It was an abrupt ending for nearly half of the Minnesota Twins' Major League roster ahead of the trade deadline last Thursday, when 10 players were moved by the end of the day. There certainly was an expectation that the Twins were going to move their rental players, and even Jhoan Duran became likely to be moved. However, no one could have predicted the Twins were going to take a wrecking ball to their bullpen. However, at least for Griffin Jax, it was a move that he was seeking after the fire sale began.
Dan Hayes of The Athletic reports that as soon as the Twins' front office started making deals ahead of last Thursday's deadline, Jax requested to be traded. Hayes also mentioned that Jax and Twins' manager Rocco Baldelli had a falling out after the team's loss to the Boston Red Sox last Wednesday, but that isn't believed to be the primary reason behind his trade request.
In speaking with reporters, Derek Falvey explained how the Jax trade came to be.
“In Jax’s case, a lot of the other conversations we were having weren’t quite there. … But then the conversation with Tampa bubbled into a discussion about Taj Bradley, who, a very short time ago, was one of the highest-profile young starters coming up to the big leagues in all of baseball.”
Twins insider reveals which player wanted out after fire sale
On one end, the Twins' front office does deserve some praise. Falvey picked a lane, in terms of completely resetting the team's competitive timeline, and he stuck to it. That is a level of decisiveness that Falvey's front office hasn't been willing to reach over the past year.
That said, how the Major League roster was torn down certainly seems to have turned some heads among the players. Falvey's approval rating, not that it was ever high, likely has sunk among the veterans on the roster. Not that it matters, consider he could be on the way out once the sale of the team is completed.