Anthony Swarzak hung up the phone at his south Florida home last November, and felt a little dazed. It was a couple of days before Thanksgiving, and Terry Ryan had just called to deliver some shocking yet not surprising news: After 11 years as a member of the Twins organization, spanning his entire adult life, he was now unemployed. An ex-Twin.
"It was a little surreal, really," Swarzak said of that phone call. "It was a little scary. You realize, 'Wow, I'm jobless.' "
But not for long. Swarzak found another job in the major leagues, joining a lengthy list of Twins alumni who now wear another uniform. As the 2015 baseball season gets underway at various levels and leagues, at least 72 former Twins are playing elsewhere, including 30 in the major leagues.
Last season wound up with 44 former Twins playing at least one game in the majors. The attrition is due in part to retirements of such players as Ryan Doumit, Josh Willingham and Nick Punto; the ongoing search for new opportunities by such players as Grant Balfour, Kevin Slowey and Jose Mijares; the minor league comeback attempts by pitchers Kevin Correia, Matt Capps and Jared Burton; and the return to Minnesota of Torii Hunter, no longer an ex-Twin.
It's a group that Swarzak knew he would join eventually — "Being in the bullpen, you can't expect to spend your whole career with one team," he said — but that didn't lessen the jolt he received when he was formally removed from the 40-man roster, making him a free agent at the age of 29. "My wife did all the panicking for me, but I was pretty confident with my stuff and what I could offer a team," Swarzak said. "I knew I would pitch somewhere, so it actually got king of exciting."
He had been with the Twins since being drafted in 2004 as a high school senior and had been a regular in the major leagues since 2011. Initially a long reliever, Swarzak showed signs of growing into a more important role in 2013, when his strikeouts spiked, his walks dropped and he posted a career-best 2.91 ERA. But he ballooned back to 4.60 last season, an ERA inflated in part because the Twins granted his wish to start in September, a three-game experiment that went badly.
"Maybe as a professional ballplayer, I should know my limitations," he said of his campaign for a starting role. "Those [starts] inflated my numbers. I think I'm done saying that."
They made it harder to find a guaranteed major league job. He received a handful of invitations to training camp but decided to accept the guaranteed money being offered by the Doosan Bears in Korea. A day before he was to sign the contract, the Indians contacted Swarzak's agent. Swarzak called manager Terry Francona and was convinced by his enthusiasm, even though it didn't come with a guaranteed roster spot.
