The end of an era

 The Twins were falling rapidly out of contention, and we knew the rental players were going to be on the market. There was talk about Joe Ryan that was swiftly shut down, and the controllable pieces at the back end of the bullpen, which the Twins made clear would take quite a haul to make them available. Chatter grew louder, and ultimately a day begore the deadline, Jhoan Duran was traded to the Phillies. 

And then it got worse. 

On deadline day, the Twins traded almost the entirety of the rest of their bullpen, and certainly all of the best parts of their bullpen. Not only that, every position player that was on an expiring deal, save for Christian Vasquez, was traded away. 

And then, Carlos Correa was given away, and the Twins window of contention was abruptly and rudely was slammed shut. I was under the belief that as long as the team had Byron Buxton and Correa under contract, still only 30 with at least a couple of years under contract, the window was open. It's closed now. Who knows when it will be reopened.

It sounds like, from various sources, that the Astros asked about Correa's availability, and when Derek Falvey, to his credit, was honest with Correa, he waived his no trade clause and a off to Houston. The only thing the Twins got was salary relief and bad vibes. 

I can't talk about all the trades that happened, because there were so many. The crazy part is that, through the day, through the week, I can kind of get the individual trades. The rental players, obviously, make sense. Trading Jhoan Duran at peak value makes some sense, even if it doesn't feel good. And that could have been where it ended.

But then trading away Correa made sense, at that point, from a business standpoint. And then when he was gone, they could have been done. The best return on the day, from my standpoint, came on the last two trades, Griffin Jax and Louis Varland being sent to Tampa and Toronto, respectively. At that point, it felt like piling on, though, to most Twins fans.

I can argue for all of the moves that were made. None of them are particularly egregious, but taken in concert they are like a punch to the gut. I think it was someone on ESPN.com that stated that selling is one thing, but trading 10 players from the active roster tells you that the team wasn't actually that bad. That hurts too. The team was underwater on 1 run games, and it's parts were very good. Instead of getting real help for the last two years, the payroll was slashed and the team became driftless.

The lack of funds from ownership is something that we all hope changes when the Pohlads sell the team, but I am frankly not optimistic. The debt issue is very real, and the cash flow doesn't automatically improve with new owners. The sell off probably doesn't happen if the Twins can get up for important series against, of all teams, the Rockies and Nationals, but even that didn't happen, and will likely be the last straw for Rocco Baldelli, contract extension or not.

Carlos Correa is gone. This window is closed. Soon, ownership and probably the manager are going to be out the door. A new era for the Twins is coming, and it has to be better than this one was.

Cash for your consideration

 As seems to always be the case, the Twins are in a complicated and uncomfortable situation. Again, as always seems to be the case with the Twins, there are ownership complications that affect any realistic strategy that the front office can employ. Instead of simply reducing the payroll allowances, the issues are magnified both by the high pressure of the deadline and the potential sale of the team. 

The front office right now is not building for a future that the Pohlads are in charge of. In fact, they may not be building for a future that Derek Falvey or Jeremy Zoll are a part of. How forward thinking should the Twins be? When looking at the future, do they plan for a Pohlad level payroll, or towards a payroll that will likely go up with less frugal owners? Do you know? I don't. 

If this was only strategic on a baseball development side, I would note the clear strength of the team - the bullpen - is a volatile component and may not offer the same benefits next year. A good bullpen is also fully unnecessary on a team that is no longer in contention. With that in mind, I would trade the rental players best as I could, as well as a couple of relievers with team control. Brock Stewart is 33 and has an injury history. Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran are nearly the same in terms of mound talent, if not results. Duran is more popular locally. I would move Jax, leaving Duran and Louis Varland to backstop the pen next year.

The offense has been problematic all season. The seeming bumper crop of young offensive talent has not come through in a meaningful way. The top offensive player drafted and developed by the current regime is, I don't know, Ryan Jeffers? So the team could stand to add some forward looking offensive depth at the deadline, and moving a player like Jax in particular could bring a usable player to Minnesota immediately. 

There is a lot of talk about the availability of Joe Ryan, but that doesn't really offer a fair assessment of where the Twins are as a franchise. Their two biggest contracts right now are in the middle of those players' peaks. From a baseball perspective, it makes a lot more sense to keep him than trade him, because next year, Ryan would need to be immediately replaced. From the sale of the team's perspective, Ryan is a great selling point, and likely something prospective buyers don't want to see gone.

But the Pohlad's are in charge and still in debt. That might be the most important factor in the deadline. If the Twins aren't actually on the cusp of a sale, continued paring of the payroll is important, and any arbitration eligible Twins could be on the block. If a new owner with a willingness to spend is coming and the front office knows it, none of the arb eligible players are going to go.

It seems that the best way to assess the deadline is this. The Twins FO has potentially little stake in the future, but there are players already to be free agents. It would be malpractice not to see them shipped out for something. But then, there is the debt. The Pohlads have always been cost conscious, and this has to be grating. I assume this is why the team is even on the market. 

The deadline is going to be active for the Twins, and given all the factors illustrated above, I am inclined to believe that a lot of those deals are going to involve cash coming back to Minnesota. Appreciate the prospects the team does get back.

Mid-season break, and I'm not ready to give up yet.

 

The buzzards are circling the Minnesota Twins*. I've had wildly changing opinions about the team, from delight to grief, but the fact of the matter is that the team isn't in as bad a position as you perhaps feel. It's too bad they dropped their final game against the Pirates to send the team into the break off of a sweep, relishing Byron Buxton's cycle from Saturday, and being a .500 team, just 3 games out of the Wild Card hunt. 

The Twins are going to come out of the break and bring back Zebby Matthews and secret wild card Luke Keaschall. Many are awaiting Matthews return, but the pitching of late has stabilized. As demonstrated by their rough offensive outing on Sunday, the spark Keaschall may bring is really needed. Of course, the biggest kick in the pants will be playing the Rockies right out of the gate. A sweep there, if it were to happen, brings the Twins to maybe 2 games out of the Wild Card.

Certainly not a team looking to tear things down. 

Everything with the Twins needs to be looked at through the lens of a potential team sale, which to me blunts any forward thinking maneuvers at the deadline. Derek Falvey might not be building towards anything, and the Twins may not want to be left holding the bag with any big swings on controllable contracts. With that said, there are certainly baseball reasons not to expect a big July with the transactions.

First, more optimistically, the Twins aren't that far out of it. Fangraphs has them as somewhere between 1/4 and 1/5 chance of making the playoffs. A good series in Colorado (followed by taking at least one in LA against the Dodgers) should see that number rise. That's not a team that typically subtracts pieces, nor would one recommend they make big acquisitions. But this team would be adding near the deadline, as Pablo Lopez is on track to return in early August.

Even if the team takes a turn for the worse, which obviously this is Minnesota, it doesn't make sense to destroy the core right now. Buxton and Carlos Correa are in the middle of contracts, team friendly in Buxton's case. A powerful 1-2 at the top of the rotation remains in place, and Matthews, David Festa and Simeon Woods-Richardson are coming along nicely (to say nothing of Bailey Ober, if he shakes whatever is bothering him.) 

There may be some calculated moves regardless of the situation. The Twins obviously need offensive help, and Keaschall isn't going to bring all of it. Bullpen arms are always in demand at the deadline, and the Twins are well positioned there, and always willing to transition strong arms to later innings, if it fits. The Twins want to surely keep every member of their bullpen, but if a major league player with more team control goes, I wouldn't be surprised if they were part of that unit, regardless of where the Twins stand on July 31st. 

The first half is done, and this was supposed to be forward thinking. It doesn't help that the trade deadline is only a couple of weeks after the All Star Break. The point is, it isn't all doom and gloom, even if Jim Bowden thinks the Twins would be smart to trade all of their best players. They wouldn't be, and they won't. In a season of rises and falls, the Twins are amidst a good stretch that will continue next weekend. They will be in contention longer than current headlines would lead you to believe. 

*I didn't realize until well after I wrote this that Dan Hayes used this exact turn of phrase last week. Derek Falvey showed up in an image search for buzzards because of this.

Joe Ryan is going to the All Star Game, not anywhere else.

 

Joe Ryan is a good pitcher. I think at this point, we all agree on that, right? Even the national pundits were perplexed as to how Ryan was left off the initial All Star roster, though he was added as a replacement when Hunter Brown's turn in the rotation ended up putting him too close to the Game. This is another in a consistent run from Ryan, who will ultimately emerge from the Derek Falvey reign as his best pick up.

Truly, Ryan is exactly what Twins fans have been asking for since Johan Santana was dealt to the Mets. He is a high strikeout pitcher that stabilizes the rotation, and is doing so at the beginning of his career, rather than as a high priced free agent. Heck, he even came to Minnesota as a flyer from a Florida based team. Th wit correlation between Santana and Pablo Lopez exists because of a mutual admiration and shared heritage, but Ryan and Santana have similar meaning to the Twins organization.

Santana got going at a younger age than Ryan did. In fact, Ryan's current age profile puts him at about the same age as Santana was during his first couple of seasons with the Mets. Because he started in the majors at an older age, years 1-3 for Ryan don't align really at all with Santana's, but his current numbers, the strikeouts, the rate statistics, align nicely with Johan at the same age.

Johan, obviously, is a lefty and had a longer track record than Ryan did to this age, but after age 29, the outlook for Ryan look much better than it did for Santana. Not only did he get started sooner, but he worked a ton of innings, well over 200 in his last 4 seasons with the Twins, followed by two heavy inning workloads with the Mets essentially spelled the end of his career.

Barring something unforeseen, Joe Ryan has many more years ahead of him to really leave a mark as a Twins legend. By the time he reaches the open market, he will be 33 when he is a free agent. They will have him through what should be his peak years at a manageable salary. He has runway to start accumulating stats to go with the rate stats while in a Twins uniform.

There is a remarkable amount of talk about the Twins and their potential trade assets. The first targets should be the players on expiring deals, of course, particularly Willi Castro and Chris Paddack, who may even attract a usable return. Talk of Byron Buxton being moved are ludicrous because of his no trade clause and good contract. If any controllable players are traded, I could see a reliever change team for a hefty premium. To make that point hit home, former Twins Emilio Pagan and Ronny Henriquez are closing for their teams now, and Trevor Megill is an all star, closing for the Brewers. You can never really tell with relievers, so get comfortable with trading and replacing them.

But Joe Ryan shouldn't be a realistic part of the discussions. His time under contract aligns with the window provided by Buxton and Carlos Correa, as well as Pablo Lopez at the top of the rotation. The window is now, and rebuilding through trading important cogs isn't a currently feasible strategy. Joe Ryan is too important, and will remain so for a few more seasons.

Ownership change needed.

One thing I always note about the Twins is that, regardless of how bad things might seem, it isn't as bad as it could get. The Twins are playing poorly, they have suffered injuries, and they have an ownership group with cash flow issues and a reluctance to spend money. But it isn't as bad as it could be! No, that title belongs to the Pirates.

Pittsburgh is a fantastic sports town, willing to support their teams with fans in stands and money for stadiums. They play in a central division that is every bit as wide open as the American League is, at least for the past few years. They develop talented players, draft fairly well, and get rid of all that talent as soon as they start making any money. 

The Pirates have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, higher only than the Rays and A's, currently playing in Minor League stadiums, the White Sox, who are undergoing a massive overhaul and rebuild and the Marlins who, frankly, are similar to the Pirates, but different. Miami isn't as big a sports town because, well, beaches, but Pittsburgh is. The Pirates stand out like a sore, underfunded thumb. 

And some might complain about market size for Pittsburgh as it relates to the rest of baseball, and yes, Pittsburgh is a down on it's luck town that is on the smaller end of baseball cities, however the city itself s larger than Milwaukee, Cleveland and Kansas City, none of the teams that were listed as having payroll problems above. I'm not saying that the Pirates should be at the top of the payroll tables, but I am saying that they should at least be in line with other teams, and sustain payroll when they start to get better, right?

For as much grousing as Minnesota has rightfully had about the Pohlads over the year, there is no question that Bob Nutting, owner of the Pirates is worse. Instead of a rising team looking to build around Paul Skenes, who is now in his second year, people are already beginning speculate on the Pirates trading him before he reaches even into arbitration. They have talent incoming, a depressed payroll, and instead of augmenting the roster, they are looking to cut costs even further.

 The Twins are frustrating because of their inability to seize opportunities. The Pirates under Nutter are indifferent to whether the opportunities come. The Pohlads have proven to have bad luck in their last two TV deals (before the RSN model really exploded, and then immediately after it popped) and have debt and cash flow issues as a result. Nutting made a business decision to not fund his team. 

The Pohlads are getting out, sooner or later. I hope Nutting does soon too.

Despair

 

Just a week ago, the Twins were in the hunt for a Wild Card spot. Sure, they had some issues against the teams from Texas, but the losses were tough luck losses, and a reason to be frustrated, but not discouraged. They were close. They were still fighting. And then they played the Reds and Brewers, over the last week, going 1-5 and not looking particularly competitive. Whatever instinct there was not to panic is gone now. Actually, panic is already in the past. It just feels hopeless. 

The Twins are getting regularly blown out now. The offense that was an issue most of the season is 8/9ths dead. Byron Buxton is playing out of his mind, to no avail. The starting pitching is struggling, and the bullpen is worse. They aren't doing anything right, at the moment. If you want the team to be buyers at the deadline, then what do you address? How? Everything needs work. 

At the beginning of the season, there was so much optimism about the development of the young core. Injuries are one thing, but in retrospect, a more troubling sign is that the Twins were looking for a left handed outfield hitter if they were going to be buyers. You know, like Trevor Larnach or Matt Wallner. Both players have been part of the roster for a while now, but neither has had the breakout anyone anticipated. Had the Twins been in on that secret even sooner than the rest of us? 

The Twins are buoyed by their 13 game winning streak. Had they merely played .500 during that stretch, they would, at this point, only be better than the White Sox in the American League. Are the Twins and our fans too prone to leaning into these long streaks? Are the Twins a legitimately bad team, or do you want to pin the blame on the disruption to the pitching staff? A devastating injury or disruption to the staff almost always seems to precede a Twins collapse.

But never mind that. The diagnosis is grim, but what about the prognosis? The prescription? Frankly, with as clustered as baseball is in the standings, there aren't many sellers, and the prices are going to be high. In a normal year, I would be awaiting some windfalls for trades of players like Willi Castro and Chris Paddack. Heck, if the Twins really think that the left handed hitting needs improvement, Larnach or Wallner could go, for all I care. A full reset with a Byron Buxton trade would potentially leave the system flush with talent.

This is not a normal year, however. The Twins are up for sale, and despite Rocco Baldelli apparently having his contract picked up for next year, the entire front office is fighting for their jobs. A tactical reset, a full rebuild, whatever you call it, Derek Falvey and Jeremy Zoll are giving up on this iteration of the team. That is not how you prove your worth to a new owner.

It may not be the best for the future of the team, or make much logical sense, but for Falvey and Zoll, it is best for them to double down on this team. Pablo Lopez WILL come back. Zebby Matthews WILL come back. Maybe Connor Gillaspie will stabilize the bullpen. Rely on the definite, but make things happen.

The Rockies and Marlins are the best bets to be sellers, and the best potential partners for the Twins. Take a swing and grab the best players -- again, it doesn't matter their position, really -- on both teams. RP Jake Bird and corner infielder Ryan McMahon would both help the Twins from the Rockies. Marlins 2b Otto Lopez and OF Dane Meyers have been better than Jonah Bride, at least.

Do something. Standing pat as the team slides further isn't fun for fans or players, obviously, but also doesn't play well for your next employer. Shake up the team ASAP and try to pull out of this funk.

Deadline news is already filling timelines.

Nationally, the baseball world is talking about the Rafael Devers trade, and fans are beginning to settle into trade deadline season. Locally,the Twins are struggling, perhaps in need of a jolt, all while playing the Cincinnati Reds. Taken all together, the elements of this weeks baseball headlines can belong in their own boxcars in the same train of thought. 

There are many articles already out there, depending on the sports outlet of your choosing, suggesting which players might be on the market, who the buyers might want to buy and the price it might take to buy them. The national writers are telling us about the players the Twins could go after to bolster the at times anemic offense. The local writers are telling us not to hold our breath.

The last couple of years have been uninspiring, and trades have been few and far between. The money has been an issue, and if he debt is as reported, monetary investment at the deadline is unlikely. The pitching staff seems to be getting picked off man by man, but prices for starting pitchers have been extremely expensive from a prospect standpoint. It's easy to see why the local writers don't seem to think Minnesota will do anything.

Lets consider the more optimistic version, though. You know, the one of people that haven't spent their best years trying to find a reason for hope in Minnesota men's sports. The Twins need bats, which are generally less expensive in both prospects or monetary expenditure. A solid hitter would likely play in the corners, somewhere, alleviating someone like Trevor Larnach against lefties, or simply providing depth so Willi Castro doesn't have to do everything. And played correctly, will address the team's greatest weakness all season, run production.

A look at the Reds is a good lesson for the Twins, regardless of how they choose to proceed. The trade that Twins fans still look back on with derision was the one that sent multiple prospects to the Reds for Tyler Mahle. Mahle struggled with injury for his entire time in Minnesota, while Spencer Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand have played on the Major League Roster. 

While the execution wasn't great. the damage was also not that great. Mahle has been good with the Rangers now that he has his health, showing that the Twins probably sought the right guy. Meanwhile, Steer and Encarnacion-Strand haven't been all that revolutionary. Steer has been better, even as this year has been down, and it seems unlikely he would have been able to leapfrog Royce Lewis at third. Corner Outfielders have starters, and simpy need someone to augment those spots, and Steer isn't that kind of player. What I am saying is that neither would have really changed the Twins roster had they stayed in Minnesota. Not for the better (or the worse), anyways. 

But Mahle would have helped in 2023, with health. Sure, money might not be there, but the Twins are fighting in a sloppy AL Central once again, and the front office, even with the headwinds against them, should try to be bold.

And Minnesotans should probably prepare to be disappointed.