What Current Minnesota Twin Would Have Helped Win the 1965 World Series?

How about Polanco to play second base? Second base was clearly the weakest position on the '65 Twins. If Versalles plays every day at short, playing Polanco at second for 150 games or so would improve the team immensely.

Tough one. I prefer to start from the real outcomes in the WS, and see where a contribution could have made a difference. The Twins won 3 games, none of them particularly close, so I'll put them in the bank and then hope that whatever change I make doesn't harm them.

In their 4 losses, they got shut out 3 times, and lost 7-2 in the other game. Let me emphasize that - goose eggs in 3 out of the 4 games we need to reverse. The number of hits in the four losses were 5, 5, 4, and 3 - or by baserunners it's 7, 7, 5, 6 - so it's not like they were "one hit away" a bunch of times. The closest game was 2-0, the clincher pitched by Koufax - two runs seems like a mountain to climb, in that scenario.

It really seems close to hopeless, to cherry-pick a way to win. My best hope is a couple of home runs with someone on base - an additional single here or there by Arraez doesn't move the needle. So I think I bring in Sano to play third base, moving Harmon back to first, and sitting Mincher who had a bad Series.

Second choice would be Berrios to replace a starter, but all 3 starters were already good, and that LA offense was very underrated due to their home park stats, so holding them to the output that actually occurred was a good result. Maybe you get a classic 0-0 duel in game 7 with Berrios plus relievers, and some kind of walk-off magic happens in the 22nd inning after Koufax finally sits his butt down.

Most other times I'd love Buxton roaming CF, but as the games played out, it's not clear to me how he would have been the difference maker that happened to be needed.

Nelson Cruz as the crafty hitter who might have a chance to take Koufax deep is another possibility, if we thought he wouldn't give away runs at first base.

Sano, and pray. That's my strategy, heavy on the second part.

Have we forgotten that Josh Donaldson is a member of the Minnesota Twins???

"What is hard is Berrios isn’t likely making it as a starter in the 60s. His inning load just isn’t there."

Perry threw 167.2 innings and Pascual 156.0 in 1965. Berrios threw 200.1 this year. 

Pascual had 1.1 WAR on the year and started in the series. Berrios would be a significant upgrade over 1965 Pascual and wouldn't have required Grant and Kaat pitching on two days rest in the series.

Kaat lasted three innings on two days rest in the seventh game after going 2.1 on three days in the fifth game. For context, during the season, he'd averaged 7.8 innings on four days rest, only 6.1 innings on three days rest, and 5.0 innings on his four starts on two days rest. (Caveat: The latter includes him pitching just 2 innings in the final game of the season. Given that they won by 7 games, that may have been a tuneup. Even so, he averaged less than 6 innings in the other four starts. 

All in all, Grant, Kaat, Berrios, Grant, Kaat, Berrios, Grant would have been a better arrangement than Grant, Kaat, Pascual, Grant, Kaat, Grant, Kaat. 

If we're looking at series stats alone, having Garver over Battey's .120 average would have made the offense a little saucier.

Kind of silly.   We know the Twins lost so if you could replace any single Twin of 65 with any Twin of 2019 you would do it.   We know Oliva and Allison hit below .200 so if you could replace them with Cave or the Turtle you would do it.   Not saying that would have changed the outcomes but any player is capable of playing great over a 7 game series and we know for a fact that the Twins lost that series while having Cave or the Turtle would still be a question mark..    If your only choice to make a change was Nick Punto for Harmon Killebrew in 65 you do it.   .Let me illustrate my point in reverse.    Before the Twins won the Series in 1987 there would be a very large number of moves that you would want to make to improve that team.    But we know they did win the series so if you had the choice to go back and replace Lombo with Lou Whitaker, Straker with Clemens, Randy Bush with Robin Yount and  Joe Niekro with Dwight Gooden would you do it?   The team would be exponentially better but you would be crazy to make those moves because that would change everything possibly including the outcome.    

Gonna stick my neck out and guess that American Civil War alternate histories don't interest you either.