The Twins Could Be Sellers and Still Make the Playoffs. (They've Done It Before!)

The Minnesota Twins currently sit four games below .500 and five games out of the second and third American League Wild Card spots. This has led to the team “seriously listening” to offers on their expiring contracts, namely Harrison Bader, Willi Castro, and Danny Coulombe, as reported by Jon Heyman of the New York Post. In the same report Heyman shared that the team is also listening to offers on their high-end controllable assets, such as Joe Ryan, Jhoan Duran, and Griffin Jax. If that trio is retained, the Twins playoff odds will be nominally impacted.

Currently, FanGraphs give the Twins a 15% chance to make the playoffs - 10th highest in the American League and better than one of the teams (Los Angeles Angels) ahead of them in the wild card standings. Moreover, the Cleveland Guardians and Kansas City Royals, who are also ahead of them in the standings, are expected to be sellers themselves over the next week. Ahead of those teams are the Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers, who have also been rumored to be shopping some of their contributors on the trade market. That leaves the teams currently holding a playoff spot as the only true “buyers” ahead of the July 31 deadline. Even the current wild card teams (New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, and Boston Red Sox) have pretty significant question marks that may not be entirely addressed by 5 pm next Thursday. While the Twins have an uphill battle, it's not completely insane to think they can sell their expiring contracts and still make the playoffs. After all, we've seen this play out before.

The 2017 Twins were in a similar boat entering the final week of July. They were a middling team who struggled in the weeks between the All-Star game and the trade deadline. To the dismay of some of the key contributors, the Twins shipped their All-Star closer (Brandon Kintzler) to the Washington Nationals instead of adding at the deadline for a playoff push. That team went 35-24 over the last two months of the season and overcame a five-game deficit, earning the final AL Wild Card spot handedly. On the backs of Brian Dozier and Ervin Santana, the Twins clinched a playoff spot on September 27th after having just a 4% chance on August 1st. It's not hard to draw parallels between that team and the current team.   

The biggest reason to be optimistic is that Pablo Lopez is expected to return at some point in the second half. Though we don't have an exact timeline, the eight-to-12-week estimation from early June could see him returning to action sometime in August. Moreover, while we have even less information on Bailey Ober, he could also make a return at some point in the season’s final two months. Those two would be welcome additions to a rotation that has been able to tread water without two of their three top arms, not to mention injuries to Zebby Matthews and David Festa. On the other side of the ball, the offense has been unsurprisingly inconsistent this season and as a whole remain the team’s X-factor. 

Losing Castro and Bader to a trade would have a negative impact on the offense (and defense in the case of Bader), however it's not out of the realm of possibility that the team can’t overcome those losses. Hitting is contagious and the charismatic Royce Lewis could be just the spark the team needs to give everyone else a jolt in the arm - if he can stay hot. Moreover, in an extremely small sample, Luke Keaschall was electric prior to his injury, and he should be returning soon - possibly as an upgrade over the struggling Brooks Lee. Additionally, Carlos Correa and Ryan Jeffers have been trending up lately with a 135 and 153 wRC+, respectively, in the month of July. While sustained production from any of these names is far from a guarantee, we've also seen these players produce at these levels before (well, except for Keaschall).

Again, this all hinges on the Twins retaining their most valuable assets not named Buxton through next Thursday’s deadline. But if they do, history has a way of repeating itself and this team is built to do just that.