A Familiar Face And A New One; Mark Contreras and David Bañuelos Join Saints

LOUISVILLE, KY (June 2, 2021) - The Saints roster shuffle carried on with two players added on Wednesday. Outfielder Mark Contreras was assigned to St. Paul, after being transferred to Wichita on Tuesday. Joining him is catcher David Bañuelos, who will be making his first appearance on a Triple-A roster.

Contreras, 26, already had a stint with the Saints this season, playing six games with St. Paul. He hit .200 through 26 at-bats. Contreras had four hits, two of which were doubles, and drove in a pair of runs as well.

Contreras started the 2021 season with the Wichita Wind Surge, hitting .254 with four doubles and two home runs through 18 games. The Moreno Valley, CA native already has a six-game hit streak under his belt, from May 16-22, hitting both of his home runs in that span. He also had a stretch of four straight games with a RBI.

In 2019, the University of California-Riverside product started in the Florida State League with Fort Myers and played in 27 games before being promoted to Double-A Pensacola. Contreras went on to finish the season with the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, hitting .247 and setting his career-high with 10 homers. He also went on to win a Rawlings MiLB Gold Glove by not committing an error in 784.1 innings in the outfield between Fort Myers and Pensacola.

The 2018 season started strong for Contreras, where he hit .440 in seven games with Cedar Rapids before earning the promotion to Fort Myers, where he hit a career-high 15 doubles and collected another career-best with 39 RBIs.

Over the course of his four-year career, Contreras has committed just five errors in a total of 2,100.2 innings, which checks out to a .998 fielding percentage. His last error was 1,067 days ago on July 1st, 2018.

Contreras was drafted in the ninth round of the 2017 First-Year Player Draft and has spent the entirety of his career with the Twins organization.

Bañuelos, 24, did not see any action in 2020. He started the 2021 season with Double-A Wichita, batting .132 through 10 games with the Wind Surge. His final game with Wichita was a 2-4 outing, his first multi-hit effort of the season. While behind the plate, he threw out six of 12 base runners. That 10-game stretch was his first time in Double-A.

In 2019, the Ontario, California native split time between Cedar Rapids and Fort Myers. He played his first 45 games with the Kernels, hitting .214 with four doubles, a triple, and two homers. He earned the promotion to Fort Myers, where he hit .163 through his final 45 games of the season, including four more doubles, another triple and 11 RBIs. The 2018 season for Bañuelos was also spent in Cedar Rapids, where he hit .220 and hit a career-high 14 doubles winning the Harmon Killebrew Award for minor league community service, making him just the sixth winner of the award at the Low-A level.

Originally a fifth-round draft pick by the Seattle Mariners in 2017, Bañuelos came to the Twins via trade with Seattle, in exchange for international bonus pool money on December 6, 2017. He was named a Northwest League All-Star with Everett in 2017, batting .295 leading up to the All-Star break.

Contreras and Bañuelos take the place of catcher Ryan Jeffers and outfielder Gilberto Celestino, both of whom were promoted to Minnesota on Tuesday. Jeffers was hitting .217 with five home runs and 16 RBI in 24 games. Celestino had just joined the Saints on Monday and was scheduled to be in the lineup on Tuesday before the game was rained out.

The Saints roster now consists of 28 players, 16 pitchers and 12 position players, with two on the injured list and one on the temporary inactive list.