The free agency flood gates have opened after Blake Snell signed a massive contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and now all eyes turn to what Juan Soto will do as his next move. After that it’s going to likely be a free for all when it comes to moves happening as the Winter Meetings arrive, but for the Minnesota Twins we’re all bracing for another cold winter.
Most of the rumors surrounding the Twins have been the opposite of exciting, as they either involve the team making low wattage moves or trading away good players to save money on a cheap payroll.
The latter is perhaps the most frustrating because it’s so transparently greedy — and counterproductive. Making matters worse is the fact that the most common name that has popped up in trade rumors with the Twins is Carlos Correa, which is bonkers for a number of reasons not the least of which is people are legitimately trying to make it make sense.
Nothing has really come of the rumors but they continue to hang around and have officially reached the point where national insiders are weighing in on matters.
MLB insider thinks Twins would ‘consider’ trading Carlos Correa
The Athletic’s Jim Bowden answered a question about the Correa trade rumors in his latest mailbag, and while he didn’t shoot the idea down he didn’t indulge the way some have done over the last month.
“The Twins love Correa, including his leadership and what he brings to the culture of their clubhouse. However, their three best players — Correa, Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton — have been injury-prone,” Bowden wrote. “If they could trade Correa to get younger and lessen the health risk of their lineup, they would have to consider it.”
Let’s be perfectly clear about this: the Twins would consider trading Correa but the idea of it happening is still far fetched and a long shot. It’s not that Correa wouldn’t bring back value, it’s that trading him is such a pathetic way to limply wave the white flag and the entire motivation being to save money is gross.
Punting on the Correa contract before the third year kicks in is ebarrassing, and sends all the wrong messages to the clubhouse and to fans. The Twins are significantly worse without Correa, and whatever return they’d get would be about the future and not about winning now.
It also sets a dangerous precedent and potentially opens up Pandroa’s Box, because if Correa is traded as a means of kicking the can down the road a few years where does the line end? What’s to stop the Twins from trading Byron Buxton or Pablo Lopez, and does that mean Royce Lewis suddenly becomes currency with Brooks Lee and Walker Jenkins looked at as the future?
Nothing good comes from trading Correa, especially how much it would kill fan morale — which is already nearing all-time lows. Trading him would tell everyone that the team isn’t taking the next year or so seriously and any winning that happens will be accidental and not part of the larger plan.
All of this is to say the probability of the Twins trading Correa is low, but that’s not going to stop the conversation from happening anyway. Hopefully, for the sake of fans, that’s where things end.
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