Jake Eder joined the Chicago White Sox organization in a 2023 trade deadline deal that sent infielder Jake Burger to the Miami Marlins.

Cristian Mena ranked among the minor-league leaders in strikeouts.

The Sox added both pitching prospects to their 40-man roster Tuesday.

Tuesday was the deadline for teams to add to their 40-man rosters and protect eligible players from the Rule 5 draft on Dec. 6.

Eder, 24, went 0-3 with an 11.42 ERA in five starts at Double-A Birmingham after being acquired in the Aug. 1 trade. He had 22 strikeouts in 17 1/3 innings.

Overall in 2023, the left-hander had a combined 2-6 record with a 6.35 ERA and 70 strikeouts in 14 starts between Class A Jupiter and Double-A Pensacola in the Marlins organization and with the Barons.

Eder also made six appearances (five starts) with the Glendale Desert Dogs of the Arizona Fall League, going 1-1 with a 6.11 ERA. He struck out 16 batters in 17 2/3 innings.

Eder was originally selected by the Marlins in the fourth round of the 2020 draft out of Vanderbilt and is 5-11 with a 3.80 ERA and 169 strikeouts in 29 starts during two minor-league seasons. He missed all of 2022 while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

He is the No. 5 prospect in the Sox organization, according to MLB.com.

Mena, 20, is ranked the No. 10 prospect in the Sox system by MLB.com. The right-hander went a combined 8-7 with a 4.85 ERA and 156 strikeouts in 27 starts between Birmingham and Triple-A Charlotte in 2023.

He was 7-6 with a 4.66 ERA in 23 starts for the Barons and 1-1 with a 5.95 ERA in four starts for the Knights.

Mena finished 15th among all minor-league pitchers in strikeouts. He ranked first among the Sox organizational leaders in strikeouts and innings (133 2/3), tied for first in starts and tied for second in victories.

Originally signed as an international free agent from the Dominican Republic on July 2, 2019, Mena is 11-17 with a 4.97 ERA and 344 strikeouts in 64 career games (63 starts) during three minor-league seasons in the Sox organization.

With Tuesday’s moves, the Sox 40-man roster increases to 37.

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DES MOINES, Iowa — Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in Iowa, is widely expected to endorse Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary.

At this point, that’s a big gamble.

Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader, has picked correctly in every recent GOP primary, backing Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Ted Cruz in 2016. All three won Iowa but went on to lose the primary.

But now, with Donald Trump dominating the field, he is poised to back a candidate who is running 30 points behind the frontrunner here — testing not only the clout of his own endorsement, but the willingness of evangelicals to abandon Trump.

“Bob normally rushes to the front of the parade toward the end of the caucus campaign,” said GOP operative Doug Gross, who was chief of staff to former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and plans to caucus for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. “In this case I think he’s trying to move the parade, and that’s much more difficult to do.”

For DeSantis, Vander Plaats’ support — on the heels of the recent endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds — would offer a boost to his campaign as he seeks to erode Trump’s lead in the Hawkeye State. He is banking his White House aspirations on a solid performance in Iowa, amid dismal polling in New Hampshire and Haley’s ascent.

But for Vander Plaats, endorsing DeSantis poses a risk. He is all but certain to further anger the former president and overwhelming frontrunner — some of whose supporters have taken to derisively calling him “Vander Poop.”

And he is in danger of parting ways with evangelical Christians who support Trump over more religious candidates like DeSantis, even as Trump continues to skip events hosted by the Family Leader, denigrates strict abortion bans that evangelicals hold dear and espouses the kind of menacing language Vander Plaats ridiculed at his “Thanksgiving Family Forum” on Friday night in Des Moines.

Despite it all, evangelical Christians continue to support Trump.

As he interviewed DeSantis, Haley and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy in a Marriott ballroom, Vander Plaats acknowledged as much.

“The Iowa poll came out; showed you a distant second,” Vander Plaats told DeSantis. “You dig deeper into the poll and you see that you are the second choice for Trump voters and your voters — the second choice is Trump. And so the biggest comment or the biggest question is, why doesn’t he just wait his turn?”

Masked as a challenge, the question provided DeSantis an opportunity to provide his closing argument to the approximately 800 people in attendance.

“We’re a republic. It’s not about waiting your turn,” DeSantis said to applause. “We are in jeopardy of turning over to the next generation of Americans an America less prosperous and less free than the America we inherited.”

He peppered his answer with criticisms of Trump, from his failure to deliver on 2016 campaign promises like building a Southern border wall, to concerns over his viability in a general election, to his penchant for “entertainment.”

But DeSantis and his rivals tacitly recognized Trump’s popularity a few minutes later. When Vander Plaats asked each to describe “the greatest moral threat we face as a country,” none mentioned the 91 felony charges facing Trump or the former president’s false insistence that the 2020 election was rigged.

DeSantis’ performance earned him plaudits from some pastors in the audience who plan to participate in Iowa’s caucuses on Jan. 15.

“It was definitely DeSantis’ night,” said Mike Demastus, executive pastor of Fort Des Moines Church of Christ. “He had the most deliberate and effective answers. He got the largest applause.”

Demastus said he has yet to decide on his preferred candidate and called Vander Plaats’ likely endorsement “the worst-kept secret in Iowa politics.”

Earlier this week, CBS reported that DeSantis told fundraisers he expects Vander Plaats’ endorsement within a week of the summit, which the DeSantis campaign denied.

DeSantis’ operation — which has said it would be satisfied with a strong second-place in Iowa — has poured more money into ads in Iowa than any of his rivals, by far. As of ad buy tallies on Friday, DeSantis and the super PAC all but running his campaign have bought nearly $19 million in ads here through the caucuses, according to AdImpact.

“DeSantis is having a good resurgence in Iowa,” said GOP operative David Kochel, who has worked on multiple presidential campaigns in Iowa. “If he’s going to compete to win Iowa, this is the coalition he needs.”

The Twins tendered contracts to all but two of their arbitration-eligible players ahead of Friday’s 7 p.m. deadline, notably Kyle Farmer and Willi Castro, veteran pieces of the team’s American League Central Division championship, and recent high draft picks Alexi Kirilloff and Ryan Jeffers.

While some of the decisions weren’t much of decisions at all — as with Kirilloff and Jeffers — there were questions around other players, either because they were coming off of an injury-plagued season or because of salary. The Twins also tendered Caleb Thielbar, Jorge Alcala and Nick Gordon.

Pitchers Jovani Moran and Ronny Henriquez were non-tendered but are expected to be re-signed to minor league deals.

Farmer, perhaps, was the biggest question mark. The Twins have been highly complimentary of Farmer — both because of his play on the field and his presence in the clubhouse — since he arrived in Minnesota last year. But he’s due a projected $6.6 million in arbitration, per MLB Trade Rumors.

That’s a hefty amount considering he’s not expected to be a starter, and the Twins are planning on cutting payroll from the approximately $153.6 million they spent in 2023. While they tendered him a contract, the Twins could still explore a trade partner for the infielder.

Gordon, out of the lineup with a broken shin after fouling a ball off his leg in May, and Alcala, who dealt with an arm injury for much of the season, are each expected to earn around $1 million in arbitration. That’s a slight bump over major league minimum for a pair of players whose spot on the 26-man roster to begin next season is uncertain.

Castro, whom the Twins signed as a minor league free agent last offseason, turned into one of the team’s most valuable players, appearing in 124 games at multiple positions. He is expected to earn around $3.2 million next year.

Thielbar, a left-hander who posted a 3.23 earned-run average last season, is expected to earn around $3 million next year, while Jeffers is due a bump to around $2.3 million and Kirilloff around $1.7 million, per MLB Trade Rumors.

On Tuesday, right-hander Sonny Gray, the American League Cy Young Award runner-up, declined the one-year, $20.325 million qualifying offer the Twins extended and became an unrestricted free agent.

The Twins now have 36 players on their 40-man roster: 17 pitchers, three catchers, eight infielders and eight outfielders.

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St. Paul police are investigating a homicide in a downtown apartment building after a woman was found dead there Friday morning.

After a 911 caller asked for a welfare check on the woman, fire department paramedics, followed by police officers, entered the apartment in the Press House building shortly after 9:30 a.m. Friday. They found the woman deceased with obvious signs of trauma on her body, police department spokesman Mike Ernster said Friday night.

Officers summoned homicide detectives, who were still at the scene at 345 Cedar St. on Friday night.

So far this year, police have been called to the Press House apartments 292 times. Ernster said that, in general, apartment buildings tend to have a higher number of police calls than the average St. Paul address, though he noted that the Press House “has had its challenges.”

The apartment building previously housed the offices of the Pioneer Press before it underwent a conversion four years ago as income-restricted housing.

Police said the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office will conduct an autopsy to positively identify the victim and determine her cause of death.

The case marks the 30th homicide this year in St. Paul.

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