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

[soyouresayingtheresachance]

1 hour ago, Bangkok Twins Fan said:

Not so sure about that. Once Abel is healthy and pitching again I think the Twins are going to be happy they have him on the team. 

Its very possible. He definitely has potential. Hopefully he can harness it. 

[Brandon]

23 hours ago, Hawkeye Bean Counter said:

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.   

 

I think Tait will either be a future 1B or part of a valuable trade for us in the future.  Next season he should be ready for AA.  

Gallagher will be another lefty in the pen, 

I'm pretty high on Rojas.  I think he could be a #2 or 3 starter.  

The thing with Varland and Duran is it seems like they are higher risk pitchers in that their effectiveness looks to drop quickly as their heat deteriorates.  But they would be nice to have on this year's staff.  

I think the Twins did a good job overall at the deadline.  I pretty much agree with your grades as well  I still don't understand the Brock Stewart trade and I feel like the Twins could have saved a few more million on the salary dump of Correa. But getting a #1 and potentially 2#3 starters is really a good return for a bullpen 

[Major League Ready]

2 minutes ago, Brandon said:

I think Tait will either be a future 1B or part of a valuable trade for us in the future.  Next season he should be ready for AA.  

Gallagher will be another lefty in the pen, 

I'm pretty high on Rojas.  I think he could be a #2 or 3 starter.  

The thing with Varland and Duran is it seems like they are higher risk pitchers in that their effectiveness looks to drop quickly as their heat deteriorates.  But they would be nice to have on this year's staff.  

I think the Twins did a good job overall at the deadline.  I still don't understand the Brock Stewart trade and I feel like the Twins could have saved a few more million on the salary dump of Correa. But getting a #1 and potentially 2#3 starters is really a good return for a bullpen 

Gallagher is a RHP.

[Hawkeye Bean Counter]

Just now, Brandon said:

I think Tait will either be a future 1B or part of a valuable trade for us in the future.  Next season he should be ready for AA.  

Gallagher will be another lefty in the pen, 

I'm pretty high on Rojas.  I think he could be a #2 or 3 starter.  

The thing with Varland and Duran is it seems like they are higher risk pitchers in that their effectiveness looks to drop quickly as their heat deteriorates.  But they would be nice to have on this year's staff.  

I think the Twins did a good job overall at the deadline.  I still don't understand the Brock Stewart trade and I feel like the Twins could have saved a few more million on the salary dump of Correa. But getting a #1 and potentially 2#3 starters is really a good return for a bullpen 

If you look at the Stuart and Varland trade as getting rid of good bullpen arms to purposefully lose for 2 months its not very difficult to understand the game plan.  Stuart was dumped and that is clear as day.  It didn't matter with traded for peanuts or DFA'd we were getting rid of any decent bullpen arm.  

[Brandon]

3 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

Gallagher is a RHP.

Oops.  I thought he was a lefty that threw 94.  Oh well.  He is still destined for the pen.

[Brandon]

2 minutes ago, Hawkeye Bean Counter said:

If you look at the Stuart and Varland trade as getting rid of good bullpen arms to purposefully lose for 2 months its not very difficult to understand the game plan.  Stuart was dumped and that is clear as day.  It didn't matter with traded for peanuts or DFA'd we were getting rid of any decent bullpen arm.  

The Varland trade ,I think was about moving a high variance pitcher, who seemed to be walking a tightrope as a 99 mph straight fastball reliever.  A little slower and he gets bombed pretty regularly compared to the potential of Rojas.  Rojas still looks really good.  I am not knocking the trade as much as lamenting losing a well liked player.  

[mnfireman]

Stewart hasn't stayed healthy enough to make a difference for LAD, the same would be true if he was still here.

[Major League Ready]

25 minutes ago, Brandon said:

Oops.  I thought he was a lefty that threw 94.  Oh well.  He is still destined for the pen.

His FB velocity is 90-92 so that will be an issue but his command is good.  Maybe they could pull a little more velo out of him as a RP.

[saviking]

I give the Correa trade an A+++ .. Can you imagine where we would be with Correa's extra 70 million keeping us from signing players. 

Gallagher seems like he might have what it takes to become a good bullpen arm. 

And Tait is still very young. He just hit his 20th homeruj even though he's batting in the .220's. Plus no telling how many homeruns he will hit by seasons end. Even though he may not have the defensive chops to stick at catcher I coukd see Tait as our DH of the future with potentially 30 homerun capability. 

[Jeff K]

While it felt terrible at the time, I was fine with all of the trades with the common exception of Varland which inexplicably truly angered me.  And I still don't like it.  I loved the Bradley trade at the time and love it even more now.  I take it from an A to an A+.  Regarding Rocco, I don't care what he does for the rest of his career; he was a terrible manager with the Twins and seemed to get worse each season.  His spreadsheet management was terrible.