Minnesota Twins’ trade deadline selloff was anything but a ‘retooling’ 

Here s a question that isn t being solicited enough in the aftermath of the Twins arrangement deadline roster selloff If Twins players were so good that chief baseball executive Derek Falvey detected homes with contenders for ten of them nearly percent of the -man roster why didn t this club win more games If Falvey and his staff have any humility they ll see the answer s right in front of them Last winter after s epic collapse the second in three seasons a Twins official advised me the brain trust conducted the usual postseason post-mortem examined the roster and determined the failure to be an anomaly They couldn t be this wrong about this group majority of of whom they developed or acquired They thought the young players who flopped down the stretch would learn from it and come back stronger They expected Carlos Correa and Royce Lewis to be healthier and more productive The effort to sell the club and the end of the club s local TV rights deal posed chosen financial hurdles But in their view adding a few low-cost veteran rentals in a couple of spots would put the Twins right back in the playoffs So they chose to ride with their core crew into Related Bruce Bolt gave the Twins Harrison Bader color and flair And he put the Texas sports startup on the map Instead of class the season s been a accident now made worse by Falvey trying to publicly portray this stunning roster churn as anything but what it is It s not as Falvey claimed Thursday night on a Zoom call with reporters a retooling It s an estate sale with the remains lying in state at Target Field for the final two months This time of year is invariably funky catcher Ryan Jeffers explained last Tuesday after Chris Paddack and Randy Dobnak were traded to Detroit to start all the movement Sometimes it changes for the better Sometimes it changes for the younger Non-contending teams unload impending free agents in the final month of their contracts all the time that s how modern baseball works But dealing three young arbitration-eligible relievers who can t be free agents until after the season closer Jhoan Duran setup man Griffin Jax and Brock Stewart as well as a pre-arbitration Louis Varland suggests the Twins have given up on and no matter how Falvey tries to spin it Minnesota Twins relief pitcher Jhoan Duran throws to the Seattle Mariners in the ninth inning of a baseball match Wednesday June in Minneapolis He was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday Credit Bruce Kluckhohn AP It also suggests the club is cutting future payroll obligations to try and reduce its debt which The Athletic estimated last March at million making it more appealing to the next owner Falvey denied economics played a part Falvey is generally regarded as smart and personable someone who says hello to you first when you pass him in the hallway But too often his explanations devolve into the kind of baseball jargon and babble favored by the modern analytics crowd He addressed the matter more plainly in a letter emailed Friday morning to Twins season ticket holders and group organizers But he still sounded like a guy trying to defend why he traded in the family SUV for a horse and wagon We didn t make surface moves the letter read We acted with purpose That meant adding players who can help now deepening our talent pipeline for and beyond and reinforcing the foundation for long-term success We know moves like this spark reactions That s natural It reflects how much you care That s why we re positioning the Twins to compete at a higher level not just in the short term but in a way that can endure the ups and downs of a long season That s the kind of company you deserve Related A crew of their own New baseball squad represents Willmar s Latino neighborhood Chosen of the players acquired in Falvey s nine deals like starting pitcher Taj Bradley from Tampa Bay for Jax show chosen promise If five or six develop into productive major-leaguers it s a good haul But for Correa the Twins got back a -year-old lefty Matt Mikulski who s still in A ball after five pro seasons The chances of him ever pitching at Target Field Not zero but not great It s unsurprising that once Correa the club s unofficial assistant general manager got wind of what Falvey intended he needed out Correa s baseball smarts and leadership mentoring young Latino teammates like Jose Miranda and improving the club s infield drills and instruction led the playoff charge But persistent injury problems and diminished offensive production made his six-year million Twins contract harder to justify In the end the Giants and Mets were right to back off from the megadeals that led Correa back to the Twins in It was also stunning to hear Correa tell MLB com Astros writer Brian McTaggart he sought to move to third base for a couple of years something he never declared publicly before It wasn t happening in Minnesota he added We were waiting for a shortstop to come in And who would that be Lewis Brooks Lee In the end Twins fans are the biggest losers The club hasn t drawn two million spectators since and is already running about behind last year s pace which ended just short at Fans disgusted by the club s failure to capitalize on the playoff run aren t embracing this selloff either If you pine for the days you could buy a ticket for the Yankees for wait until the Bronx Bombers are here in September With dynamic pricing and a robust secondary industry there should be plenty of seats available at that price or less Twins fans don t ask for much This isn t New York or Boston where fans demand excellence and boo you off the field if they don t get it Here expectations are lower a unit with a reasonable chance to win a nice day at the ballpark a tasty hot dog on a fresh roll that doesn t cost too much But they re tired of a club that insults their intelligence They re tired of a club that pulls back instead of going for it No one expects the Twins to spend like the Dodgers or the Mets But it would be just dandy if this club just once did more than the minimum The Correa signing was a step in the right direction This week was a somersault backward Nothing the Twins did this week diminished the perception that s been around since Carl Pohlad threatened to move or contract the club that the third generation of Pohlads is as cheap as the first more interested in the bottom line than fielding a championship group There s plenty of evidence that isn t true at least with Jim and Joe Pohlad But you won t find plenty of Twins fans believing that now They ve been disappointed again and maybe for the last time The post Minnesota Twins contract deadline selloff was anything but a retooling appeared first on MinnPost