Former Twins prospect Derek Bender has finally addressed the stunning accusations that he tipped pitches to opponents while playing catcher during a minor-league game in September, denying the claims that led to the organization cutting him.
“No,” Bender told The Athletic in his first public comments since his release. “And I’ll live with this until the day I die. I never gave pitches away. I never tried to give the opposing team an advantage against my own team.”
Bender, 22, was selected in the sixth round of the 2024 MLB Draft out of Coastal Carolina and was playing for the Twins’ Single-A affiliate in Fort Myers, Fla..
He admitted on Sept. 6 before a doubleheader that he expressed a desire for the season to end, and said he was joking when telling teammates it wouldn’t be a bad thing if a grounder slipped under their gloves as the team was two losses from being eliminated from playoff contention.
Family friend and hitting coach Dan Sausville told The Athletic that Bender was “in a bad place” the week of the fateful game and told one of Bender’s agents at Octagon — who dropped him as a client for speaking to The Athletic, ignoring their advice to not do interviews — that Bender needed to get home to South Carolina.
“A lot of us are coming off of college seasons, coming off of a pretty grueling summer schedule,” Bender told The Athletic. “Then you get there and you’re hitting .200, you’re facing some of the best stuff consistently you’ve ever seen. You’re sinking or swimming, and you’re pretty close to sinking.
“The conversations are that everybody’s ready to go home.”
But in the wake of the allegations that have put his career in jeopardy — MLB is still investigating the incident and has evidence against Bender, per The Athletic — he is laying low in a one-bedroom home in Schenectady, N.Y., hoping not to be recognized while dealing with being a pariah as teammates and friends don’t respond to his messages.
“There are a lot of times where you’re talking with people that you thought you were friends with, they just don’t look at you the same,” Bender said. “I’ve heard my friends get questioned about me, why they’re still friends with me. That’s hard to hear.
“It’s not like I’m getting accused of committing a crime.”
Bender said the Twins were willing to keep him if he confessed to tipping pitches and apologize, but he refused to admit guilt.
“The only thing I had left was my character at that point,” Bender told The Athletic. “Literally, the way they put it was, ‘If you want to die by the sword, we’ll release you.’ I knew there was no bluffing involved.”
Bender currently has a deal to play for the Brockton Rox in the independent Frontier League this summer to earn $1,200, pending the result of MLB’s probe.
His mom Diane is devastated, telling The Athletic she wakes up and cries in the middle of the night.
“It breaks my heart for my kid,” she says, “that it’s a possibility that he might not be able to play this game again at a high level. Because that’s all he ever wanted to do.”