Re-Grading All 9 of the Twins' 2025 Trade Deadline Deals One Year Later

[Matthew Taylor]

Image courtesy of Eric Hartline, IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

One year ago, the Minnesota Twins reshaped the organization with one of the biggest trade deadline selloffs in franchise history, making nine separate deals before the deadline passed. Immediately afterward, I graded each trade based on the information available at the time.

A year later, we have a much better picture. Some of the prospects the Twins acquired have taken significant steps forward, while others have struggled or battled injuries. Meanwhile, several of the veterans the Twins traded away have continued to build their value elsewhere.

With the 2026 trade deadline now behind us (and with Jhoan Duran coming home to Target Field later this week), it's time to revisit all nine trades and see which ones have aged the best and which ones look worse than they did a year ago.

1. (Last Year's Rank: 7) Griffin Jax to the Rays
Return: RHP Taj Bradley
2025 Grade: C-
2026 Grade: A-

I wasn't a big fan of the Griffin Jax trade at last year's trade deadline for a few reasons. The biggest was that the Twins didn't need to make the trade. Jax still had 2.5 years of team control remaining, and it felt like a rushed move when they could have let the market develop over the winter.

At the time, Taj Bradley also didn't feel like an exciting return after posting a 4.70 ERA across 354 career innings with Tampa Bay.

This trade has completely flipped. Bradley has emerged as one of the Twins' most valuable starters, posting a 3.69 ERA while leading the club in innings pitched. He's still in his pre-arbitration years, giving Minnesota a young, affordable starter for years to come. Griffin Jax has reinvented himself as a starter with the Rays, but landing a controllable rotation piece with upside has made this look like one of the Twins' best moves.

2. (Last Year's Rank: 1) Harrison Bader to the Phillies
Return: OF Hendry Mendez, RHP Geremy Villoria
2025 Grade: A-
2026 Grade: A-

Last year, I graded the Harrison Bader trade as the best move the Twins made at the deadline, and it still ranks near the top.

Bader was playing on an expiring contract and had little long-term value to a selling club. Minnesota turned him into an intriguing left-handed hitting outfield prospect in Hendry Mendez, who owned an .808 OPS at Double-A at the time of the trade.

Since joining the organization, Mendez posted a .912 OPS with Wichita before earning a promotion to Triple-A, where he has continued producing with an .844 OPS. He looks like someone who will factor into the Twins' big league plans in the near future, making this an excellent return for a pending free agent. The Twins also got 17-year-old Geremy Villoria as a lottery ticket; we won't learn whether it was a winner for several more years.

3. (Last Year's Rank: 4) Chris Paddack and Randy Dobnak to the Tigers
Return: C Enrique Jimenez
2025 Grade: B-
2026 Grade: B+

Chris Paddack was struggling on an expiring contract when the Twins dealt him, so the fact that Minnesota was able to receive a legitimate prospect at all was impressive.

Jimenez rewarded that gamble almost immediately, posting a .983 OPS in A-ball after joining the organization. This season he earned a promotion to High-A as a 20-year-old before suffering a significant left hamstring strain in late July that is expected to end his season.

The injury is unfortunate, but the upside remains intriguing, and this trade looks better today than it did a year ago.

4. (Last Year's Rank: 3) Carlos Correa to the Astros
Return: RHP Matt Mikulski and roughly $70 million in salary relief
2025 Grade: B
2026 Grade: B

This was always more about financial flexibility than prospect value.

Matt Mikulski has since been released, eliminating any player value from the return. However, shedding the remainder of Correa's contract gave the Twins significantly more payroll flexibility, something that showed up at this year's trade deadline when they were willing to absorb more than $8 million in salary.

Correa is also out for the remainder of the 2026 season with an injury, making it difficult to argue the Twins should regret moving on. Still, because this was primarily a salary dump, it's difficult to rank it much higher.

5. (Last Year's Rank: 5) Willi Castro to the Cubs
Return: RHP Ryan Gallagher, RHP Sam Armstrong
2025 Grade: C+
2026 Grade: C

While Castro was an impending free agent, he was enjoying another productive season when Minnesota moved him. Ryan Gallagher had generated some excitement after posting a 3.43 ERA in the Cubs' system and earning a promotion to Double-A before the trade.

Since arriving in the Twins organization, however, Gallagher has struggled. He posted a 6.69 ERA after the trade last season and owns a 5.50 ERA in 91 innings this year. However, the strikeout numbers and raw stuff remain intriguing, and he has had a successful run of good starts lately, making him look like he could still become a piece for the Twins rotation of the future.

6. (Last Year's Rank: 2) Jhoan Duran to the Phillies
Return: C Eduardo Tait, RHP Mick Abel
2025 Grade: B+
2026 Grade: C-

Much like Griffin Jax, the Twins weren't under any pressure to trade Jhoan Duran. He still had multiple years of club control remaining.

At the time, receiving two Top 100 prospects looked like a strong return. Unfortunately, both players have lost momentum.

Tait has yet to truly break out at High-A, though he has shown signs of life recently. Abel flashed his upside during three major league starts this season before injuries derailed his year. He has since undergone elbow surgery and likely won't pitch again this season.

Meanwhile, Duran has continued establishing himself as one of baseball's elite relievers. Looking back, it's difficult not to wonder what this Twins bullpen would look like with him still anchoring the ninth inning.

There's still time for Tait to realize his prospect potential, and if Abel can stay healthy, he could be a #2 or #3 pitcher for the Twins, but early returns aren't looking great for the biggest swing the Twins made at the trade deadline last season.

7. (Last Year's Rank: 6) Danny Coulombe to the Rangers
Return: LHP Garrett Horn
2025 Grade: C
2026 Grade: C-

Trading a left-handed specialist on an expiring contract was never expected to produce a significant return.

Unfortunately, Garrett Horn hasn't done much to change that perception. Shoulder issues have limited him to just 16 innings this season, and at 23 years old, he doesn't appear to be a significant part of the organization's long-term plans.

It's hard to see this trade moving much higher as time goes on.

8. (Last Year's Rank: 8) Brock Stewart to the Dodgers
Return: OF James Outman
2025 Grade: D+
2026 Grade: D

This trade didn't make much sense when it happened, and it didn't exactly age great.

The Twins already had an abundance of left-handed hitting outfielders, yet they acquired James Outman, another left-handed outfielder whose major league production had fallen off dramatically after his rookie season.

That concern proved valid. Across two seasons with Minnesota, Outman posted just a .526 OPS in 174 plate appearances. The coaching staff never seemed comfortable using him in center field, and his defense in the corners wasn't impactful enough to justify his bat. He has since been designated for assignment and is no longer with the organization.

The only thing keeping this trade from ranking last is Brock Stewart's health. Stewart was already dealing with complicated medical concerns when the Twins traded him, and he has thrown only 17 innings over the past calendar year while spending much of that time on the injured list. It seems likely those medical questions significantly limited the Twins' leverage and made Outman about as much as they could realistically receive.

9. (Last Year's Rank: 9) Louis Varland and Ty France to the Blue Jays
Return: LHP Kendry Rojas , OF Alan Roden
2025 Grade: D+
2026 Grade: D

This was already my lowest-ranked trade immediately after the deadline, and it looks even worse a year later.

Since joining Toronto, Louis Varland has developed into one of the best relievers in baseball. He earned his first All-Star selection this season while posting a 1.09 ERA across 57 innings, while striking out 11.5 batters per nine innings. Even more importantly, he's still making the league minimum and remains under team control through the 2030 season.

On the Twins' side, Kendry Rojas remains an intriguing arm, though he increasingly looks more like a future reliever than a starter. Alan Roden has struggled throughout his time in the organization and has done little to change the outlook of the trade.

What makes this deal even more painful is how perfectly Varland would fit on the current roster. Minnesota's bullpen has been one of the club's biggest weaknesses this season, and Varland has somehow become an even better reliever than anyone could have realistically projected a year ago. Watching him dominate elsewhere while the Twins have searched for reliable late-inning options, needing to dip into the prospect pool to acquire those options at this year's trade deadline, makes this trade look even more lopsided than it did last summer.

Overall, the 2025 trade deadline class hasn't aged particularly well, although it's still early in the development process for many of these prospects. Player development is rarely linear, and several of these young players still have plenty of time to change the narrative.

Still, one year later, it's fair to say some of the Twins' biggest bets have lost value, while only a handful have clearly moved in the right direction. Given how monumental that deadline was in shaping the franchise's direction, these trades will continue to be worth revisiting for years to come.

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Do you agree with these updated rankings and grades? Which trade would you take back if you could only redo one? Leave a comment below and start the conversation!

 

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[mikelink45]

I grade the Varland and Duran trades as Fs - imagine where we would have been with them here for the full year.  

I also believe that acquiring Outman is an F even if Brock Stewart is injured.

[Ricky Vaughn]

Just like most trades that involve minor league players, you can't really grade it for a few years. 

[tarheeltwinsfan]

The biggest head scratcher at the time was the Varland trade. It did not need to happen. It should not have happened.  It was not a money saver. It angered many local Twins fans since Varland was a local favorite. These were the sentiments a year ago, before Varland became an All Star.  We humans are not supposed to understand everything in our lifetimes, like the  unmeasurable size of the universe, when does it stop being partly cloudy and become partly sunny, if Cinderella's shoe  fit perfectly, why did it  fall off and the Louis Varland trade.

[The Great Hambino]

It's hard to grade the long-term effects of a trade strategy when they change course on their strategy in the following offseason.  But one of the selling points from their myriad of totally-not-AI-generated open letters in the wake of The Purge last trade deadline was impact in the short-term as well as the long-term expected from the pieces they received.

In terms of effect on the 2026 season, two trades made them definitively worse (Duran/Varland), one made them better (Jax), and the Correa trade can be scored in a number of different ways depending on your perspective. 

On the one hand, $30MM spent on an injured player would be quite the millstone around their neck this year.  On the other hand, since the player they received in trade was arguably literally the least valuable piece in the entire Astros organization at the time, all the value has to come from reinvesting the savings.  And on a net basis, they're still not spending to that threshold even after the trade deadline increases to payroll.  They're still more than $20MM below their pre-2025-deadline payroll level, so you could say the cost savings from the trade still haven't touched the current roster (2025 opening day payroll $143MM less current payroll of $113MM is $29MM). It may (read: it better) get reinvested over the rest of the life of the contract, but so far it hasn't.  To be clear, I'm not saying they shouldn't have gotten off the Correa train, or that it won't pay off down the line.  I'm just suggesting that is hasn't really done anything for them this year.

I suppose you could also view the Paddack/Dobnak as a negative impact on this season as he has proven to be quite the bugaboo for the Twins when they've had to face him, but that's pushing it, especially since he has done so for a team other than the one that acquired him

[Nashvilletwin]

How about the 10th trade we rejected?

Ryan to the Bosox for Franklin Arias and Peyton Tolle.

Grade: F

Tolle is already outperforming Ryan in the bigs and Arias is a consensus top #10 MLB (post draft, mind you) prospect mashing as a SS in AAA.

Can you even imagine an infield of Culpepper, Houston and Arias with Lackey at C and Jenkins in CF as full time starters in ‘28 at the latest and beyond?  Plus a stud, young, multi-year controllable LH starter?

The biggest screw up by Falvey by far at last year’s deadline was the deal he didn’t do.

[offensive_loons_fan]

I'm not going to say the Varland trade was a stroke of genius, but hindsight is 20/20. Varland's ERA with the Twins went from 3.81 in 2022, to 4.63 in 2023, to 7.61(!) in 2024. His 2025 was looking better, but with his career trajectory, it was easy to say "he's not good, but we've got him on a hot streak, let's sell him before he regresses to the mean and get some kind of value for him."

Again, still not an elite trade and I think everything looks worse through the lens of the bad feelings we all had at the time, but if I squint hard enough I see what they were going for.

[PuckettPond]

#9 trade should be an A+ as Rojas has so much potential than Varland. Within 2 seasons Rojas will be a stud & Varland will be a distant memory. Wait & see.

[Danchat]

I'd give the Castro trade a higher grade, I am willing to bet one of Armstrong or Gallagher breaks through as a reliever in the majors eventually. That would be a great return for 2 months of Willi Castro.

[jmlease1]

The Varland trade was bad at the time, and is bad now, even if Rojas shows potential and is substantially younger and controllable/cheaper. It only really made sense if you were going for a more complete tear-down, in which case Falvey should have just traded Ryan as well. But even then it's looking poor: Roden looks like a Quad-A guy (even if he's mostly just the swap for France who wasn't sticking around) and Rojas has a lot of work before he gets to Varland's level. Hells bells, they even botched it with Rojas after they brought him over, forcing him up to AAA on scholarship as if to prove "no no no, trust us, this guy is great!"

Now, the ranking for the Duran trade is too harsh. Abel was really looking like he could be a guy before going down with injury, and still has a very bright future as a rotation piece who could be a playoff caliber, front-line starter. Tait hasn't lit the world on fire, but the tools are impressive and he's very young. You have to show some patience there and downgrading the trade because he didn't immediately crush A-ball is short-sighted. This one could still pan out to the Twins advantage, and if Abel starts 25 games next season this trade grade changes drastically.

The Stewart/Outman trade was fairly meaningless but ultimately bad...but not because the deal was all that terrible. Taking a flier on Outman was ok, and Stewart's health makes him too unreliable to ever count on in your bullpen. Has he pitched well this season? Sure, but he's hurt...again. The real failure on this was not cutting your losses on Outman after his awful 2025. Handing him a job this year, despite him being terrible, wasted a roster spot for far too long. The trade itself wasn't that horrible, really...but if it meant that the FO thought it had to keep trying to extract value from it into 2026 makes it a bad deal. 

I think the Castro deal is also treated a little unfairly: Castro was gone after the season, and flipping a rental (who was absolutely a rental for Chicago, especially after being terrible) for an asset that at least has some upside and could provide some depth in Gallagher is a solid deadline move for a team that was cooked. Sure, Gallagher still has control issues and may not make it. But Willi Castro, despite being a great dude, was never sticking around: we weren't going to pay him, nor should we have. This was a reasonable deal for pitching depth.

[Hawkeye Bean Counter]

Everyone agrees Lackey is one of our top 3 prospects and has immense value.  We don't get him without trading Duran, Varland ect.  

Jax for Bradley -  A+     How this can be coded as anything less is bizarre.   It appears we have a #1 pitcher for 3+  more years that we gave up a disgruntled reliever with 1+ year of control.  

Mendez for Bader -  A       Bader was a rental and we flipped him for a legit MLB bat.   Yes there is some defensive questions but you took a minimal asset and currently have a real asset in the minors on the doorstep of the MLB.  There is also upside if he can continue to hit more fly balls.  

Duran for Tait and Abel - A -      I will likely be higher on this trade than most and most of the value is coming from Abel.  He was showing some real flashes of potentially being a dominant pitcher.  The stuff is legit and he has more value than most expected from him.  Yes he was injured but for a young pitcher that is par for the course.   As to Tait - I am actually trending more optimistic.  Tait for June and July  has the following slash line   .248/.280/.500   12 Home Runs.  For a 19 year old catcher that is really really impressive.   The power has shown up which is his biggest tool.  He needs to become a little more selective decreasing his strikeouts and increasing his Walks but for a player that was really far away with a high variance of probabilities those variances are decreasing significantly.  

Varland - Rojas and Roden   B  -   Varland has become a stud for Toronto and I am happy for him.   However Rojas arm talent for moving forward is likely #3 in the Twins system behind Bradley and Abel and slightly ahead of Priellip.  The question is walks.  I do think he is more of a starter pitcher as it can take him an inning to develop control which actually is better for the upside of this trade.  If Rojas is a starter we likely win this trade.    Roden at this point is a 4th outfielder.  He has shown he doesn't shy from the biggest moments.  His OPS is low but his winning single was 2 feet from being a homerun which would have increased to about .600.  In either case his value and ceiling has decreased slightly.   Varland in my opinion is the key reason why we got Lackey. Plus as we have seen you can find bullpen arms.   

Castro for Gallagher and Armstrong  A -  Gallagher was a pop up arm that is likely one of the next arms in our depth for the MLB level.  He has really settled down in AAA.   Its not eye popping stuff but it is extremely effective.  Again we are getting a likely MLB player for a 2 month rental. 

The rest of the trades were fluff.  Bit pieces for bit pieces and dumping Correa's contract.   

Overall Trade Deadline grade A+  -     I have come from the opinion that Baldelli had lost the clubhouse and this team needed a reset.  If cleaning the clubhouse out of some of those personalities and setting up for the next wave was the way they saw out - I am ok with it.   As to the players we have received I don't know how anyone can not be impressed.  Bradley alone was worth it.   We have a #1 pitcher likely for the next 3 years.   Abel looks like a legit starter.   Rojas has flashed.  Gallagher  and Mendez both look like legit MLB players and Tait the youngest and further away still has immense potential for the catcher position.  The biggest win was getting Lackey.  We potentially have a HOF player that was achieved by tanking.  We got rid of an entire bullpen other than Sands.   The other point is that we have rebuilt a bullpen in less than a year that overall is pretty solid.   Now we did give up a decent arm in Dasan Hill but otherwise its primarily been bit pieces.  Gomez and Morris have been real finds.  I always anticipated we would need to spend money signing free agents and trading for players.  That we ended up achieving this with effectively spending zero dollars in free agency and 1 decent prospect is pretty impressive.   The next window is going to be largely open due to this trade deadline and doing a lot of heavy lifting on the pitching side.   

 

[BillyBallLives]

1 hour ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

if Cinderella's shoe  fit perfectly, why did it  fall off

Been wondering about for years myself!   Excellent Point.