What should the Twins be thinking coming in?
If I’m Thad Levine or Derek Falvey, I’m going all-in on this Twins team. Sure, they have their flaws and their recent play might have some gritting their teeth, but they have the offensive ability to hang with any team in Major League Baseball and enough pitching to give their lineup to come away with the win.
While the Twins could sit on their hands and hope for the best, the chance to land an elite reliever or another quality starter is one they can’t pass up. During the past couple of weeks, Twins starters haven’t been able to go deep into games, which has, in turn, exposed their bullpen. While upgrading the back end is important, the starting rotation shouldn’t be ignored.
In order to make a solid offer, the Twins need to look at previous deals to see what could be a precedent. The best one that I thought of was the deal that sent Justin Verlander to Houston in August 2017. In that deal, the Astros coughed up Franklin Perez (No. 3 prospect according to MLB Pipeline at the time), Daz Cameron (No. 9) and Jake Rogers (No. 11) to get their eventual ace.
On the flip side, the Giants are also going to be looking for a haul in exchange for Smith. The left-hander has had a dominant season and Reuter recently compared it to the season Aroldis Chapman had in 2016 for the New York Yankees. That year, Chapman was dealt at the deadline to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Gleyber Torres, Billy McKinney, Adam Warren and Rashad Crawford.
Torres has developed into a two-time All-Star for the Yankees since the deal and McKinney has started to earn major league playing time in Toronto after being sent over in a deal that landed J.A. Happ. Warren and Crawford haven’t done much, but the acquisition of Torres (and the re-signing of Chapman the following offseason) was worth making the deal.
In other words, the Twins would need a lot to make either happen, but if we’re going all in, why not shoot for the moon and get both?