The Minnesota Twins should be applauded for their 2018 trade decisions

Players Traded

After we accepted that the Minnesota Twins weren’t a playoff team this season, our reasonable next goal should be to shift our attention to next season and beyond. Nobody wants to watch a team put together a poor record for the last few months of the season, but it does the team no good to put out an average at best team for the rest of the season instead of improving their outlook for 2019 and beyond.

Dozier and Escobar were two fan favorites (I am no exception to this), and it hurts to see them traded. But as we move past the heartbreak of seeing them play in a different uniform, it gets easier and easier to recognize that it was smart to trade them as they are both free agents at the end of the season.

In fact, the only player the Twins traded that was under contract past the 2018 season is Ryan Pressly, who is under contract through 2019 (Fernando Rodney has a team option for 2019, and while there’s debate regarding if the Twins should have used that option or bought him out. I personally think he should have been bought out, ending his contract after this season).

Think about it. Dozier, Escobar, Lynn, and Duke were all free agents at the end of the season. There’s been a lot of talk among fans that Dozier and Escobar should have been extended instead of traded, but trading them now does not have any tangible impact on our ability to re-sign them at the end of the season.

The Twins actually did discuss an extension with Escobar earlier this season, which ultimately didn’t come to anything, but does show that they are interested in having him with the team in the future. It certainly hurts to see them go, but it does them no good to hold onto those players and finish the season a few games under .500. When instead the Twins could trade them and get several quality pieces in return while still having the opportunity to bring either player back after the season.

Same goes for Lance Lynn and Zach Duke. There’s simply no reason to hold onto either one of them, so we might as well take whatever we can get for them instead of holding them through the season and getting nothing when they likely do not return to the team in 2019.

As for Ryan Pressly and Fernando Rodney, those were a bit tougher of calls. Despite having several rough outings, I’m a firm believer that Pressly is a good reliever. He has great stuff, it’s just a matter of if it’s on when he’s in or not. He would have been a nice piece for the bullpen next season, but in all honesty, he’s pretty replaceable. The Twins should have no problem finding someone else to take his slot in the bullpen. There’s a variety of different options in the organization already, and there are always options in free agency as well.

With Fernando Rodney, there’s no denying he makes things interesting. But he simply plays with fire too much for me to be comfortable relying on him in big spots in the playoffs (should we even have gotten there in the first place). He had one of the coolest introductions a Twins closer has had in a long time, but besides that, there’s not any major reason why we should be too torn up about parting was with Rodney.

Players Acquired

Again, it’s easy to be frustrated when you see guys like Dozier and Escobar traded for some players you’ve never heard of before. But if we take some time to dig into what we got, it’s clear that the Twins made some good moves.

First and foremost, the overall effect these trades had on our farm system was awesome. Per MLB Pipeline, the Minnesota Twins now have the 6th best farm system in the MLB, and a large part of that is due to the pieces we acquired at the deadline. Now, we didn’t get any top 25 overall prospects or anything like that, but it would have been incredibly unrealistic to expect any. You just don’t get that kind of talent for pure rentals (players that will become free agents at the end of the season). The best prospect the Baltimore Orioles got after trading free-agent-to-be Manny Machado comes in just 54th among MLB Pipeline’s top 100 prospects.

With that said, we did get some real talent. Without getting to far into specifics of each player for now, of the 13 total players we acquired in trade, 5 of them immediately slot in as organizational top 30 prospects (Jorge Alcala at 13, Gilberto Celestino at 14, Gabriel Maciel at 17, Luke Raley at 19, and Jhoan Duran at 23, per MLB Pipeline). I think it’s fair to expect several more to move into our top 30 over the next year or two as well, namely Ryan Costello and Ernie de la Trinidad.

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There’s a few low risk, high reward, lottery ticket-type players as acquired, including Dakota Chalmers, who Twins pitching coach Garvin Alston noted has “ability…through the roof” and could be an “organization changer”. Luis Rijo is another very young, talented arm the Twins are hoping will pan out. We’re also taking a few shots at some bullpen arms. Chase De Jong and Devin Smeltzer haven’t done much to get very excited about, but at the absolute very least, they’ll both provide pitching depth in the minors as it’s fair to assume several players currently in the Twins’ farm system will be brought up over the next year. Plus, Tyler Austin has already proven to be worthwhile and has a place with the Twins in the MLB for the foreseeable future, not to mention bringing some pretty impressive power.

All in all, other than the discomfort of seeing Brian Dozier and Eduardo Escobar playing in a different uniform, there’s no reason not to like the trades the Minnesota Twins have made this year. It’s never fun to be sellers, but being realistic with where the team was at, it was undoubtedly the right move.

The Twins didn’t lose any of their long-term assets, haven’t pushed back their window of opportunity to compete at all, and restocked the farm system with abundance of quality talent and potential, as well as current MLBers Tyler Austin and Logan Forsythe.

2018 has been a disappointment, but the Twins made the best of a poor situation with several quality trades. Plus, don’t forget that we still may see Brian Dozier and/or Eduardo Escobar back with the Minnesota Twins next year.