The Toronto Blue Jays acquired right-handed starting pitcher José Soriano from the Los Angeles Angels for prospects Arjun Nimmala, Eddie Micheletti and Angel Rivero on the day of the trade deadline (Aug. 3). Strangely, teams checked in with the Blue Jays on the availability of the starter before the 5:00 p.m. CDT deadline arrived. The Minnesota Twins were one of those teams.
A recent report from The Athletic's (subscription required) Dan Hayes and Mitch Bannon revealed that the Twins and Blue Jays discussed a package for Soriano headlined by Minnesota's top shortstop prospect Kaelen Culpepper. Minnesota would've included other players to make a trade happen. However, the deal never got close to occurring because the Blue Jays made it clear they wanted top pitching prospect Riley Quick in addition to Culpepper, who made his MLB debut against the Milwaukee Brewers this past weekend.
Culpepper is MLB Pipeline's No. 29 overall prospect. Based on Culpepper's prospect status, some may wonder why the Blue Jays wouldn't part ways with Soriano for a package centered around Culpepper.
However, Soriano is an established MLB starter who is under team control through 2028. Meanwhile, Culpepper is just an unproven prospect, even though he has star potential. For those reasons, it makes sense that Toronto wanted Quick, Minnesota's highest-ranked pitching prospect, to also be included in the package.
It's surprising Twins were willing to give up Culpepper to acquire Soriano from Blue Jays
It makes sense that the Twins weren't willing to part ways with both Culpepper and Quick. At the same time, it is a bit of a head scratcher they were willing to move Culpepper at all. Sure, the team has promising shortstop prospect Marek Houston sitting in the minors. However, the Twins had been using a struggling Ryan Kreidler as their primary shortstop for a while until they selected Culpepper's contract earlier this month. Acquiring Dean Kremer, A.J. Minter and Jeff Hoffman to address the need for more pitching depth, only to trade away seemingly the only player who can address the team's need for an impact shortstop this year wouldn't have made much sense for Minnesota.
Houston looks like the team's shortstop of the future, but he isn't big-league ready yet. Meanwhile, Culpepper has appeared MLB-ready for a while. Long-term, Culpepper will likely play a position other than shortstop. But he should be the team's starting shortstop for the rest of the season.
The Twins also already gave up one of their top pitching prospects, left-hander Dasan Hill, in the Hoffman trade. Therefore, the team likely didn't want to surrender any more top minor-league arms, especially Quick.
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