Twins Acquire Trevor Richards

The Twins have acquired right-hander Trevor Richards in a trade with the Blue Jays, as per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Dan Hayes (via X).  Minor league infielder Jay Harry is heading to Toronto on the other end of the deal, Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith and Shi Davidi report (X link).

A veteran of seven MLB seasons, Richards has now been traded four times in his career, and came to the Jays along with Bowden Francis in a July 2021 deal that saw Rowdy Tellez swapped to the Brewers.  2021 was also the year that saw Richards fully assume a bullpen role after working mostly as a starter earlier in his career, and Richards has been a long relief option (with the occasional start in a bullpen game) over his stint in Toronto.

Richards’ performance has been inconsistent, as he leaves the Jays with a 4.75 ERA over his 221 2/3 total innings with the team.  This season, Richards has a 4.64 ERA in 52 1/3 innings with a subpar 11% walk rate and a 22.5% strikeout rate that is around league average.  The latter number is way down from the 31.3K% Richards posted in 2021-23, though his barrel rate is much improved from the previous three seasons.

It should be noted that Richards had a 2.44 ERA as recently as July 3, but he has been torched for 15 runs over his last eight appearances.  Richards might’ve had somewhat limited trade value anyway as a rental reliever who isn’t usually used in high-leverage situations, but this rough stretch in the last few weeks certainly didn’t help the Blue Jays’ efforts to move the 31-year-old.

Richards has about $710K remaining on his $2.1MM salary for the 2024 season, making him a pretty inexpensive addition to Minnesota’s relief corps.  Recent reports indicated that the Twins don’t have much money to work with for deadline upgrades, as their estimated (as per RosterResource) $128.5MM payroll could represent something closer to the upper limits of what ownership is willing to spend.  Concerns over broadcasting revenue have been a big story for the Twins over the last year, resulting in both a pretty quiet offseason and what had been a quiet deadline push — the Twins were the last team to swing a trade within the week.

These financial limitations add another layer of difficulty to the Twins’ plans to upgrade a team that is in possession of an AL wild card berth.  For the Jays, their deadline semi-fire sale continues, as Richards joins Yusei Kikuchi, Justin Turner, Yimi Garcia, Danny Jansen, and Nate Pearson as players moved in the last couple of weeks.

Harry was a sixth-round pick for the Twins in the 2023 draft, and he just turned 22 years old within the last couple of weeks.  The Penn State product has a .214/.306/.349 slash line over 340 plate appearances for high-A Cedar Rapids this season, playing primarily at shortstop and second base while also getting some time at third base and in all three outfield positions.  This versatility might help Harry’s chances of climbing the minor league ladder as a super-utility man, though naturally he’ll need to show a bit more at the plate.