Twins reliever Taylor Rogers celebrates 10 years of service time

NEW YORK — When Taylor Rogers reached free agency this offseason, this day was on his mind.

A young Taylor Rogers would have never thought he was going to make it to 10 years of service time — a milestone that fewer than 10 percent of players get to — but as he started to near the accomplishment, coming back to the place his career started felt like a natural fit.

“When last year ended and I knew I was close, I wanted to do it somewhere where I wanted to be,” Rogers said. “Hell, I’ve got to be the luckiest guy around, starting in a place that I liked, play with my brother (Tyler) for two years, and then come back to that place. That’s got to be a storybook thing.”

Rogers, 35, celebrated 10 years of major league service time on Tuesday in New York before the Twins took on the Mets, just weeks after teammate Byron Buxton did the same. Both were part of the Twins’ 2012 draft class.

“Obviously, it’s a lot of people who come and go throughout this game, so to be able to celebrate it with him and we started our career here together, it’s very special, for sure,” Buxton said.

Buxton remembers watching Rogers back when the two were in the lower levels of the minor leagues. It was early August 2013 and Rogers, then a starter, threw a complete game, allowing no runs and striking out seven for Class A-Advanced Fort Myers. Buxton got the feeling he was watching somebody special.

“That was kind of the first time I was like, ‘Alright, Rog is going to be here a long time,’ ” Buxton said.

And true to prediction, he has.

Rogers debuted with the Twins in 2016, carving out a role in their bullpen over the next handful of years before eventually becoming an all-star closer. In 2022, the Twins traded him right before Opening Day to the San Diego Padres. He has bounced around since then, playing for Milwaukee, San Francisco — where he joined a bullpen with his identical twin brother, Tyler — Cincinnati and the Chicago Cubs.

Ahead of this season, he signed a one-year, $2 million deal to return to where he started.

“(It’s) pretty cool,” Rogers said of reaching 10 years in Minnesota. “Kind of wraps it all around.”

The Twins held a pregame ceremony to honor Taylor and his parents, as well as his sister-in-law and two young nephews who were on hand. Though Tyler, who now pitches for the Toronto Blue Jays, was not able to attend, he did FaceTime in to share in his twin’s special moment.

That, Taylor said, is when he started getting emotional.

Tyler sent over a large bottle of Caymus wine with all the teams Taylor had played for represented on the bottle. He also was gifted a Rolex watch from team ownership, a bottle of Ace of Spades champagne, and a customized golf bag and trip to Pebble Beach from his teammates.

Earlier this spring, fellow reliever Justin Topa asked long-time equipment manager Rod McCormick about Rogers’ interests so that they could get him a gift that would be meaningful to him.

“He was like, ‘Well, he likes three things: he likes golf, the Denver Broncos and Bud Light,’ ” Topa said. “So, I was like, ‘Alright, we’ll lock in with the golf theme.’ ”

Rogers has never been to Pebble Beach, the famed course along the Monterey Peninsula in California, but said no one will have to “twist my arm to get out there.” First, he has another milestone he’s got his eye on: Ten years on the active roster. Rogers missed two months on the injured list earlier in his career, so if he stays healthy for the next two months, he will get there soon.

Not bad for an 11th-round draft pick who was just hoping to stay in the majors for a couple years so he could put off having to “get a job right away.”

“I kind of told everybody that the coolest part was the acknowledgments from each guy, people around the league, kind of how the respect from your peers is looked at,” Rogers said. “That’s kind of what means the most about it.”