Another trade deadline has come and gone without much more than a whimper out of the Minnesota Twins. It's frustrating, it's lame, but it might have ultimately been the right move.
Minnesota made just a single trade, acquiring reliever Trevor Richards from the Blue Jays in perhaps the lowest wattage deal of the deadline. The Twins weren't just the last remaining contender to make a deal, they were the last team in the league to get something done.
What they ended up doing wasn't particularly exciting, although we'll need to see what Richards contirbutes down the stretch of the season. There wasn't a lot to love about how the Twins handled the deadline, but with so much negativity going around from a rightfully angered fanbase let's try to find some upside in how things went down.
Twins not doing much at the trade deadline isn't the end of the world, even if it stinks
Let's be clear, there's no defending ownership in this situation. The Pohlads have set an absolutely terrible precedent that we likely haven't seen the final ripple effects of by deciding to not meaingfully invest in the team.
This is a defense of the front office, a crew that did the best it could given the circumstances and ended up making the right call by largely standing pat. Minnesota didn't get better at the deadline, but it didn't get worse and more importantly the future remains intact.
If the Pohlads are going to be dirt cheap with the payroll situation over the next few years, the Twins need their top prospects in coming years more than they’re worth trading now. It's hardly the sexiest rationale, and falls into the same old trap the team has been in for years when it comes to kicking the can down the road, but that's the reality of the situation.
Minnesota absolutely should have made a trade to try and help solidify the team's status as a World Series contender. To suggest that this team isn't capable of winning, though, is an unintentional insult to the guys already in the clubhouse who have argued otherwise for a majority of the season.
Derek Falvey avoided falling into a trap of overpaying for rental players, a lesson he learned from past mistakes. Two years ago the Twins were active in ways we wanted to see this year, but those deal infamously blew up in everyone's face.
Yusei Kikuchi was traded for three top prospects; Tanner Scott netted the Marlins five prospects; Trevor Rogers cost the Orioles a Top 10 prospect in their farm system. Those are steep prices to pay, and if that was the cost of doing business then the Twins were wise to sit things out.
Right now Minnesota has one of the most talented farm systems in baseball, with six Top 100 prospects including fast risers like Zebby Matthews and Luke Keaschall. The Twins could have cashed in on those guys having stellar seasons, but if there isn't going to be any meaingful money invested in the roster over the next few years, they're going to need those guys more than what they'd bring back now.
If Falvey truly believed that Kikuchi, Frankie Montas, or Jack Flaherty were the difference between the Twins winning a World Series or not, a deal would have been made. No price is too high when talking about a championship, but there's no guarantee that's what would have happened. It stinks, but the Twins opted for security in the future rather than gambling in the present.
That doesn't excuse the lack of movement, but it helps fill in some of the blanks. Fans deserve to be angry and frustrated, and the optics of the Twins not making any moves are rough. Both Cleveland and Kansas City made moves and could edge Minnesota out real quick if their deals pan out.
Objectively the Twins deadline was an embarrassment, and a direct reflection of cowardly ownership. In a vacuum, knowing the confines in which Falvey and company were working with, the deadline could have gone a lot worse.
Because the Pohlads handcuffed Falvey by being unwilling to taking on future money, the pool of targets narrowed the target for the front office and a razor thin line for success has been drawn. It's not, however, inmpossible for the "we have this at home" gamble to pay off.
If Pablo Lopez figures out how to be an ace again, and Bailey Ober continues to pitch as fantastically as he has been, the Twins starting rotation will be fine in October. If guys like Louie Varland, David Festa, and Randy Dobnak can pitch mistake-free, they'll be huge additions for the bullpen -- a unit that is still getting Justin Topa back.
There's a universe in which this all works out for the Twins, let's just pray we're living in it.
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