Grading the Minnesota Twins boring and embarrassing trade deadline

For the second straight year Minnesota Twins fans watched as the team they love did absolutely nothing meaningful at the trade deadline.

To be fair, the Twins did technically do better than last year since they acutally made a trade. It was a masterclass in doing the bare minimum, though, which is a running theme that goes back to the offseason and continues to alienate people who care about the team.

Optically it appears fans are the only ones who do care.

This past winter the Twins decided to chase their most successful postseason run since 2002 by slashing the payroll. Ownership's fear over lost future revenue stemming from the Diamond Sports Group fiasco scared the Pohlads into cutting $30 million out of the payroll, which led to the Twins not making a single meaningful addition to a roster that seemed a few pieces away from truly being World Series contenders.

That mindset followed the Twins to the trade deadline as well. Minnesota was reportedly unwilling to make trades for players who would add money to next year's payroll which led to the team making just a single move.

Trevor Richards was acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays, but he hardly moves the needle with his 4.64 ERA and -0.4 WAR (although he beats up left-handed hitting which helps). Richards might end up being a fine pitcher and addition to a bullpen that needed help, but he's the poster child for fan frustration after the Twins seemingly squandered another opportunity to truly improve the roster.

Grading yet boring and embarrassing Minnesota Twins trade deadline

Richards is a low risk move in every sense, but grading the Twins deadline is less about what they did and more about what they didn't do.

Derek Falvey and the front office aren't blameless in what happened at the trade deadline, but they were also approaching things with one hand tied behing their back. If the Pohlads weren't willing to take on future money, that siginficantly limited the amount of moves that could be made and narrowed the pool of potential targets.

It also does sound like the Twins were active in talks for guys like Yusei Kikichui and Jack Flaherty but were outbid. There's no shame in admitting defeat on Kikuchi, who the Houston Astros agressively overpaid for with the type of deal we'd be killing the Twins for making had they matched the offer.

Missing out on Flaherty is a little more frustrating, at least on the surface. The Dodgers sent back a pair of mid-tier prospects to Detroit, but Dan Hayes reported after the deadline passed that the Tigers were essentially messing with the Twins by beginning their discussions for Flaherty by asking for Brooks Lee.

Yeah right, guys.

The same goes for the White Sox and Erick Fedde, who the Twins were also reportedly in talks with to acquire. Hayes noted that Chicago also began discussions by asking for Lee, which tells you all you need to know about how serious the Sox were about dealing with Minnesota.

It stinks to have struck out on those bigger deals and to walk away with perhaps the lowest wattage trade of the deadline. However, while there's a universe where this all works for the Twins and we hope we're living in it, there's also one where they overpay and trade guys like Emmanuel Rodriguez, Zebby Matthews, and even Brooks Lee and we're all very happy to not be in that one.

Minnesota objectively failed at the deadline, there's no way around it. Starting pitching was a need and there should have been some moves in the bullpen so that Griffin Jax isn't the only reliable arm. The Twins had an opportunity to add to a competitive roster and make it even better for a postseason run. That didn't happen and fans are once again being forced to live with the 'We have that at home' strategy of banking on internal replacements.

That worked out last year, and to be fair the Twins are getting guys like Carlos Correa and Justin Topa back from the IL.

At the end of the day, the Twins tried to make some moves but didn't overpay once the price got too rich for their blood. Some of that was frugalness, some of that was wisely not getting goaded into giving up valuable pieces for less than their worth. Still, Cleveland made trades to try and win the AL Central and Kansas City -- who is still behind everyone in the standings -- made moves to compete as well.

Minnesota did not, and optics of once again choosing to go cheap rather than invest in the team isn't exactly inspiring a ton of confidence.

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