By definition, the Minnesota Twins are playoff contenders in the American League. After Monday’s loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Twins are two games back of the final Wild Card spot in the AL and 3.5 games back of the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians for first place in the AL Central. But they may not be as close as they seem with a 38-42 record.
The proximity of a playoff spot suggests the Twins would be justified if they chose to buy ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline. But their record suggests that there are too many holes to fill to transform them into a legitimate championship contender. It’s a dilemma that general manager Jeremy Zoll needs to figure out, but the choice to sell should be obvious.
Twins should sell at deadline despite proximity to playoff spot
Selling at the deadline would not be a popular move. Twins fans were upset when the team traded 10 major league players at the deadline last July and were furious when the Pohlad family pulled the team off the market after attempting to sell it a few weeks later. Since then, the Twins haven’t given much for fans to cheer for, putting a flawed product on the field and doing everything but investing into the team in an attempt to draw fans to the ballpark.
There’s also the case that no team is out of it until they’re officially eliminated. Since Major League Baseball expanded its playoff format to 12 teams in 2022, two No. 6 seeds – the Philadelphia Phillies in 2022 and the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2023 – have reached the World Series. The Texas Rangers also won the World Series as the No. 5 seed in 2023, giving validation for a team like the Twins to go for it no matter what their record is.
With the added incentive of adding an olive branch to fans, keeping Joe Ryan and Ryan Jeffers at the deadline while bringing in a piece or two at the deadline has its benefits. But it’s also fair to wonder if the Twins have too many holes to fill.
Shortstop is a need that could be filled internally when Kaelen Culpepper is ready for his major league debut. But the Twins need help in a bullpen that is last in MLB with a 5.17 ERA entering Tuesday. An extra starter may also be required if Mick Abel or Bailey Ober can’t avoid the injured list and Minnesota could be shopping for a right-handed outfielder.
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s at least four players the Twins would need to acquire at the deadline to fill all of their holes and it still may not be enough to overcome some of the other aggressive teams ahead of the deadline.
A team with a bigger budget like the Toronto Blue Jays or the Rangers could go all-in with a trade for Tarik Skubal. Other teams that have fewer holes could fill them by trading for C.J. Abrams, Reid Detmers or Aroldis Chapman, creating a bigger gap between themselves and the Twins.
There’s also the matter of the schedule. The Twins are currently in a three-game series with the Dodgers but their July schedule is a gauntlet. A three-game trip to face the New York Yankees is one challenge where the Twins have posted a 44-111 record against the Bombers since 2001.
Seven games against the division-leading Guardians also has a chance to make or break their season. Three-game series against the Athletics and Seattle Mariners could also show how far the Twins are from being serious contenders and by the time they reach the deadline, the choice may be obvious.
In some ways it may already be. The Twins chose to enter rebuild mode when the Pohlad family tightened its purse strings ahead of the deadline and created some of the holes they’re facing now. Salary dumping Carlos Correa may be a wise move in the long-term as is dealing Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax for Mick Abel and Taj Bradley. But it also created too big of a mountain to climb to have this team in a spot to buy.
Letting Jeffers walk for nothing next offseason would be unwise and waiting until this winter to trade Ryan could come back to bite them as it would diminish his return. The Ryan trade would also be facilitated in an unknown environment as MLB is likely to lock out its players amid a complicated labor negotiation.
Again, Twins fans would not be happy to see the team sell at the deadline for the second straight year. But it also wouldn’t be a death sentence to their playoff hopes. The Twins have held steady while Jeffers has been out of the lineup with a broken hamate bone and Minnesota has been here before, trading Jaime Garcia and All-Star closer Brandon Kintzler before making the postseason in a similar AL landscape in 2018. It’s also notable that the Twins were one-and-done after this push, losing to the Yankees 8-4 in the Wild Card game.
If the Twins can play winning baseball over the next month, buying could become a more realistic option. But for a team that has too many holes to fill, selling may be their best option and one that could see Jeffers, Ryan and potentially some other players move on to fuel the team’s current rebuild.
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