The Twins are in an interesting spot as the trade deadline approaches. In recent seasons, the concern centered around pitching, and the front office made targeted acquisitions there. This season, the pitching staff is mostly where it needs to be, and the weakness has been on offense. Still, on that front the Twins biggest issue was with the production of their most important players, players unlikely to be supplanted by in season acquisitions.
Lately, Minnesota has started to play better even as the rotation has started to show some strain, largely because the players the Twins expected to lean heavily on are finally showing their value. Carlos Correa, Christian Vasquez and Max Kepler are producing, and the biggest weakness, third base, will be improved by a return to health with a return to health for Jorge Polanco initially, then eventually Royce Lewis.
This isn't a front office that is known for sitting idly by, despite what Twitter users used to say (they may still, I just haven't visited the site in a month). They aren't going to take the trade deadline off, but what kind of maneuvering might they do? I'll say that there are two obvious choices, if only because this group hasn't ever done the obvious thing, at least in my line of sight.
The two obvious moves are for a left handed reliever with Caleb Thielbar injured and Jovani Moran not really inspiring a lot of confidence, and right handed bat, even with Carlos Correa coming around. The typical producing positions are largely left handed and adding a righty will help to balance the lineup. Those aren't generally areas that are typically hard to come by on the late season trade market.
With those two weaknesses addressed, I could foresee another position that the Twins might look to add: Swing starter. There are a lot of young pitchers in the rotation, and some, like Baily Ober and Kenta Maeda with a history of injury concerns. We are starting to see the rotation show some holes, with Sonny Gray, Ober and Joe Ryan recently throwing some clunkers, and having someone in to put more space between starts or more reliable in long relief would help to preserve the rotation all the way to the postseason.
This might simply be accomplished by bringing Dallas Keuchel to the fold. A spot may open if the Twins deal from depth and send out a left handed position player. Keuchel has been performing well in St. Paul and did not opt out at the deadline this week. It's very reasonable to think that this is a position the Twins are thinking of, and that Keuchel is the solution.
I don't think the Twins are going to be paying anything more than cash or a very fringe prospect this deadline, and it will be hard to execute the two or three moves it would take to get here without giving up a real premium. A deadline where you probably don't make many moves means it is really hard to screw it up, especially since it is unlikely you will get suckered into a bidding war.
The only thing I feel confident in saying is that the Twins will wait to the absolute last possible moment to make any moves.
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