Mickey Gasper gives Twins options as a versatile infielder-catcher

FORT MYERS, FLA. – Mickey Gasper had just sat down to Christmas Eve dinner in New Jersey with his parents, sister and her husband when his phone rang.

“It said ‘Boston Red Sox,’ so I said I’ve got to take this call,” Gasper said. “I’d been watching MLB Network, I figured they weren’t done [signing players]. I thought, ‘Did they sign [Alex] Bregman? Am I getting DFA’d?’ ”

Instead, a Red Sox executive told Gasper, a 29-year-old catcher and infielder, that he had been traded.

“They said ‘You’re going to the Minnesota Twins,’ ” in exchange for pitcher Jovani Morán, Gasper said. “I’m like, ‘Hell yeah, let’s go! Merry Christmas! I’ve still got a job!’ ”

It may turn out that the Twins were the ones receiving a Christmas present. Gasper has only 13 games of major league experience with the Red Sox, but his play over the past month, and especially at the plate, has given the switch hitter a reasonable shot at earning a reserve role on the Twins roster.

“All he’s done is hit,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of Gasper, who even after Friday’s 0-for-3 (with a sacrifice fly) owns a .350 batting average and .864 OPS for the spring. “In the minor leagues, he’s basically got a career .400 on-base [percentage]. He’s got a great, flat, direct — very direct — path to the ball. He just tries to hit line drives all over the field.”

And sometimes over the field. Gasper smacked a home run into the right-field seats against the Yankees on Thursday, part of a three-hit, two-RBI day made all the more memorable by the presence of his fiancée, a Tampa resident, in the stands and his lifelong favorite team in the other dugout.

“It was pretty fun, I won’t lie. It was televised on YES Network [the Yankees’ home channel], so my parents got to watch, too,” said Gasper, who grew up a Yankees fan despite living in New Hampshire. “I always just try to put the barrel on the ball, and lucky for me, I found some grass.”

Gasper says he’s taken “a long, tough road” to the major leagues, in part because of that New England upbringing.

“Playing high school baseball in New Hampshire doesn’t get you seen a whole lot. Not a lot of recruiters around,” he said. “Luckily enough, Bryant University saw me and I went and played baseball there. It’s a small D-I school [in Smithfield, R.I.] but it’s a heck of a program” that now has sent two players — Gasper and his college roommate, former Guardians pitcher James Karinchak — to the majors.

Gasper was a 27th-round pick by the Yankees in 2018, but his career was stalled by the cancellation of minor league baseball during the pandemic in 2020, and a serious thumb injury in Class A the following May.

“I was catching, and there was a play at the plate,” Gasper said. “I held on to the ball. He was out. But I didn’t get back until the last week of August.”

The Red Sox took Gasper in the minor league Rule 5 draft in 2023, then called him up to the majors in August, giving him three starts at second base. That versatility — Gasper plays first base, too, as well as catching — intrigued the Twins. Well, so did his career .392 on-base percentage in the minors.

“His name came up in a conversation with the Red Sox, and we knew he had had some interesting performances in the minor leagues,” Twins President Derek Falvey said. “Given where we were with our roster, another depth option for us at first base made sense.”

Even more so now that they have seen him up close.

“He’s been everything as advertised. He certainly has a knack for getting on base. He’s a tough player, and having a guy who can be an emergency catcher is useful,” Twins bench coach Jayce Tingler said. “He’s kind of an old-time baseball player. Great at-bats, he’s been solid defensively. He’s gotten off to a nice start in camp.”

Gasper is intent upon keeping that going, and is especially focused on making the Twins comfortable with him in the infield. He knows he’s not a Gold Glove fielder — ask him what his best position is, and he replies “lefthanded hitter” — but he believes he can be average or better in the infield.

“Second base, I’m feeling great. It’s a lot of reps with [infield coach] Ramon Borrego getting as many ground balls as I can each morning, before and after the workouts,” Gasper said. “First base or second, I’m trying to stay smooth, stay relaxed. You’ve got to want the ball hit to you. And I do.”