The Twins have hit a rough patch lately but are still hoping to avoid going into the deadline as sellers. President of baseball operations Derek Falvey explained his thinking to members of the press this week, including Bobby Nightengale of The Minnesota Star Tribune and Matthew Leach of MLB.com.
“[Selling is] not my focus right now by any means,” Falvey said. “I think when you think you have the team that you believe you have, and you hope you get healthier and get guys back here soon, that you feel like this group … is capable of putting together good baseball, it’s hard for you to think like that.” Falvey did leave the door open to a later pivot, however. “If we have to cross that bridge, we’ll cross that bridge later, but that is not at all our focus right now. It’s to figure out how to get this team right back to where it needs to be.”
The Twins have proven to be one of the least consistent teams in the majors this year. They were 13-18 at the end of April but bounced back with a 13-game win streak in May, eventually posting an 18-8 record that month. However, they’ve now slid back down with a deadful 6-16 showing in June so far.
They gives them a record of 37-42 overall. They’re not totally buried, currently sitting 4.5 games back of a Wild Card spot. However, they would need to leapfrog six clubs to get into postseason position. FanGraphs gives them a 20.4% of getting into the playoffs with Baseball Prospectus at 26.8%.
That puts them in a notable position with the deadline just over a month away. If their current slump continues, their outlook will obviously worsen. Whereas another 13-game win streak or anything close to that would push them in the opposite direction.
If the Twins are in a position to add, starting pitching would be a natural target as they recently lost both Pablo López and Zebby Matthews to shoulder strains. Rather than wait until the deadline, it seems the Twins were close to adding to their rotation recently, but the commonality of pitching injuries also hurt them indirectly.
“Pitching depth is not a phrase that’s real to me,” Falvey said. “Every time you think you have some, it gets thinned. Even when we had a couple injuries, there was a team that felt like they had some pitching depth and we had a brief trade conversation, ‘Hey, could we pick off some?’ And they were open to it. Within 72 hours, there were two different pitching injuries on that team that ultimately peeled them back from the market.”
This seems highly likely to be a reference to Paul Blackburn of the Mets. Shortly after López and Matthews hit the injured list, it was reported that the Mets were fielding trade interest in Blackburn, on account of their relative rotation surplus. But as that report came out, Kodai Senga got injured and then Tylor Megill followed him to the IL a few days later.
The Twins currently have a rotation mix consisting of Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober, Chris Paddack, Simeon Woods Richardson and David Festa. Ideally, that group would have stepped up when López and Matthews landed on the shelf but that hasn’t been the case. Ober has been effective at times but has an unsightly 8.51 ERA in June. It’s a similar story for Paddack, who had a 6.11 ERA this month. Woods Richardson is at 5.06 for the year and Festa at 6.39.
Over the next month, the club’s record will obviously be an important factor to watch, but so will the starting group. It’s possible that Matthews is back with the club prior to the deadline while López could be making some progress towards a return. The guys currently on the roster could, of course, improve their results over the coming weeks.
If the club struggles in the next few weeks, then pivoting into sell mode will have to be a consideration. Players like Paddack, Willi Castro, Harrison Bader, Danny Coulombe and Ty France are impending free agents and would garner interest. They would also surely get calls on players with a bit more control such as Ryan Jeffers, Jhoan Durán, Trevor Larnach and others.
If the club is able to go into the deadline as buyers, a classic baseball trade is a possibility. “It feels like in light of 12 out of 15 American League teams [being in contention], you sometimes have to evaluate need-for-need stuff at the Major League level,” Falvey said. “They’re harder to pull off, admittedly. No one likes to trade from depth at their big league level. But if we find the right opportunity overlap, we have to be open-minded to that. I don’t think it’s a likely path because you don’t see it that often. But I think we have to at least have those conversations and be open-minded to it.”
The Twins have a number of intriguing players who are currently putting up good numbers in Triple-A, including Edouard Julien, Austin Martin and Emmanuel Rodriguez. It’s also possible that Royce Lewis could be back from the IL before the deadline, with Luke Keaschall potentially making progress as well. Perhaps the Twins could consider trading players like Castro, Bader, France or others even if they are still in the race, if they felt they could add some pitching while still having a good amount of position player talent.
Money is another noteworthy factor for a team without huge spending capacity like the Twins. Falvey addressed that situation but noted that it’s still very much up in the air, like everything else with the club. “If we get close to the deadline and have decisions to make, I’m always bringing those to the Pohlad family, to Joe [Pohlad, primary owner] and saying ’I think this is the right baseball decision for us or not.’ We’ve had plenty of opportunity to have those conversations and had opportunities to add when it’s the right fit. I feel confident I’ll be able to have those conversations again; where they land, and what they are, I can’t predict that yet.”
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
This article was very rushed.
1) Lewis could be activated any day. He’s been doing full baseball activities, running, etc. for a couple days now.
2) Joe Pohlad is not even a partial owner of the Twins. He’s the nephew of Jim Pohlad, who is the controlling owner.
3) Matthews wasn’t in the opening day rotation and owns an ERA north of 5 both last year and this year. Stepping up to fill his shoes hasn’t been an issue.
4) Emma doesn’t look like an MLB caliber player, and he’s just started a rehab assignment in the low minors for a hip injury. Austin Martin has played only a couple games this year as he re-aggravated his strained hamstring. Literally just returned to action a couple days ago after missing a month.
Of course, the Twins are never looking to do anything. They’re perfectly content to just drift along in mediocrity for the rest of time. Doing something could jeopardize that, for better or worse, so for God’s sake don’t make them ever do something!
You just described 2/3rds of the league
But yes the twins would be contenders if their owner was willing to sign some free agents
No, I do think the Twins’ ownership is fairly unique in that they do not ever really “go for it.” Ownership’s goals seem to be:
Base Goal = Finish over .500
Reach Goal = Win the division
Almost every other team in baseball takes their shot when the window is open. The Pohlads literally cut payroll when they were on the cusp, lol.
Right. The core they had in place from about 2002 through 2010 should’ve been a legit World Series contender. But they were short the pitching to get there and never attempted to get it. All they seem to care about doing is staying just good enough to keep people on the hook while waiting for a “tomorrow” that’s never coming.
In a sense, yes, but the league generally falls into a few predictable buckets:
Bucket 1: mega market teams with unlimited financial resources – NYY, NYM, LAD, Boston. These teams can afford to “go for it” in perpetuity, any financial constraints are typically self-imposed and arbitrary
Bucket 2: consistently well run with above average spending capacity – Cardinals, Giants, Astros, Braves, Cubs, Phillies, Rangers. These teams are good more often than not, but by necessity are usually more careful spenders than the Bucket 1 group.
Bucket 3: Mid & Small Market teams who usually go all in when they have a competitive window – Brewers, Blue Jays, Padres, Tigers, Diamondbacks, Royals, Nationals
Bucket 4: Slaves to their budget over everything – Cleveland, TBR, Baltimore, Cincy, Pittsburgh, OakraVegas A’s
Bucket 5: Big spenders with nothing to show for it – LAA & Seattle
Bucket 6: Thoroughly incompetent organizations – Marlins, White Sox, Rockies
But then you have the Twins, confused, on their own island. Yes, they are generally budget slaves, yet occasionally they do give out a big splash contract like Mauer, Buxton, or Correa so they aren’t a perfect fit for that group. They are mid market but they do not ever go all in on a good team so they’re out from that group. Despite their general cheapness they’re still at least a decent team most of the time, so they’re not cut out for group 6. They could go all the way up to bucket 2 if the Pohlads were ever to dedicate more resources to running more substantial payroll commitments – they have enough wealth that they could do this, but don’t want to and thus don’t.
They seem perfectly content to just float along “in the middle” at just about everything. Never all the way in, but rarely all the way out either. Not the most frugal, but more frugal than most. So on and so forth.
At this point it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a 2025 sale, so the Pohlads need to choose between investing a bit to prop up their value or cutting costs to save some money. Rolling along like this is just pissing off fans and leaving the team just short of contenders. I think they might spend a little money if there’s another 12-3 run in there before the deadline, but I also think they could do something drastic if things don’t improve. I’m not thinking little deck chairs like Martin or Bader, but bigger names like Lewis or Duran or Jax to reel in bigger fish like a real SP or C.
HAHAHAHAHAHA
No need to speculate on what the Twins will do at the trade deadline which is almost five weeks away. If they’re still in fourth place, 12.5 games back, and with 8 teams ahead of them for 3 wild card spots, no sane GM is going to empty the farm just to sit out the month of October. If they’re within earshot of a wild card a month from now, then you can seriously look at some trades.
Two more Twins were injured while this article was being written.
Stadium should be empty. Fan base has been wonderful in boycotting the Pohlad’s. They had the 2nd best playoff crowd 2 years ago and fans were as wild and crazy as they were back in 1991 at the dome. Then the Pohlad’s announced the cuts and fans have stayed away since.
Minnesota fans are incredible but they’re done being taken advantage of and won’t attend games for the hell of it if ownership isn’t putting good effort.
We’re terrible for not being diverse? Bite me.
I think when you think you have the team you have it’s hard to think like that. – The Oratory Arts by D. Falvey
With Rocco, Falvey and Zoll in charge, this franchise will definitely be sellers at the trade deadline. The organizational culture they’ve created is simply begging for defeat.
There are two types of selling going on here. I hope they will be sellers at trade deadline, but when owners are trying to sell the team, will they be hesitant to do a fire sale of valuable players?
Fully agree with “for doing nothing”s previous response. Fans have a bad taste in their mouth after their last playoff run and won’t spend money until they have new owners or start winning a lot of games. For a small market, they needed to keep fans at least interested and they pissed away an opportunity.
How does one measure a fanbase’s diversity? The Twin Cities are obviously not as diverse as LA, Chicago, or NYC, but please enlighten us on your data that shows fans of the Minnesota Twins (we live all over the place, btw) are any less diverse than fans of any other team. Also, I’m a proudly “woke” guy, but your attempt to use the perceived diversity of a fanbase as a knock on said fanbase is pretty out there. Stuff like that is probably why you couldn’t get close enough to sniff the Oval Office, Bernie.
LOL, what are people talking about when it comes to diversity in the Twin Cities? I’m not sure if somebody who has never lived in the cities made some inflammatory comment or what. Minneapolis and St. Paul are roughly 50% Caucasian with some of the highest concentrations of several ethnic minority groups in the country.