It was a sigh of relief for most Twins fans to see that Joe Ryan did not get traded before Thursday’s deadline, as the ace is under team control through 2027 and has been Minnesota’s most valuable player this season with 4.4 WAR, according to Baseball Reference.
Multiple reports suggested that the Twins were open to moving Ryan to a different club if an offer blew them away, but Minnesota’s president of baseball operations Derek Falvey did not receive a proposal by any team that would have made him feel good enough to trade away Ryan. However, one team tried its best to pry away Minnesota’s best starting pitcher without giving up too much.
Red Sox made late effort to acquire Joe Ryan from Twins
According to The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey, Boston reached out to Minnesota about Ryan, who made his first All-Star team this summer, on Thursday, but was unwilling to meet Minnesota’s asking price of a package starting with a big-league outfielder or a top-tier prospect.
The Twins wanted the package to start with Jarren Duran or Wilyer Abreu, but Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, who USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported is not the easiest executive to work with, was not willing to part ways with either outfielder.
Duran, 28, is an elite defender who broke out with Boston last season, posting 8.7 bWAR and leading the league in triples (14) and doubles (48) while hitting 21 homers. He has been worth 3.3 bWAR with a .793 OPS this year.
Like Duran, Abreu is an elite defender with an above-average bat. In 255 games dating back to 2023, Abreu has provided Boston with 6.7 bWAR and a .796 OPS in 875 plate appearances.
Boston’s top outfield prospect, Jhostynxon Garcia, was in the mix to be in a deal for Ryan, who is 10-5 with a 2.83 ERA and 141 strikeouts across 127 ⅓ innings this season, but the rest of what the Red Sox were willing to give up was not enough for the Twins to move their highly-regarded starting pitcher.
After trading 10 players from their 26-man roster, starting with Chris Paddack on Monday and ending with Griffin Jax, Louis Varland and Ty France in the final minutes of Thursday’s deadline, many Twins fans are discouraged by the product they now see on the field. If Falvey ended up moving Ryan, fan outrage would have only gotten worse.