The Minnesota Twins just went through one of the most stunning days in franchise history, and by some accounts one of the most stunning of the entire free agency era of all of Major League Baseball.
Who's excited for the Twins weekend series at Cleveland? First pitch Friday at 6:10 on WCCO Radio! Who knows who will play.
It leaves a team on the field that is a shell of what it was earlier this week, left to play out the final two months of the season with little more than their AAA affiliate, the St. Paul Saints fielded across the river for most of this summer.
It was a divorce sale but before the divorce was finalized. The details of what took place on Thursday (Black Thursday?) might have been foreshadowed 18 months ago, and there have been plenty of 'hints' along the way that things were amiss.
The Twins ownership, for 40 years now the Pohlad family, announced last October they were exploring a sale of the team (and they're still looking for a buyer and dealing with a reported $400 million in debt).
But the signs of a teardown were probably there prior to that. During spring training in February of '24 and the team's executive chair, Joe Pohlad, was talking to WCCO's Jason DeRusha.
Keep in mind, the Twins were coming off their best season in years. Their first postseason win in 19 years, their first postseason series win in 21 years. They ultimately fell short against Houston in the ALDS but the stage was set. Fans were fired up, the team was on the rise, and expectations were high going into the offseason.
Then 2024's spring training rolled around and the Twins did - well, nothing. They stood pat. When asked if any of the remaining free agents across MLB were on the team's radar, Pohlad told DeRusha on WCCO:
"No. No. The reason I say no is just because we're going to live pretty much where we are right now. But what I will say about some flexibility is, when Derek (Falvey) and his team think that there is the right opportunity in front of us, we don't live hard and fast by a specific number. We're not going to go out and spend $30 million on a player right now."
That last sentence got Pohlad in some hot water with the MLB Player's Association who saw it as a violation of the "reservation of rights clause with the use of media in the collective bargaining agreement.” Not only were they not interested in adding more players, they had plans to trim that playoff payroll by 30%.
It was also a hint that the ownership might not be ready to take another step into competitiveness. The 2024 season started well. The Twins were in the hunt for the postseason all the way through August before the wheels totally came off and they limped to the finish line, a team filled with injury concerns and blown expectations.
2025 has been much the same. Outside of a 13-game win streak in May, it's been a stagnant year. Now, it's been totally blown up.
What's left? Not much. It's not shock that a team that is outside the playoff picture would move certain players, especially players that are on expiring contracts and likely moving on after September anyway. But the trades cut much deeper than that.
Did the deals make sense?
Relief pitcher Louis Varland might be the best example. He's a young player, 27-years-old, had become one of the team's best pitchers out of the pen. He makes - in MLB terms - peanuts at $768,150. The kicker is that his contract is under team control until 2030 with pre-arbitration and arbitration coming up.
The only motivation for trading a player like Varland is to get a solid return.
Varland was moved to Toronto, along with infielder Ty France. Did the Twins get good value for Varland? The Twins received outfielder Alan Roden and left-handed pitcher Kendrys Rojas from the Blue Jays. Roden is basically a one-for-one swap for France. They're similar players with not much upside beyond being "OK to solid." Roden began the year in the big leagues but didn't produce much. Although he's had some success in the minors, that's a far cry from sustained success in the majors.
So who is Kendrys Rojas? He's the number 11 prospect in the Blue Jays' system, a Cuban émigré, and has some upside.
According to Baseball America, "The 22-year-old lefthander pitched at nearly 95 mph with a hard slider near 87 mph. He generated high whiff rates on his three main pitch types. He throws enough strikes, and it’s not difficult to envision Rojas becoming a solid rotation option if he can harness his stuff and command."
Sounds like - Louis Varland?
The move saves almost no money and trades players fans know and players that have produced on the MLB diamond, for two players who fans don't know and might, at some point, produce in the majors. It's a lateral move, a bizarre move when you look at all of the other trades, and there's no other way to describe it.
You can make the same case for Jhoan Duran, who still was under team control for a couple of years and was relatively affordable. The difference there is the Twins received two prospects from Philly who might turn into higher-upside players for the Twins, down the road. And it's always "might" when it comes to minor league prospects. The Twins didn't receive "proven" big league talent.
It's not all doom and gloom. The Twins were definitely moving in the wrong direction, so moving on from players who had expiring contracts like Willi Castro, Harrison Bader, and Chris Paddack was a no-brainer.
Carlos Correa era comes to a staggering close
Even Carlos Correa, the Twins prized free agent signing from a few years ago, makes some sense. He hasn't produced offensively like the team hoped and they still owed him over $100 million over the next three years. Moving him and saving a significant portion of money off a player that made up nearly a quarter of the team's payroll could have helped. The return the Twins got for Correa - one of baseball's best shortstops for a decade - is 26-year old pitcher Matt Mikulski who has split the 2025 season between the Florida Complex League Astros and High-A Asheville, appearing in 12 games, allowing 13 earned runs on 18 hits in 15.1 innings pitched, with 15 walks and 18 strikeouts.
That's not a return on a generational player, who might be on the backside of his career but is still terrific defensively and capable of generating big hits (especially in the postseason). It's a salary dump with a player thrown in.
Correa was a leader. He helped get the team over the hump in the playoffs. His experience was crucial in that 2023 run even as the Twins dealt with another Buxton injury.
The signed him to a long term deal two years ago after failed physicals with the San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets, both worried his feet and ankles wouldn't hold up. So Correa came back to Minnesota on a six-year, $200 million deal.
Correa was good in 2024 and made an the All-Star team. But he broke down late in the season with plantar fasciitis shutting him down. He never got back to his all-star level in 2025 and now the biggest free agent signing in Minnesota Twins history? It's history.
Why did the Twins make so many moves?
But you add it all up, and it's a dark, stormy day for the fans who buy tickets, shell out money to watch Twins.tv, and yes - listen to the radio.
So what does Twins President of Baseball Operations, Derek Falvey, want fans to know?
"We feel over the course of the last couple of days, while painful and difficult at times to trade away players that have been with us for a while, that we felt we added a lot of talent to our group and our organization that will continue to build out the next great core of players coming up, and contributing at the major league level," Falvey told the media Thursday night.
The Twins have been in ownership-ordered payroll purgatory in light of the hefty hit they took in regional television revenue after the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy that affected several other clubs from midsized and small markets.
The front office, Falvey said, was not directed to make such a deep spending cut by executive chair Joe Pohlad and his family that has seeking a buyer for the club his grandfather, Carl Pohlad, purchased in 1984.
Getting rid of players and cutting payroll is nothing new for an underachieving team, but the big dump Thursday means nearly 40% of the active roster from a week ago is gone. For those who wanted to start from scratch? You got your wish.
"Part of a small to mid-market baseball team, that's just the realities of, you know, the way this works," Falvey added. "There are trades that happen. That happens across baseball. I'm not saying that's unique to Minnesota and it's hard. But it's about making sure that you're constantly trying to find a way to not just sit on your heels, hope that it all goes better and keep your fingers crossed. It's a way to actually kind of go invest in the future of the team, hopefully the short term and the long term, but I think our fans are gonna love these guys when they get up here because they all bring, they're all high character guys. They're all guys with tremendous talent and impact. And yeah, there's a lot of talent still left in that clubhouse."
That talent is limited though. Byron Buxton, Pablo Lopez, Joe Ryan, and Royce Lewis are still young, valuable pieces. Brooks Lee looks like the real deal. Matt Wallner, Trevor Larnach and Ryan Jeffers are good pieces. But they'll be surrounded by an entirely new roster. There's at least one report of a still current Twins player saying, ""Now no one wants to stay if they are selling like this."
What could at least be intriguing is what the roster will look like later on Friday before the Twins hit the field in Cleveland. As of Friday morning, the team had nine - nine total - position players on the active roster. And eight pitchers. The amount of roster moves the team will need to make Friday is staggering.
25 years ago the Twins' marketing slogan, as they loaded the team with young talent, was "Get to Know 'Em." Might be time to dust off some old commercials because we're going to need to "Get to Know 'Em Again."
Full List of Twins Trades
Shortstop Carlos Correa - traded to Houston along with $30 million in cash (the Twins are paying about a third of Correa's remaining contract). Twins receive minor-league pitcher Matt Mikulski.
Pitcher Griffin Jax - traded to Tampa in return for for pitcher Taj Bradley.
Pitcher Louis Varland and infielder Ty France - traded to Toronto for pitcher Kendry Rojas and outfielder Alan Roden.
Utilityman Willi Castro - traded to the Chicago Cubs for AA pitchers Ryan Gallagher and Sam Armstrong.
Relief pitcher Danny Coulombe - traded to the Texas Rangers in exchange for pitcher Garrett Horn.
Outfielder Harrison Bader - traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for 16-year-old pitcher Geremy Villoria and 21-year-old outfielder Hendry Mendez.
Relief pitcher Brock Stewart - traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for outfielder James Outman.
Closer Jhoan Duran - traded to the Phillies for two prospects, catcher Eduardo Tait and right-handed pitcher Mick Abel.
Starter Chris Paddack and minor league pitcher Randy Dobnak - traded to Detroit for catcher-first baseman Enrique Jimenez who is a well-regarded prospect for the Tigers.