result eliminated Fort Myers from playoff contention after they had held a six-game lead in the standings just a couple of weeks earlier.

According to the report, Lakeland coaches informed Fort Myers about Bender's actions after the game.

His reason for doing so was that he had reportedly told teammates he wanted the season to be over.

From ESPN:

Fort Myers coaches were notified by Lakeland coaches about Bender's pitch tipping following the game, sources said. Bender's willingness to tip pitches surprised Lakeland players, and there are no indications of wrongdoing from the Flying Tigers, sources said. Bender had told teammates he wanted the season to be over, according to sources.

Bender received a $297,500 signing bonus when he signed with the team, and will reportedly be allowed to keep all of it.

This entire story is, quite literally, something out of a South Park episode ("The Losing Edge") where the boys in the show were tired of their little league baseball season and were attempting to come up with creative new ways to lose games to end their season, and failing to do so. Bender actually did it in real life.

This is not the type of thing that will bet Bender banned or suspended, but it is probably going to significantly hurt his chances of ever playing professional baseball again. There is pretty much no justification for doing that sort of thing in any game, let alone one with playoff implications, and no team is ever going to take him seriously again as a competitive professional.