BREAKING: Harrison Bader Traded to Philadelphia Phillies

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

The Minnesota Twins continue to spin off impending free agents ahead of the 5 PM Central trade deadline, and they continue to make moves with the highly aggressive Philadelphia Phillies and top executive Dave Dombrowski. This time, it's Harrison Bader joining Jhoan Duran in the City of Bortherly Love. Jeff Passan was first with the report; Twins Daily's @John Bonnes was able to confirm the trade independently.

Bader, 31, is a New Yorker by birth but attended the University of Florida. Drafted by the Cardinals, he spent seven years in that organization, before being traded to the Yankees in 2022. Since, he’s bounced to the Reds and Mets, and he signed a one-year deal worth $6.25 million with the Twins just before spring training. Some $1.5 million of that is in the form of a buyout on a mutual option for 2026, so one intriguing question when looking ahead to this deal was whether the Twins would send money to offset some or all of that payment.

Bader batted .258/.339/.439 in 307 plate appearances for the Twins, with 12 home runs and 10 stolen bases. After he’d traded some patience to put the ball in play more often over the previous half-decade, Bader has drawn more walks this season and is enjoying his best offensive campaign since 2021. He’s lost a step in center field, but remains elite in either corner. While he was a Twin, he earned high praise from Rocco Baldelli for the unique energy he brought to the clubhouse and the dugout.

In return for Bader, the Twins will get outfield prospect Hendry Mendez and right-handed pitcher Geremy Villoria, as reported by Phillies writer Matt Gelb.

Mendez, 21, is a tall, lanky, left-hitting outfielder, performing well at Double-A Reading this season. He's batting .290/.374/.434 there, with eight home runs and six stolen bases. (It's worth noting, though, that Reading is a notoriously hitter-friendly environment.) Villoria, who won't even turn 17 until next month, signed with the Phillies via international free agency this winter. Superficially, Mendez looks good, but there are lots of good athletes like him with enough feel for contact to climb this high in the minors. His biggest flaw—too many ground balls—is the one that holds them back at the threshold of the majors, and fixing it is often difficult enough to force changes in a player's game that have negative knock-on effects.

Bader didn't command a premium haul, but that's no surprise. He did bring back two pieces who offer upside, giving the Twins four promising ex-Phillies farmhands accumulated in the course of less than one full day. Since Bader was due to hit free agency at the end of the season (and neither side had felt good about the likelihood of a reunion thereafter), this rates as a nice return for a player who will be much more valuable in his new organization for the rest of the summer.

View full article

[Spiritualized]

Can't wait to see who we get back

[farmerguychris]

He's the one Free Agent I would hope to stay with us into next season.  Great in the field as a back-up plan to Buxton who has excelled in left.

[Vanimal46]

I will miss him. Hope we prioritize signing him in free agency this winter. 

[farmerguychris]

According to "The Sporting News"

In return, the Twins get outfielder Hendry Mendez and right-handed pitcher Geremy Villoria. Neither player was highly regarded in the farm system.

[NYCTK]

21 year old bat in AA, hitting well - Good

16 year old pitcher - definition of a lottery ticket

Good trade for the Twins. Bundle it up with the Duran trade so people are less annoyed by that trade's immediate return. 

[luckylager]

The return is pretty disappointing.  Hopefully we can convince him to return next season. 

[LewFordLives]

Mendez is interesting. MLB has him ranked #12 in the Phillies system. He's having a good year at AA as a 21 year old.

https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/phillies/hendry-mendez-694230

It's about what I expected the Twins would get. I don't love it, I don' hate it. 

[JBK]

The FO lets us down again.  Bader was really the only player we could count on every night.  Sad that the ownership has given up so soon this season.  While they are stripping the team, trade Rocco.  His moves in the 9th inning yesterday were redic.  Very sad.

[MGX]

It's a reasonable return for a rental player like Bader. As someone mentioned above Mendez is 21 & hitting at AA so that's a positive. A lottery ticket pitcher along with him seems about right for Bader.

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

Wishing Bader nothing but the best in Philadelphia. Solid dude and really played well for the Twins. He'll be missed.

 

[exeoud]

It's whatever about this trade as Bader is a rental.

However, still pissed about the return for Duran. See what Mason Miller got? Yeah, I understand he has 4 years of additional control compared to Duran's 2, but the A's clearly got more than double the value the Twins did, and Duran is even better. Even Tyler Rogers, a rental, got more value in return than we did according to Baseball Trade Values (not a super reputable source but something to go off of). Falvey is probably trying to work his way into the Phillies FO after he gets fired here.

[Danchat]

Mendez didn't even get a honorable mention in Fangraphs' Phillies prospect rankings, but then MLB.com has him as their 12th best prospect. I will take a guy who is hitting decently well in AA at the age of 21. Would be cool if he isn't a defensive liability in the outfield. If you go by Fangraphs then this isn't a good return, but if you go by MLB.com then it seems alright.

That's 4 international prospects they've traded for in the past few days... I guess Falvey's making up for the nearly total lack of any international prospect contributions the past 9 years (anybody outside of Arraez?). Can't wait to see these guys in 2030!

[Old Crow]

12 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

21 year old bat in AA, hitting well - Good

16 year old pitcher - definition of a lottery ticket

Good trade for the Twins. Bundle it up with the Duran trade so people are less annoyed by that trade's immediate return. 

Good luck on that.

[LastOnePicked]

Falvey has the phone numbers of other National League front offices, right?

[Spiritualized]

Brock Stewart traded to Dodgers

 

[BiggestRoccoFan]

Not sure what we expected to get for Bader. This team can't be sold soon enough and Rocco and Falvey both fired. This organization needs to complete reset.

The biggest question mark is are our young players overrated or just managed horribly. They should have fired Rocco after last years collapse so by know we would know.

At this point we still have no idea but I think it's a combination of both.

[SkyBlueWaters]

Would love to be privy to conversations the next owners are having regarding spending on free agency and retaining talent. Re-stocking the farm system this way is a good foundation. Good luck to Bader, enjoyed his hustle this year, would like to see him return, too.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

A reasonable prospect plus a lottery ticket for a guy on an expiring contract.  If the Twins like the prospect, and I'm guessing that's why they made the trade, then I think it is just fine.  This is a "squeeze some value out of a guy who won't be back" trade.  

I hope people aren't expecting to be blown away by the return for the pending free-agents.  They just don't have that much value for 50 games remaining in this season.  A decent prospect is the best you can hope for.  

[gman]

22 minutes ago, farmerguychris said:

According to "The Sporting News"

In return, the Twins get outfielder Hendry Mendez and right-handed pitcher Geremy Villoria. Neither player was highly regarded in the farm system.

Hendry was rated 12th on the Philly prospect list. He just recently has risen 2 spots on the list😃

[hitterscount]

Whatever... All I know is if you had  7 other players in the field that gave the effort, played defense and understood the fundamentals like he did we would be fighting for first place. 

[Doc Lenz]

34 minutes ago, Spiritualized said:

Can't wait to see who we get back

Ham sandwich 

[CRF]

Really liked Bader. Gonna miss him. This whole thing sucks. Wish we could just dump ownership, F.O., and manager. 

[BiggestRoccoFan]

1 minute ago, CRF said:

Really liked Bader. Gonna miss him. This whole thing sucks. Wish we could just dump ownership, F.O., and manager. 

It's coming. Something has to give.

[Doctor Gast]

25 minutes ago, exeoud said:

It's whatever about this trade as Bader is a rental.

However, still pissed about the return for Duran. See what Mason Miller got? Yeah, I understand he has 4 years of additional control compared to Duran's 2, but the A's clearly got more than double the value the Twins did, and Duran is even better. Even Tyler Rogers, a rental, got more value in return than we did according to Baseball Trade Values (not a super reputable source but something to go off of). Falvey is probably trying to work his way into the Phillies FO after he gets fired here.

Makes sense, Duran & Bader were good fits for PHI, but what MN got back were underwhelming, overvalued, far less valuable & won't help MN much if any at all or any time. Just what MN needs another LH OLFer. Falvey helped out PHI lot more than MN. Falvey is long overdue to be out the door. They probably worked out a post MN deal while they were finalizing.

[mikelink45]

At least we now know which NL team we will be rooting for in the playoffs,  Mr Bonnes should have a happy home for the remainder of the season!

[twinstalker]

Just a warning that Reading (Phillies AA) is a hitter's paradise and stats are misleading.  That's on one hand.  On the other, Mendez is 21 with a good slash and really low K rate.  He stands a decent chance of reaching MLB.  He's striking out an absurd 14% while young-ish for AA.  He sort of feels like a lh 4th OF, which is sort of an oxymoron with the limited space (due to 13 pitchers).  

I don't know his exit velocities, but from the basic stats, especially K rate, he looks like a guy who can make it to the bigs.

We've talked about lottery tickets, and pitcher Villoria is the face used on the lottery ticket advertisements.  It's a smart get by Falvey, as Dombrowski wasn't going to hold up a deal for a guy like that.

As for the value for Bader, yeah, Mendez was about what you could expect, Villoria provides a tiny amount of hope.

 

[DocBauer]

No clue what I expected in return. Guess I was hoping for a p3n conversion arm,  possibly soon 4th OF, maybe even a somewhat decent blocked 1B option. (For Bader or Castro, to be honest). 

A young OF hitting for a good AVG in AA with little speed, mediocre defense,  and a ton of ground balls just doesn't sound very exciting. Not sure I really expected more, but had hoped for it at least.

[AceBee]

Should have added him in the conversation with Duran deal itself to get better prospect haul...seems like ALL MN teams are pretty awful when it comes to landing decent returns. 

[S Bart]

46 minutes ago, farmerguychris said:

He's the one Free Agent I would hope to stay with us into next season.  Great in the field as a back-up plan to Buxton who has excelled in left.

Fully agree...you can't count on Buxton staying healthy. I seriously think that the Pohlad crew just is thinking of paying off their 400 million team debt. Maybe they should think about not paying for new city disconnect uniforms next year which Joe Pohlad designed to save money.