The Minnesota Twins will need to add a corner infielder this offseason and have been linked to Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.
Minnesota Twins chatter on Twitter was very active Tuesday night and it was a little more active than is normal for Rule 5 deadline day. That was certainly a topic of conversation, but drawing even more attention was the report that came from Jon Morosi’s Twitter account which linked the Twins to the Arizona Diamondback’s first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.
There was plenty of reason for the excitement to quickly die down over the Goldschmidt news. First of all, Morosi himself mentioned the fact that even though the two sides have had talks those talks haven’t advanced over the last several days. Then later The Athletic’s Dan Hayes confirmed that the conversation was merely preliminary and hasn’t had much more traction to it to this point.
Checked in with a #MNTwins source on the Paul Goldschmidt rumor. The conversation, as @jonmorosi stated, was preliminary. It doesn’t appear to be a path the Twins will go down.
— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) November 21, 2018
There is plenty of reason why we all get a little excited when a name like Goldschmidt gets linked back to the Twins. Not only are we itching to know what this front office will do with money and trade assets at their disposal, but the Twins as mentioned by Morosi, also had the 5th lowest OPS in the majors. Something that Goldschmidt could certainly help with.
Since 2013 when Goldschmidt started his run of All-Star appearances he has only turned in an OPS under .900 once. And that one time was in 2016 when his OPS was .899. Goldschmidt is as complete of a hitter as you can get as he boasts a good average, on-base percentage, and power. In 2018 he slashed .290/.389/.533 and hit 35 doubles and 33 home runs.
As we can likely assume from the fact that talks have reportedly died down between Arizona and Minnesota, it is going to be hard for teams to agree on the trade value of Goldschmidt this offseason. Goldschmidt only has one year remaining on his deal for the amount of $14.5 million. The Twins certainly won’t blush at the money, but it may be the players going Arizona’s way where the disagreement comes in.
As much as Goldschmidt would immediately boost the Twins lineup I wouldn’t want to give up too much for the first baseman. Depending on the plans for other aspects of the offseason I might be willing to do a Stephen Gonsalves or LaMonte Wade centered deal but wouldn’t want to sell the farm for Goldschmidt.
What are your thoughts? Is this the deal the Twins need to go in on or is there a better trade out there you would like to see?