The Twins made it official on August 14, designating catcher Alex Jackson for assignment. It's not a performance story so much as a numbers game — Minnesota needed to clear a 40-man spot after activating Byron Buxton off the injured list ahead of Thursday's Field of Dreams Game against the Phillies, and Jackson was the odd man out.
Buxton had been out since late July with a recurring right hip impingement — the same injury that also cost him the All-Star Game he was named to start. Both Minnesota and Philadelphia carried 27-man rosters for the special Iowa event, so the corresponding roster crunch didn't hit until the Twins reverted to a standard 26-man group. Jackson, who hadn't started a game since July 30 and had just one at-bat all of August, was the clear cut.
This is the classic squeeze that comes with carrying three catchers on a roster built for two. Minnesota signed Victor Caratini over the winter to back up Ryan Jeffers, which left Jackson without a real path to playing time even before Thursday's move. He arrived in Minnesota via a November trade with the Orioles that sent minor league infielder Payton Eeles to Baltimore, brought in as insurance after Christian Vazquez left in free agency.
Jackson, the former No. 6 overall pick back in 2014, never quite turned that pedigree into consistent big league production. He's a career.174/.252/.305 hitter across 189 games, and this season brought a rough 23-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in just 69 plate appearances. Because he's out of options, Minnesota had to pull him off the 40-man roster entirely rather than simply option him to the minors — hence the DFA instead of a quiet demotion.
He's owed roughly $300K of his $1.35M salary, and reports indicate he can't chase free agency without walking away from that money. The likelier outcome: Minnesota puts him on waivers, he clears, and he accepts an outright assignment down to Triple-A St. Paul, where he'd stay stashed as organizational catching depth rather than see the majors again anytime soon.
None of this is really about Jackson struggling worse than usual — it's about Buxton's timing. Getting a $20,000-bonus showcase game against Philadelphia lined up right as he came off the IL forced Minnesota's hand on a move that was probably coming eventually anyway. Watch for the corresponding pitching or bullpen addition once the waiver process on Jackson wraps up.