After a disappointing 17-29 start to the season, the Twins aren’t decided sellers, but they might not be far off, writes MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. Said GM Thad Levine, “We still believe in the team. We think it’s very talented, but we’re getting close to an inflection point where we’re going to need to see some more sustained momentum, as we believe we’re in a very competitive division, let alone league.” That sounds like a front office that’s readying to make the most of a bad situation.
The Twins are tied with the Orioles for the worst record in the American League after 46 games, roughly 28 percent of the way through the season. As of today, they sit 9.5 games behind the White Sox for the AL Central lead. They are 11 games out of a wild card spot. Only the Orioles and Tigers seem like definite sellers at this point in the AL, joined by the Pirates, Rockies, and Diamondbacks from the National League. The Twins could try to get a jump on the trade market and move some veterans while there’s still a large pool of potential buyers.
For context, on this date two years ago, the Nationals famously entered play at 19-31, 10 games behind the Phillies for the division lead, 8.5 games out of a wild card spot. So while there’s definitely precedent for turning it around at this stage of the game, it took a historic .661 win percentage the rest of the way to pull the Nats to 93 wins. The Twins will soon have to decide if they think this unit is capable of that kind of run.
They’re looking up at a crowded field in the American League where the Yankees, Rays, Red Sox, White Sox, Astros, Blue Jays, A’s, and Indians look like contenders and the Royals, Rangers, Angels, and Mariners can make arguments in their favor. If the Twins decide to lean into a lost season, they certainly have some veterans on hand who could be helpful to contending teams. Nelson Cruz and his 138 wRC+ could certainly find a home, as might other veterans on short-term deals like Andrelton Simmons, Michael Pineda, Hansel Robles, J.A. Happ, or even Alex Colome.
More broadly, Miguel Sano could be shopped to a team needing power. Even someone like Max Kepler might fetch a juicy return given his team-friendly deal. The Twins have no need to move Kepler, but with young players like Trevor Larnach and Alex Kirilloff on hand, he might be someone a savvy team looking for outfield help might ask after.
The biggest fish would be Jose Berrios, Taylor Rogers, or Byron Buxton, all of whom have just one season left of arbitration before free agency. Moving any of the three would be a difficult call on the Twins’ part, however, considering the damage that kind of deal might do to their ability to contend in 2022. All that said, prospects are the currency of the game, and a strong development pool is the surest way to build a consistent winner.
The Twins are weighing their options, but let’s make this easy on them. Is it time to sell?
(Poll link for app users)
It’s time for the Twins to de franchise
…good one. I’d love to hear your rational here.
…good one. Would love to hear your rational here.
…good one. Would love to hear your rational here.
wonder if they meant to say rationale
…good one. Would love to hear your rational here.
…good one. Would love to hear your rational here.
…good one. Would love to hear your rational here.
…good one. Would love to hear your rational here.
…güd won. Wood love too here you’re rational hear.
This rationale is irrational…
Good one… it is a very good one…
That could also be said for other franchises
It’s time to eliminate all expansion teams.
Wait how are the Angels listed on here as competitive?
wait until the weekend
Do they have it off?
or the Rangers, Mariners, or Indians for that matter.
Cleveland is 4 games over .500 and just a game and a half back from the division lead. Maybe you thought they weren’t doing that good?
This team has been the biggest surprise for me this year.
Their next 13 games are all against the Orioles and Royals. If they can win at least 9 or 10 of those, don’t sell yet. If they can’t, pack it in, it’s over. No need to do anything before that.
At some point they have to go back to playing good teams. They don’t get to play the orioles and tigers the rest of the year.
Not the point… it’s for this stretch of 13 games or so. If they can sneak back up to 500, things might get really interesting
My royals will make sure Cruz is on a better team.
Sox will take a heavy hitting OF
I know Kepler is having a down year but he’s someone I would at the very least be checking in on to see what it would take to acquire. He’s got the upside to help a lot of teams — including the White Sox — in the short and long-term future.
I’ve always been a big believer in Kepler’s talent but I’m not sure what it would realistically take for the Twins to come off of him. I’d imagine the Twins would want pitching prospects since they have just about everything else covered. Also would love it if Hahn swung a deal to get Nelson Cruz.
Good point. Wasn’t Washington 19-31 at one point a few years ago?
Not yet but likely soon. I would think extensions on Berrios and Buxton if possible. Sano’s not very desirable but Simmons, Cruz and Pineda are. I would move Donaldson with any decent offer. With a little retooling I can see them in 2nd behind the Sox next year.
Berrios isn’t going to sign an extension, they’ve already tried a couple of times and haven’t gotten anywhere. He wasn’t to become a FA.
Buxton is tough to extend bc of his injury history.
I think even signing Berrios to a market deal (again assuming he’d want to stay in MN at all) would be in their interest. Buxton could be poised for a Hicks structured contract, guaranteed $’ spread out and the injury risk factored in. Twins seem to be ok with paying a few players (Donaldson, Cruz) and working around that.
As stated by Kermit, the Twins have been trying to sign Berrios for years and he’s been very dismissive of their attempts. He’s 1.5 years away from free agency and he has very little reason to sign now.
Based on historical comments, Berrios is pretty unforgiving of teams who don’t put their money on the table to aim for a World Series Championship and that is not what the Twins have been.
There is some risk to Berrios staying firm because of the new CBA which will have to get hammered out, I’d have to believe the MLBPA is expecting a more player favorable environment so I’d also expect Berrios to be in that line of thinking, too.
What changes to FA would you expect to occur that would affect Berrios?
The market value for any of sano Simmons Cruz pin dead or Donaldson is a headliner of some guy you never heard of and will never play in the majors
Weren’t all the players you listed “some guy you never heard of and will never play in the major leagues” at some point? They all start off as prospects. I might not have understood your point though. I was kind of taking a crack at it. =}
Mandatory reference to the 2018 Nats. And the AL Central ain’t anywhere near the NL East.
We’re only at the quarter poll, and the Twins are a sight lot better than they’ve shown. Plenty of time to deal if they’re still in the same shape a month from now.
It’s not the NL east because the top two teams in the AL central have a better winning percentage than the NL east leader.
he means the 2019 NL East
Let’s see how Maeda comes back from the IL. If he remains injured, then I would sell.
They have nothing to sell. They’d be mad to trade berrios or meada or buxton as the returns will be way to light once they proclaim as sellers.
Rest of their roster is either untradable or will get rental returns. Keep the team in tact and keep fighting
Thanks for saying the Rangers could be partly competitive. It’s not gonna happen, but thanks for some recognition lol.
I want to see the Twins sell off their older pieces like Pineda and Cruz while still retaining that core that is ultimately good. They could get some nice returns back for those guys.
You spelled “Athletics” wrong
I hate the idea of a team completely selling when they’re having a bad year. Maybe a slight retooling.
Kind of stunning how all those short-term deals nestled around some building blocks have led to such poor results. Not time to bail just yet, but barring some miracle it will soon (a month?) become time to throw in the towel on veterans even if it means taking A-ball prospects in return.
Twins won’t trade Buxton because he still has value. They will wait another couple years til he’s officially a lost cause, then they’ll try to unload him.
Oh wait, but his first month was totally him figuring out this baseball thing and he’s the real deal…. we’ve only been through this song and dance a hundred times already.
Think he already is lost cause. All the talent but cant stay on the field. Reminds me of Eric Davis.
Call the Mets. I think we have our entire AAA starting lineup up with the big club. We need some veterans. I’m tired of hearing, “…making his major league debut…” and “…still looking for his first hit for the Mets…”.
I’m leaning towards “sell”.
We are essentially at the 50 game mark.
My grandfather taught me that is the point in the season that the standings & leader boards have any kind of validity. This has proven to be true over the decades.
As well, I read an article on Fangraphs bearing this out.
Lots of nuts & bolts stats (K rate BB rate for pitchers & batters, etc) begin to stabilize in the 40-50 gane range.
So.
I think the Twins are in trouble.
Unless they go on a pretty serious run, this season will be a lost one for them.
50 games might be quick. If instead wait into Memorial Day. Oh, umm…
Back in the late 1990’s when the twins were pushing for a New stadium.. promising to spend all the money on keeping their stars and adding to them to build winning teams.. I was one of many who called bullcrap.. and time has shown i was correct. Target Field has been a cash cow… the twin have went from being worth 300 Million to well over a Billion dollars.. and nothing has changed.. this would be the 3rd rebuild since then.. and still no rings or even smells of a ring… Its time to do what i pushed for those many years ago.. the State to take over the twins for failure to perform on a promise ( economic extortion and failure to perform on a verbal contract.. yes there was a verbal contract.. I sat thru the State senate hearings and heard it with my own 2 ears..) .. make them into a publicly owned franchise.. and Rebuild from the TOP down…
Do you pound your fist on the podium when you denounce capitalist swine like some Third-World dictator?
Hmmm, I read it as a plea for a Championship-first philosophy as a priority for ownership.
you read it correctly.. the whole point of spending public money was to build championships..
Do you have a clue about the PUBLIC financing of the MLB Stadiums.. that is pure welfare for the rich and No capitalist would ever want to have government pay their way to being billionaires..
Seizing assets from their opponents is the hallmark of Third-World dictators. But I am a pretty pure capitalist and I agree that stadiums should be funded by their occupants. I can see allowing room for municipal bonds that help finance construction costs, but should be paid for by rent or ticket taxes rather than by the public.
The education level of some of these commenters could used an upgrade.. I suggest you learn about Eminent Domain.. and the government has the right to seize properties for many reasons.. including Breach of contract..
someoldguy. The cities can say no to public money. 30 teams giving public money for stadiums does not give you 30 World Champions.
All that says is that the sports teams aren’t capitalists as claimed.. as i stated… They are seeking welfare and using economic extortion to get it..
So you are advocating that the same types of elected officials and government bureaucrats that agreed to these types of public funding investments actually run the franchise as a government asset?
That’s nucking futs
Clearly you don’t know anything about what i said , so why did you comment.. I suggest you go read up on the GreenBay packers..
Ok I understand more clearly now. If an owner wanted to go that route to divest themselves of ownership more power to them. What I don’t care for would be the use of eminent domain simply to collect on a debt. You are essentially allowing government to confiscate property and transfer it to another owner simply because you don’t like them. That’s great if you an advocate of eliminating the concept of private property.
Clearly you don’t understand.. demanding money or i will hurt you is a crime.. its called extortion.. when a sports team demands a subsidy or they will hurt the community.. that is extortion.. when a sports team Promises things in exchange for public money that is a contract.. when the sports team purposefully defaults on those promises .. that is Fraud and a violation of the contract.. at which point communities should protect their investment and take the team in compensation for the Contract violation and the fraud..
I understand clearly. Sue for breach of contract. Eminent domain does not give the right to confiscate to settle a debt. And if you invoke imminent domain and get away with it the owner is entitled to fair value for that asset as well as future earnings thereof. And since the community would not be utilizing the asset for a purpose different from what it is now you have successfully confiscated and transferred ownership of private property simply because you prefer one ownership entity to another. Congratulations, you laid the groundwork for wealthy entities to lobby local government for property transfers with impunity. I respectfully wish you the worst in this endeavor.
so you don’t believe in the corporate death penalty for crimes.. like extortion .. and you don’t believe communities should take the assets they have built back for the community..
A publicly-owned franchise, ala the Green Bay Packers, would be awesome but it is NOT allowed in baseball. Joan Krok tried to basically “gift” the Padres to the city of San Diego and MLB refused. They didn’t want to mess up the cutthroat capitalist endeavor that is baseball and thought it might start a precident.
How they perform the next 2 weeks against the Royals and Orioles should determine whether they have any hope of a revival.
I think it’s still a little early for that, but the next 3 weeks should help them decide…certainly want to give yourselves the whole month of July to start the sell off though
One good long win streak changes things a lot for teams who are in the mix. For the Twins to tie up the race, they’d need to go on a 24 or 26 game winning streak to be even with the White Sox or the AL Wild Card at the respective winning percentages.
The Twins are not in a great position for the future, either. The White Sox are absolutely loaded with young talent and are the best team in the division already. The Tigers have already gotten the jump on the full rebuild and have arguably the best farm system in MLB along with $70 million in payroll space, even including what is probably the worst contract in baseball right now. The Indians have a farm system just as good as the Twins, except the Indians have been fielding a consistently good team for a decade now. The Kansas City Royals have proven they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is, unlike risk-averse Minnesota.
Essentially, it seems like Minnesota has largely been asleep at the wheel for what has been a soft division for a few years now. Unfortunately, the AL Central isn’t poised to continue that and it looks like Minnesota has utterly failed to capitalize on a great opportunity.
It sure seems like a good time to unload talent if Minnesota can get a good return. They’re going to have to play a lot of really bad baseball for a long time to get enough young talent to build a World Series contender at an inflexible mid-low payroll position.
Very well reasoned.. but you don’t build championships by the draft.. or even home grown players.. that is Myth… break down every championship that was supposed to be “Homegrown”.. and you find Trades were of vital importance to them… as well as signing free agents.. quality Trades and Quality Free Agents.. and looking at the twins when is the last time they grew a pitching staff?.. their last drafted True Cy Young type Ace was I believe Frank Viola… who have they traded for lately? why didn’t they take a shot at Blake Snell when Tampa was begging for a catcher and the Twins had a surplus?….. no the twins have no intention of building a champion.. they are content with competitiveness.. its a money maker for them.. They are the Minnesota Ticket Sellers and Have been since Mrs. Po’lad.,. the real baseball fan, died..
Although the Twins are clearly not “one ace” from a World Series. We see them play fundamentally unsound, low IQ baseball on a regular basis. We saw it last year, and we’re seeing it this year. That won’t get you anywhere in October, no matter how good your pitching technically is.
I’d say it’s probably too soon. I think they will be sellers, but I don’t think they are going to get significantly more selling now vs selling in July. If they think they can get significantly more, then do it ASAP.
Twins are a team that can rebound from a down year and compete the next. That said, trade the expendable talent on the roster and build around the strong core for next season.
Too early to even think about being most big trades won’t happen until July.
Typical Twins team. Go cheap on everything including pitching. Bargain basement shop on starters and then Wonder what happened. Hopefully they sell as we don’t need to see another Twinkie team get swept in the first round.
I don’t understand people saying the Twins are cheap in these comments. They’ve been signing a lot of free agents when other teams haven’t been, even if only on short term deals. If they decide to sell it won’t be about money, it’ll be about restocking the farm system and getting some other guys some looks. They’re certainly no Cleveland Indians.
The Twins have signed a few guys for many years now, but they’re almost always second or third tier players. As you say, they’re getting the guys on short term deals. Minnesota is just extremely risk averse.
It’s basically been Minnesota tradition to field a “good” but not great team and hope they catch lightning in a bottle on 2 or 3 players. That worked for them in 1987 and 1991, but it’s a real anomaly to see that.
I’m not sure what your comment about the Indians is supposed to mean? They’ve spent almost the same as Minnesota for the past 10 years. The two teams are often close to one another with Cleveland outspending Minnesota about 1/2 the time. If you mean performance wise… yeah, that’s hard to argue since Cleveland has been to the playoffs 5 of the last 8 years and the World Series in 2016. Minnesota hasn’t won a single playoff game since 2004.
Cleveland’s payroll is around $50M total and Minnesota’s is around $130M.
Honestly, what would you sell? Kep is probably the only thing close to desirable as he’s actually producing on a team friendly long term deal. Everyone else is either due to come off team control, underperforming, carrying off field baggage, or is literally too old and/or injury prone to bring much value on the market. Even the few prospects that seem to have decent upside are either hurt or underperforming. And with the way the Twins have performed in the past seasons, you can forget about deeper recent draft picks being meaningful contributors or decent blue chippers falling their way in the near future.
What we are looking at for the Twins is probably a Houston-esque total tank. Falvey and Levine had it right when they took over, the franchise was in a state of total system failure. The only problem is they didn’t or weren’t allowed to replace the total system.
I would sell. To apply some math to the article, let’s presume that the 2nd WC wins 90 games, and it will likely be closer to 93 games. That means the Twins need to play between .626 and .652. With all due respect to the fact that the Nats did it once, it is pretty unlikely that the Twins make the playoffs.
I think Berrios should go, since you will get a 1.5 year return for him, even though he has only 1 year of value for the Twins. Cruz, Pineda, Simmons, Happ (if/when he turns it around), and Robles, since they are all gone after this year, should be on the block.
Except for Berrios, that doesn’t really affect the 2022 core very much.
It is time to trade the upcoming free agents-Cruz, Simmons, Pineda, Happ, Shoemaker, Robles and Colume. 2021 is already a LOST season. There could be an argument made for moving Josh Donaldson, and moving Sano back to 3B. With the season already lost, it is time to prepare for 2022. Get Kirilloff, Larnach and Gordon some playing time. Find out if Randy Dobnak, Lewis Thorpe, Bailey Odor and Devin Smeltzer can start, Get as much value as possible for the rentals who will be free agents next year, and what Donaldson can draw. RELOAD, and prepare for 2022.