Richard Justice of MLB.com wrote a piece about the “five teams that should go for it at the Deadline,” and I was actually glad to see the Minnesota Twins were not one of those five teams. I’ve been calling for a Terry Ryan-type of Trade Deadline for the Twins: mini moves with low risk and a potential for high reward.
Rob Manfred Robs Terry Ryan of his Living
I’d even take some waiver claim deals post-deadline if they were still allowed. But major-league snake and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has eliminated an entire ecosystem of bottom-feeders like Terry Ryan, who survive in baseball by making other teams’ trash their team’s treasure. That’s a compliment I’m paying Terry Ryan. He is, after all, the worldwide leader in waiver trade success. The man claimed outfielder Sam Fuld off waivers from Oakland on April 20, 2014, and traded him back to the Athletics just over three months later for Tommy Milone (whose given name is Tomaso Anthony Milone). Milone pitched almost 220 innings for the Twins over three seasons. They weren’t very good innings (86 ERA+), but he was instrumental in almost getting the Twins into the playoffs in 2015, going 9-5 with an ERA+ of 104 over 128.2 innings. Minnesota missed the playoffs by three games.
No one got more for less than Terry Ryan. He’s responsible for constructing the baseball team I most enjoyed watching, and that’s including these bedeviling, dinger-drunk Minnesota Twins of 2019. The 2002 Minnesota Twins stopped the “Moneyball” Oakland A’s American League-record winning streak at 20 games, then beat those same A’s in the ALDS spending roughly the same modest amount on player payroll. Those Twins, given modern statistical analysis, are likely the biggest underdog overachievers in baseball history.
Terry Ryan also found the franchise’s best ever pitcher, Johan Santana, in the Rule 5 Draft, where he’ll have to find even more value just to survive in the finally evolving baseball business. He also acquired the franchise’s best relief pitcher, Joe Nathan, in an offseason trade of AJ Pierzynski (how I can still spell that name correctly without thinking is incredible). That trade also brought Francisco Liriano to the Twins. Surviving like Ryan did with the Twins, a main street business in a Wall St. world, depended on him finding value in the margins, and the MLB margins just got a lot smaller.
The Terry Ryan Specials we all enjoyed throughout the month of August after the MLB Trade Deadline had passed are gone forever—wiped out by the biggest snake in the big league grass so MLB can grab some sustained media attention for a few days out of its six-month-long, regular season schedule. Instead, at 3 p.m. Central Standard Time on July 31, the MLB Trade Deadline will be an actual trade deadline. But given how many teams are still contending for playoff spots, moving back the trade deadline a week or so might be beneficial to the league, because the most attention MLB gets from the media and the general public is when 1) players fight, and 2) players are traded.
Punk Rock Twins Takes: MLB Trade Deadline Edition
My friend, Tyler Culver (@AuntieAnus), who sings punk rock tunes of his Twins hot takes for Minnesota Foul Play-by-Play, thinks Edwin Diaz would be a nice addition to the Twins’ bullpen. I don’t disagree. But I, like Justice, don’t think chasing a championship to maybe end up the third best team in baseball is wise. Culver provides plenty of other trade targets he’d like the Twins front office to pursue in his debut single in the punk rock sports genre, “Pump Up the Valume.” Stay tuned for another performance from Culver prior to the trade deadline on July 31.
The acquisition of soft-tossing reliever Sergio Romo is a perfect example of the Terry Ryan approach taken by the Twins’ new front office. Derek Falvey and Thad Levine gave up first base prospect Lewin Diaz, who became the Miami Marlins’ 12th best prospect. But he might have been lost to the Rule 5 Draft if left of the Twins’ 40-man roster. Diaz became almost immediately expendable with the rise of C.J. Cron as a helluva first baseman…when healthy. But the Twins also have depth at the position, with Miguel Sano, Ehire Adrianza, Marwin Gonzalez, Mitch Garver, and more able to play the position. Also on the move from Miami to Minnesota was right handed, A-ball starter Chris Vallimont, who has fared quite well in his young career (22 years old, 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings pitched in the minors).
While Devin Smeltzer has been fantastic, acquiring another veteran lefty reliever to pair with Taylor Rogers in the late innings would be just enough to make the 2019 MLB Trade Deadline a tolerable for this Twins fan. Acquiring Roenis Elías from the Seattle Mariners might almost be too big a trade to be a Terry Ryan-like move, but because of Terry Ryan, we know Seattle likes doing business with Minnesota.
Elías is controllable at arbitration salary figures for the next two seasons, but he hasn’t been especially good this season, so he could be a sneaky, snake-in-the-grass steal come to be known as the Terry Ryan Special. Elías will give young Twins pitching prospects, many of them still starting in the minors, time to develop into whatever they are going to be in the big leagues. He’ll also take pressure off Rogers as the only late-inning, lefty reliever on the Twins’ roster.
As long as the Twins don’t acquire Madison Bumgarner, I know I won’t be too disappointed with another “Punk Rock Twins Takes” likely on the way from my friend, Tyler Culver. Those songs and videos should be enough to get me through the playoff push—“Punk Rock Twins Takes” and dingers…tons of Twins dingers…and dinger dances.
