REPORTS: Don’t Expect Big Twins Trade to Happen this Week

Minnesota Twins owner, Jim Pohlad, left, and new general manager Tad Levine, right, applaud the introduction of new chief baseball officer Derek Falvey, center, during introductions Monday, Nov. 7, 2016 in Minneapolis of the two men the major league baseball team hopes will lead them out of the abyss after they finished the season in last place in the majors. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

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The Twins beat the Yankees last night, by no surprise to me, in game 1 of a 3-game set @ Target Field this week. I told you not to be afraid of this New York Yankees. It’s a different time. It’s our time.

Cleveland won again so the Twins’ division lead remains at just 3 games.

And now, the trade deadline is loooooming big time. It’s the morning of July 23, giving us just 8 days before the timer goes off. Will the Twins actually shake things up by then? Most who are “in the know” still believe the Twins will make something happen.. but when? From everything I’ve been seeing, hearing, and reading… don’t hold your breath through the early stages of this week.

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The market is weird, as Darren Wolfson tweets above, because there are a host of teams with talent that was supposed to be available… that are now in the running for Wild Card spots, especially in the National League. The one-game Wild Card Playoff seems to have made the trade deadline a bit more gray. Teams need to decide if they are willing to go all-in on a season when their playoff hopes are likely to come down to just one game.

Look no further than the Twins of 2017, who went from buyers to sellers in a matter of days, trading for Jaime Garcia on July 24, just to trade him away by July 30. They still played in the Wild Card sudden-death matchup against the Yankees, and lost.

Non-playoff teams make deadline deals so they can improve their outlook for the future. You don’t want to base your future on a one-game playoff, but at the same time, it’s definitely not easy to trade away key pieces when you are on pace to battle for one of those sudden death games. So teams wait until they are absolutely forced to do something, leaving big decisions to be decided by how well a team plays for one week at the end of July… pretty crazy.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported yesterday that the Giants (Madison Bumgarner, Will Smith), Diamondbacks (Zack Greinke, Robbie Ray), and Padres (Kirby Yates, Franmil Reyes) are all caught up in this purgatory right now. Even with the Padres sudden drop in the standings, they are only 5 games out of a Wildcard birth in the NL, even though they sit 18.5 games behind the Dodgers in the West.

That’s how it looks all up and down the National League. Really, the only team that’s out of it in the NL completely is the Miami Marlins (who the Twins play 3 games against starting July 30)…

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The NL isn’t the only league with teams who have players available, obviously. On the American League side, you have Marcus Stroman and Ken Giles up in Toronto and Shane Green waiting to play a meaningful game in Detroit. Mychal Givens obviously plays in Baltimore right now… and even the Red Sox are rumored to be entering sell-mode. But, it looks like the market is stalled while buyers wait to see who is going to be available out of those bubble teams when the timer is nearing the end.

Nobody is more plugged in than Darren Wolfson and the way LaVelle E. Neal was backpedaling on trade rumors during his time on KFAN with Paul Allen yesterday, I wouldn’t be holding my breath for something to go down until this weekend, at the earliest.

The deadline is at 3 PM CT on Wednesday, July 31. You’ll be able to exhale then. Maybe 1 or 2 PM if you’re lucky.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

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