With the Minnesota Twins’ playoff hopes circling the drain, all eyes are on Walker Jenkins. The Twins’ top prospect is destroying Triple-A, smashing his 12th home run of the season on Wednesday night. But the Twins have refused to call him up for a variety of reasons.
Each day Jenkins is starting in center field for the Saints, the louder the calls for the Twins to make the move will be. But while fans may put heat on General Manager Jeremy Zoll, it could also be another chance to see if Tom Pohlad is really different based on his comments made last December.
“Half measures are not good, and you’ll probably get to know me over time: I’m not a half-measure guy,” Pohlad said via The Star Tribune’s Bobby Nightengale. “I’m a ‘go big or go home’ guy.”
Tom Pohlad’s Twins have already shown flashes of change
The Twins haven’t gone big in Pohlad’s first season as owner after taking over for his brother Joe Pohlad in December. But they’ve made some moves toward building trust within the fan base. While $2 beers on Friday and Saturday home games are nice, the moves finally translated to the field when the Twins added Dean Kremer, Jeff Hoffman and A.J. Minter ahead of the trade deadline.
The Twins also made an aggressive move by calling up fellow top prospect Kaelen Culpepper. Although Minnesota cycled through Ryan Kreidler, Tristan Gray and Orlando Arcia during the season, Culpepper has been the team’s best shortstop despite a few defensive hiccups, hitting .333/.381/.526 and hitting his third home run since his call-up during Thursday’s loss to the Athletics.
These moves didn’t come without a level of risk. The Twins could have kept Culpepper in the minors and maintained eligibility to play minor league baseball next season in the event of an extended lockout. The Twins also had premium trade chips at the deadline, which could have brought back a haul for Joe Ryan or Ryan Jeffers. Instead, the Twins took the aggressive route and showed when contention is within reach, they’re willing to go for it.
That being said, those moves haven’t helped the Twins in the standings. After dropping two of three games to the Athletics, who own the second-worst record in the American League at 53-81, Minnesota is four games back of the Cleveland Guardians for the final Wild Card spot entering Thursday. While it is a steep climb, it’s also not unattainable, which is why Twins fans are continuing to push for Jenkins to come up and save the season.
Walker Jenkins is making the Twins’ cautious approach look like a half-measure
The argument to keep Jenkins in the minors is a business decision. In addition to maintaining his service time, keeping the chance to play minor league baseball open next season is important as he’ll turn 22 in February. The Athletic’s Dan Hayes also reported that the Twins would like to see more power from Jenkins, but those floodgates seem to be opening as Jenkins is hitting .411/.488/.795 with eight homers and 13 RBI in August (18 games).
The state of the Twins outfield is also working against their favor. Buxton is gutting out a hip injury but it feels eerily similar to his struggles in the second half of the 2023 season. Larnach was in trade rumors ahead of the deadline, but is hitting .140/.189/.200 with one homer and two RBI in 15 games since it passed. Luke Keaschall can hit, but his defense cost the Twins a pair of runs on Wednesday night and Austin Martin and Alan Roden are a house of cards compared to a roadblock for Jenkins.
Still, the Twins can say they did the right thing and went “big” by acquiring three pitchers at the deadline. They can enhance their argument by pointing out that Hoffman and Kremer are under team control for next year. But that would do little to win over “Dan from Woodbury” if the Twins keep Jenkins in the minors to secure his future.
Remember, this is a family that said they would spend enough to field a competitive team when Target Field opened in 2010. This is also a family that slashed payroll after the Twins won their first playoff game since 2004 and their first series since 2002. It’s also a family that put the team on the market only to incite a full-blown fire sale at last year’s deadline and pull it back less than a year later. And it’s also a team that hasn’t made big investments outside of the roughly $8 million in salary added at the deadline.
Maybe Pohlad deserves a blue ribbon for the fact the Twins haven’t been a total train wreck this year. But keeping Jenkins in the minors after buying at the deadline and calling up Culpepper is the type of half-measure that Pohlad said he despised.
If his goal is about winning back the fans, calling up Jenkins and starting him in the outfield in Friday night’s series opener against the White Sox at Target Field would be one way to “go big” and earn back some of that trust. But if the Twins stay the course, it’s another reason to believe that nothing has changed.
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