A few days after he was designated for assignment, Kody Clemens’s Phillies tenure is over: He’s going to the Minnesota Twins, as first reported by The Athletic‘s Ken Rosenthal.
Clemens all but confirmed the news while thanking the Phillies with a message on X.
Thank you Philly! It was an amazing chapter in my book! Thankful for all the memories and relationships I’ve created over the past 3 seasons!
Extremely excited for this new opportunity in Minnesota!
Let’s go Twins! pic.twitter.com/DrcQwTj2Ka
— Kody Clemens (@kodyclem) April 26, 2025
Clemens had been designated for assignment on Wednesday as the corresponding move to Weston Wilson’s activation from the injured list. The club had seven days to either trade Clemens or place him on waivers; it’s not yet clear via which method the Twins acquired him, but it feels likely Clemens generated some trade interest.
The eventual DFA was a move that was easy to foresee ever since Clemens made the Opening Day roster in the wake of Wilson’s spring injury. As a left-handed hitter on a team full of them, Clemens’s role on the big-league club wasn’t obvious — and that awkward fit bore out, with Clemens recording only seven plate appearances through the season’s first 24 games.
The supplementary piece in the January 2023 Gregory Soto trade (though the latter never met expectations in Philadelphia), Clemens appeared in 97 regular-season games with the Phillies, slashing .220/.265/.394. He also appeared in all four games of last year’s NLDS, with two hits in five at bats.
The numbers won’t jump off the page, but he had his moments. He walked off his former Detroit Tigers with a double on June 8, 2023; hit a game-tying two-out homer against the Nationals in the ninth inning of an eventual May 18, 2024 win; and walked off the Rays on Sept. 9, 2024.
For good measure, he also made five pitching appearances for the Phillies. He threw a perfect inning against the Dodgers on June 10, 2023.
He’ll have a clearer path to playing time — position playing time, that is — in Minnesota, given the Twins’ banged-up infield. Rookie infielder Luke Keaschall broke his forearm on Friday, Willi Castro recently went on the shelf and Royce Lewis hasn’t made his season debut.
Clemens spent most of his time with the Phillies at first base, but he also played a decent amount of third base, second base and left field last year. While with Philadelphia, he appeared at every position except center field and catcher.
