The Sydney Blue Sox of the Australian Baseball League have announced that Twins farm-hand Tyler Herr will be their first import player from the United States and will join the team as they prepare to start their season. ABL teams are allowed to have up to six import players on the 35-man roster, and a maximum of four import players in the lineup at any given time. The 21-year old right-hander was a Twins 44th round pick in 2009 and has been in the Twins organization for 3 years playing for the GCL Twins in 2010-2011 and for the Elizabethton Twins this past season. With the E-Twins this year the 6’8″ Herr came out of the bullpen 21 times and posted a 3-0 record with a 2.56 ERA and struckout 29 batters in 31.2 innings.
Sydney’s ABL team will be working under new manager Jason “Pops” Pospishil, a current coach with the Minnesota Twins minor league system. Penrith local Pospishil will be preparing the Blue Sox for a three-game exhibition series against Australia from the 26th-28th of October. The Australia Series will serve as a warm-up for the forty-nine game Australian Baseball League schedule, with the three-game home opener against the Brisbane Bandits from November 9-11th.