The Twins are in a predicament to end all predicaments. The trade deadline looms just 13 days away, and the team is under .500, but just barely. To add more fuel to the gas fire of uncertainty regarding the team’s direction, they appear to be getting closer to a sale to a new ownership group. They have also been playing better lately, taking series from the Rays, Cubs and Pirates in succession heading into the break.
They are also getting healthier, though that is always a jinx-ridden statement. Pablo López, Bailey Ober, Luke Keaschall and Zebby Matthews being available could certainly change how the front office views the team’s chances. Matthews looks likely to re-join the club this weekend, with Keaschall and Ober beginning rehab assignments simultaneously in St. Paul.
However, the trade value of Joe Ryan has never been higher, and he could fetch a 2020 Mike Clevinger-type haul (more on that later). The team faced a similar dilemma in 2017, the first year of the Derek Falvey-Thad Levine regime. The core of Miguel Sanó, Byron Buxton, Jorge Polanco, Eddie Rosario, Max Kepler and José Berríos were together and keeping their collective heads above water. On July 19, their playoff odds had “surged” to 23.4% (per Baseball Prospectus) after winning a home series against the Yankees. The upside was palpable, and with veterans Brian Dozier, Joe Mauer, Ervin Santana and Robbie Grossman all performing well, the front office felt the need to acquire a starter. Maybe someone who could give quality innings in a playoff series, and who perhaps would come cheaply, given injury concerns. Enter Jaime García.
García was a few years removed from his peak, when he posted a 161 ERA+ for the Cardinals in 2015 across 20 starts. That came with the lowest strikeout rate of his career, so the sustainability of that performance was questionable. Pitching for the Braves in 2017, his ERA+ was a much more middling 101, but that was enough for the Twins to take a swing on the lefty.
Famously, Garcia made one start for the Twins, and the team won! But that came amidst a 2-6 stretch heading into the trade deadline, and García was flipped—as well as the team’s de facto closer, Brandon Kintzler. The team’s playoff odds had decreased to 7%.
From there, the team’s offense surged and the pitching bent but didn’t break. That is, until the Wild Card game at Yankee Stadium.
Coming out of the All-Star break this year, the Twins have an 8.8% chance to make the playoffs according to Baseball-Reference. However, FanGraphs puts their odds at 23.1%, suspiciously close to the 23.4% Baseball Prospectus figure from 2017, while BP now gives them a 28.3% chance.
The latter two odds give deference to the talent present on the roster, rather than the team’s actual performance (over the past 100 games is BR’s formula), which speaks to the main issue here: the team still feels like it has the pieces to be pretty good. The team’s results (for nearly a year now) say otherwise.
Does the front office look at the 8.8% chance and sell, similar to how they acted following the 2-6 stretch post-García acquisition in 2017? Or do they view that juicy 28.3% chance from BP as legitimate, and add to their roster? The 2023 Angels went for it and paid a huge price, losing Shohei Ohtani for a draft pick and depleting an already bad farm system, while the 2015 Mets added Yoenis Céspedes and made the World Series. Their odds at the All-Star break? 26.7%.
The real question might not be at what specific point the team no longer believes their playoff odds justify investment in the team, but rather, what they think their odds really are. After all, the Twins have their own internal evaluations of themselves and the rest of the league. Whether their self-perceptions match the pseudo-objective estimates of outside entities is unclear.
The default answer is that Falvey and company will stand pat, unless the team really tanks over the next 10 days. Last year, their odds at this time were 82% per FanGraphs and all we got was a lightly charred Trevor Richards, so winning every game from now until July 31 won’t necessarily change the calculus. Like 2024, there may just not be enough money in the budget to take on even a middling salary.
What we haven’t seen from this front office is a retooling trade, whereby the team sold high on a valuable asset (such as Ryan or Jhoan Duran) that infused enough talent to set the team up better for the future while not necessarily punting on the current year. Think about that Clevinger trade, which brought the Guardians Josh Naylor, Gabriel Arias, Cal Quantrill, Joey Cantillo and Owen Miller. Naylor was then flipped this past offseason for Slade Cecconi, who has made 10 good starts for the Guardians. Other examples include the Brewers trading Josh Hader in 2023 or the Guardians (again) unloading Trevor Bauer in 2019. Truly, only the Rays, Guardians and Brewers make these types of trades, as they are all cash-strapped, on the cutting edge of analytics and have little concern for what their fans think. Do the Twins view themselves in such a mold?
What do you think? Should the Twins add, stand pat, retool, or sell?