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While Max Kepler and Jorge Polanco have been the source of trade talks for months, things started to become clearer when Polanco was a late subtraction from the TwinsFest lineup over the weekend. Maybe that was unrelated in actuality, but ultimately, it foreshadowed a moment that felt bittersweetly inevitable.
Having been in the organization since he was 16 and playing more than 1,400 games across all levels, Polanco heads to a new team for the first time in his career. Seattle is taking on his $10.5-million salary, and will be on the hook for a $750,000 buyout in 2025 unless they pick up his $12-million option. That's a perfectly palatable salary for a player like Polanco, though, and if he has a solid season, it's likely they'll retain him at that slightly higher rate.
Minnesota moving Polanco is relatively straightforward. Injuries and shifting team needs shifted the bulk of the second base playing time to Edouard Julien last season, and Minnesota has positional depth in the form of Royce Lewis, Kyle Farmer, and prospect Brooks Lee. For a team we know to be scaling back payroll relative to the last two seasons, getting their veteran leader's contract off the books helps.
In return, the Twins fill two immediate needs on the pitching side of the roster. Anthony DeSclafani went to the Mariners as part of the Robbie Ray deal with the San Francisco Giants. He won’t fill the hole Sonny Gray or Kenta Maeda left in Rocco Baldelli’s options box, but he should fit as a fourth or fifth rotation option alongside Chris Paddack.
The past two seasons were not good with the Giants, and the former Reds pitcher posted a 5.16 ERA while failing to stay healthy and pitching just a total of 118 2/3 innings. His first season in the Bay Area (in 2021) resulted in a 3.17 ERA across 167 2/3 innings, though, and he posted career-low H/9 (7.6) and HR/9 (1.0). DeSclafani isn’t Dylan Bundy or J.A. Happ, but he’s probably an arm to pair with Paddack in hopes of the two contributing something like 250 total innings to shore up the rotation.
Beyond DeSclafani, the other 26-man man addition comes in the form of Justin Topa. Having had brief stints with the Brewers three of the past four seasons, Topa got consistent run with the Mariners in 2023. Across 69 innings, he posted a 2.61 ERA with a 3.15 FIP. He doesn’t give up homers and strikes out plenty, but the ground ball profile sets him apart from Minnesota’s arms as a whole. Topa sits 95 mph with his sinker and throws it almost 50% of the time. The downward movement of the offering has resulted in ground ball rates north of 56%. He should have a better chance to make that usable than Dylan Floro did a year ago.
The two-for-one big league nature of the deal fills the Twins 40-man roster, but they also picked up a pair of prospects in the deal. The most notable is Gabriel Gonzalez, whom MLB Pipeline has ranked as the 79th overall prospect. He will slot into the Minnesota ranks just behind Walker Jenkins, Lee, and Emmanuel Rodriguez on that list, and he'll be a late, high insert into our Twins Daily Top Prospects countdown, which began in earnest Monday. He reached High A last season as just a 19-year-old, and should be expected to start with Cedar Rapids this season. Adding an additional top-100 prospect helps to bolster the Twins farm as a whole and makes arms like Marco Raya and David Festa even better depth pieces.
The other prospect coming back to the Twins is right-handed pitcher Darren Bowen. He should fit into the top 20 organizationally and showed well during his professional debut last season. After being taken in the 13th round of the 2022 MLB Draft, Bowen pitched all of 2023 at Low A and worked as a starter, with a 3.88 ERA. The strikeouts were impressive, and while he walked too many, he gave up just two homers across 55 2/3 innings. As an upside lottery ticket, you could do a lot worse.
Beyond just the players involved, Seattle is sending the Twins cash, which will offset a portion of DeSclafani’s $12-million salary. They are getting the initial $6 million that San Francisco sent to the Mariners, and Ryan Divish is reporting that Minnesota will also receive additional funds. Dan Hayes has confirmed that amount to be another $2 million. This more than halves the dollars the Twins are on the hook for with DeSclafani, paying him just $4 million and pushing their current payroll outlay to around $115 million.
As things stand, the major-league roster sees a few players shuffle because of the deal. If there was any doubt that Julien would be the Opening Day second baseman, that should be gone. Kyle Farmer also appears likelier to stick on the team as a utility type. The designated hitter spot is wide open, and plenty of players should expect to be rotated through it this season--assuming the money saved here isn't repurposed to land a slugger who fills that very role, which might not be a safe assumption.
Minnesota still needs an impact arm addition for the rotation, but that may be something Falvey feels can wait until the summer, with the more immediate need on the positional side. He has suggested that the savings from the deal will be reallocated into the roster, and with something like $10-15 million yet to be spent, there should be an opportunity to find a difference maker no matter what position they play. Regardless, the five now are set to include Pablo López, Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober, Paddack, and DeSclafani. That could mean Minnesota likes what they saw out of Louie Varland in relief too much to remove him from that role, or that they intend to stash him in St. Paul until an opening in the rotation presents itself, as they did with Ober last spring. Varland is still eligible to be optioned to the minors, and it would be a minor shock if he didn't yo-yo at least once or twice in 2024.
Keeping Varland working out of the pen may differ from what he wanted to do, but he can emerge as a high-leverage option throughout a full season. Topa also joins that group, and although he was a late-bloomer, there should be no reason to think he won’t have a spot on Opening Day--though he's also optionable, so flexibility rules again. Kody Funderburk and Jorge Alcalá still have options, so they, too, fit into a collection of arms who will hover on the fringe of the roster.
The Twins arguably dealt the best player in the deal. At 30 years old and having last been fully healthy in 2021, it’s a tough bet to bank on Polanco being available. Minnesota also has plenty of depth on the dirt, making him expendable. In doing this deal with the Mariners, Falvey found a way to get maximal value in return. Picking up a top-100 prospect and a pair of 26-man contributors is nimble work, even if it creates a roster crunch when they want to do anything else. The downside is that DeSclafani doesn’t move the bar for the type of pitcher Minnesota still needs, and Topa may push out a similarly usable reliever.
With the payroll lower than where it was before the trade, the Twins have created further opportunities for themselves. How they use that in the future remains to be seen. What are your thoughts on the trade and how it sets them up for the rest of the offseason?
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