Pohlad Eyeing MN Twins Trade Deadline as Huge Get-Right Opportunity…

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Minnesota Twins owner and head of baseball Tom Pohlad speaking with reporters in the Target Field dugout
Credit: Steven Garcia for MPR News

What are the Minnesota Twins going to do at the 2026 MLB trade deadline, which now sits exactly one month from today (August 3) at 5 p.m. CDT.? At this point, the league doesn’t really know.

Currently, the 42-46 MN Twins sit in 3rd place in the American League Central, behind both 45-41 Chicago and 46-42 Cleveland, who are tied atop arguably the weakest division in baseball with matching .523 winning percentages.

In the Wild Card race, Minnesota is three games back of Seattle, lodged in the middle of a half-dozen or so teams trying to keep their 2026 playoff dreams alive. In some instances, the 2026 Twins would have good reason to fight like hell for the next month, to see if they could come out on the right side of .500 before the trade deadline.

Then, like any small to mid-market team, the front office would look to buy or sell, depending on whether or not they played their way into legitimate playoff/World Series contention.

“Conventional wisdom” says Minnesota Twins should sell again at MLB trade deadline

However, given the current contract and career status of their best players, conventional baseball wisdom — as Dan Hayes (The Athletic) put it — screams for the Twins to hold a second-consecutive deadline fire sale at Target Field this summer, starting with Joe Ryan.

From the outside looking in, what the Minnesota Twins should do come Aug. 3 is a slam dunk… The prevailing thought is that the club should continue to offload players and rebuild the organization by cashing in on talented assets like Ryan and others…

…Conventional wisdom says the Twins should sell. Ryan would bring an absurdly good return. Because he’s a potential impact catcher, Jeffers is likely to fetch more than a typical return for a rental. Rather than making costly adds to compete in a watered-down AL, various other pieces could easily be peddled, setting the Twins up with even more young talent for the future.

Dan Hayes – The Athletic

To add more context for Dan — Ryan Jeffers is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent this offseason. Because of his numbers prior to injury (.295 BA, .949 OPS), he’s expected to have a ton of value on the deadline market, despite missing the past two months with a broken hamate bone.

Then, there’s staff ace Joe Ryan, who has (technically) one year left on his deal, which will cost whoever he plays for $13 million, according to Spotrac. And if those guys are leaving, when better to cash in on Byron Buxton than at age 32, when his trade value is the highest it’s probably ever been?

By moving those three players alone, the Minnesota Twins would be able to rejuvenate an aging farm system with at least a handful of top prospects, some of which would immediately slot into the top of their organizational rankings.

That’s what the rest of the MLB is thinking, which is why we will continue to see Minnesota Twins players involved in trade speculation for the next month, no matter how the fans, the Twins or Buxton feel about it.

…but Tom Pohlad doesn’t want to further infuriate MN Twins fans.

But here’s the thing, it doesn’t sound like Tom Pohlad wants to sell again at the deadline, even if he has all the reasons to do so. He wasn’t in charge last summer and the new top Pohlad has made it very clear that his younger brother and Derek Falvey made a mistake when they blew everything up.

Hayes, as others have recently, went back to Tom’s opening press conference, when he railed against Joe Pohlad and the team’s former president for last year’s historic trade deadline selloff. Then, he went even further, essentially promising that he’d invest in the team when it became more appropriate. And apparently, he hopes that time is now.

Recognizing the franchise’s issues, new Twins control partner Tom Pohlad has insisted since he took over in mid-December that the club would be competitive this season, with him intending to repair trust issues with players in the clubhouse as well as providing fans with the team they deserve.

To date, those promises haven’t been fulfilled. But the deadline — if the Twins are still relevant in a month — represents Pohlad’s first chance to make his words ring true.

Dan Hayes – The Athletic

I can buy this reasoning for why Minnesota might become buyers before the deadline… at least to an extent. Tom clearly cares about how he and his family are viewed by the fanbase, which is currently in the lowest light ever. Which is saying something.

Plus, I’d imagine he’d like to start going out in public without worrying that he’ll be recognized and belittled by fans.

Pohlads trying to find revenue somewhere… (playoffs?)

This is probably about more than just making Twins fans happy, however. The way I’m reading into this, the continued loss in TV revenue after moving to Twins.TV — combined with ever-declining attendance numbers at Target Field — is hurting the Pohlads’ baseball business in a significant way.

Related: Twins Add Another Prospect to All-Star Futures Game

And that’s why he sees the upcoming trade deadline as an opportunity to, not only mend fences with fans, but for the organization to try and get out of the red before entering an offseason that could last months longer than normal, due to an ongoing labor dispute and potential lockout of players.

Think about it. If they were to make successful moves as buyers at the deadline, those deals would theoretically help them immediately put butts in the seats at Target Field ($).

Then, if those moves lead to wins and (god forbid) a late-season run to the playoffs — the Twins would get home games in the postseason this fall ($$). If you didn’t know, that is where MLB owners claim to make their money.

If MN Twins buy at deadline, what are they looking for?

So while nobody expects Tom Pohlad to go out and light money on fire to add talent at the trade deadline, Dan Hayes believes Minnesota would probably be in the market for (at least) two high-leverage relievers AND a front-end starting pitcher, to help take some burden off Joe Ryan.

With Mick Abel starting his elbow recovery over and Connor Prielipp closing in on a presumptive innings limit, the Twins must add a starting pitcher if they intend to stick around… The Twins would appear to need at least two more relievers to give Derek Shelton options to compete.

Dan Hayes – The Athletic

Of course, for Tom to have any chance at doing the above, his baseball team needs to win more games than it loses between now and August 3. And first up on the docket Friday… a trip to the Big Apple for three games against the big brother Yankees.

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