5 Twins players who could be valuable trade chips this offseason
By Josh Hill
Jose Mirada, 1B/3B
The question with Miranda isn't if he should be considered a trade chip, it's how valuable will be he in helping the Twins acquire talent. For every argument about trading guys like Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler due to a surplus of positional depth, the same and more applies to Miranda.
Unlike those two guys, Miranda essentially played himself off the team this season. He couldn't get it going offensively and ended up getting hurt which didn't help his cause at all. While everything was down for him this year, the upside for a team that might acquire him is how Miranda looked last year when he was healthy. He played in 125 games and slashed .268/.325/.426 and batted in 66 runs.
There's a lot to build on there, and the right situation might help him unlock more of who he was last year before things started to go off the rails.
Minnesota is not the right situation, because there's simply no room for him to grow. Royce Lewis finished the season as the team's third baseman and there's a potential logjam of infielders like Edouard Julien, Austin Martin, Brooks Lee, and Yunior Severino that pushes Miranda to being the odd-man-out. If there's a guy who can be added to a deal as a sweetener, the Twins can do worse than Miranda.