With the benefit of hindsight, no one would say Minnesota’s big trades at the deadline last year worked out. If they could go back and do it all over again, knowing what they know now, the front office certainly would not have traded away a bunch of prospects for Tyler Mahle and Jorge Lopez.
But you know what? They didn’t have the benefit of hindsight when they made those moves. All they had was the information available in real-time, which was this: The Twins were in first place in a winnable division, and they had some clear flaws that they needed to address if they were going to make a real run at the thing.
Last July, those needs were pretty significant. They needed a credible frontline starter to plug in alongside Sonny Gray and Joe Ryan, and a high-caliber reliever to complement Jhoan Duran in the late innings.
The Twins swung big. They gave up decent prospect packages to acquire Mahle and Lopez all along with extra years of service for both.
The front office knew the risk factors attached to both players — Mahle’s injury concerns and Lopez’s unconvincing long-term track record — but didn’t know both would come fully to fruition. The front office also couldn’t have guessed that even if both pickups played exactly up to optimistic expectations, it wouldn’t have mattered because the entire roster collapsed in an injury epidemic.
All the Twins front office knew at the time was where they were at and what they needed. They acted accordingly. The last takeaway you’d want the club to draw from this experience is that risks aren’t worth taking. After all, some of this regime’s greatest and most impactful moves have been the payoffs of bold risk-taking, for example:
Those moves led us to where the Twins are at today, with an elite rotation featuring three playoff-caliber starters. And for some reason, upon reaching this long-awaited moment they’ve been building toward, the front office passed up the opportunity to provide much-needed help for that unit and the rest of this team as it aims to reach the postseason and snap a 20-year curse.
The team’s needs at this past deadline were lesser in scale, but no less clearly evident. They needed bullpen help — ideally a high-leverage arm, but even middle relief depth would help. Injuries to Brock Stewart and Jorge Alcala, combined with Jorge Lopez proving unusably bad, left the team’s planned late-inning core severely lacking, in need of support.
Adding one or two relatively trusted relief arms of the Michael Fulmer ilk would’ve done worlds for this unit’s depth and stability. The cost for such assets would’ve been vastly less than a Mahle or Lopez haul. It was, seemingly, a pretty simple assignment.
Alas, the Twins front office failed it. Aside from a swap of struggling relievers that brought in Dylan Floro, they sat on their hands. And the negligence of this approach is only growing more apparent and upsetting as the exact scenario they were supposed to be protecting against plays out before our eyes.
Minnesota’s bullpen has fallen apart since the trade deadline. Over the past 20 days they’ve collectively been sub-replacement level with a -0.2 fWAR that ranks 26th in the majors. The have a 6.13 ERA during this span, compared to 3.01 for the starters.
The relief corps completely melted down in Milwaukee over the past two days, blowing mid-game leads in both losses. Floro was at the head of the struggles with a nightmare outing on Tuesday. Now the Twins head into a four-game series against the Rangers in a beleaguered state, with Duran having thrown 33 pitches in taking the loss Wednesday.
I’m not trying to oversimplify things here, by suggesting that one or two reliever additions at the deadline were going to definitively change the course of this bullpen. Maybe the acquisitions wouldn’t work out; we’ve been there. Maybe they wouldn’t have made enough difference; if Duran and other late-inning arms can’t get on track, there will be no saving this bullpen.
But to not even try? To not even add a single impact reliever who might reduce your reliance on Emilio Pagan to succeed in high leverage, or Caleb Thielbar to stay healthy, or Jax and Duran to not get run into the ground?
It’s truly one of the most baffling things I’ve ever seen. And if the Twins fall short in the playoffs, AGAIN, because they are one quality relief arm short … or worse yet, miss the playoffs entirely because their bullpen isn’t equipped for the task of holding up down the stretch … it’ll be tough to forgive this bizarrely complacent lapse from a front office that uncharacteristically played scared this time around.