For the second straight year, the trade deadline passed without much action from the Minnesota Twins. Over the last two deadlines the team has made exactly one trade and it came this year, with Minnesota trading for Toronto reliever Trevor Richards.
It was about as low wattage a trade as it gets, with the Twins sending a High Single-A prospect to the Blue Jays for a guy with a 4.64 ERA and -0.4 WAR.
Hardly the most exciting deal, the fact that it was the only one Minnesota made had left a sour taste in the mouths of fans. The Twins barely participating in the trade deadline action is juxtaposed against the Guardians and Royals both making multiple moves to try and make a World Series push this year.
While there was no shortage of rumors involving the Twins, the rumored financial concerns from ownership overshadowed most of the excitement. Minnesota's reported unwillingness to take on future money "hamstrung" the front office, but President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey pushed back against that when debriefing on all that did -- and didn't -- happen.
Derek Falvey explains why the Twins didn't make more trades at the deadline
After the deadline passed, Falvey spoke with the media and commented on the lack of moves and whether or not financial constraints held things up. He seemed to brush it off, but fans are split when it comes to reading between the lines.
"Yeah, I want to make that clear: I've said this at different junctures along the way that Joe and the Pohlad family, Jim, historically have always - if I felt like it was a really good opportunity for us to make a significant impact and the financial side of it was a part of the equation, the conversation, I've had very productive and positive conversations about that with ownership when those intersected. That was not something that came to pass over the last 24-48 hours here with something that was presented to us that was limited financially. We just were never - we were definitely targeting certain types of players that we thought could really impact us and those deals didn't come together. It wasn't about those financial conversations."
Is that Falvey carrying water for the Pohlads or is it him being honest? All Twins fans care about is that the team didn't make any meaningful moves and the optics are getting old.
This is exactly what happened over the winter when Minnesota decided to chase its most successful postseason by slashing the budget by $30 million. Almost all of the rage has been directed at the Pohlads for cowering behind frugalness in the shadow of potential lost future revenue stemming from a bad TV deal with Diamond Sports Group.
The Pohalds crawled back to Diamond and cut a check that wasn't reinvested in the team, but there was some hope that trades would be green lit to make a competitive roster even better. That didn't happen, and while Falvey tried to deflect the blame, it won't do much to calm a rightfully angry fan base.
Whether financial contraints held things up or not is now beside the point. Minnesota has twice had the opportunity to meaingfully upgrade the roster and decided to pass both times.
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