MINNEAPOLIS -- With four days left before the Trade Deadline, Twins president of baseball and business operations Derek Falvey refuses to brand his team as exclusively a buyer or a seller.
But with another series loss Sunday, the reality becomes clearer: it will be hard to justify giving up pieces of the future in order to bolster the 2025 Twins roster for a run at the postseason. Minnesota lost, 7-2, to the Nationals at Target Field, falling to 3-6 since the All-Star break.
The Twins fell to five games below .500 at 50-55, and they trail by 5.5 games for the final American League Wild Card spot.
Perhaps more daunting, Minnesota would have to climb past six other teams before catching the final Wild Card spot.
Indications remain that the most likely course for Falvey and the front office at the Deadline is what might be called a light sale -- where the club parts with some of its pending free agents, but does not trade away any core pieces. That’s not the only path they could take, but it appears to be the most likely.
“Philosophically at any Deadline, whether you’re buy side, sell side or somewhere in between, never shut off avenues to talent, whatever that talent,” Falvey said. “If you’re saying we’re only going for this, only going for that, we only want pitching, we only want infielders, you’re shutting out a potential path for talent. We try to approach every conversation based on what we know about the potential opportunity to acquire talent. We’re agnostic to some degree.”
The Twins’ list of potential 2026 free agents includes names like Harrison Bader, who had two hits Sunday, Danny Coulombe, who pitched the third inning and Willi Castro -- all of whom could be valuable tactical pieces for teams in pennant races. Christian Vázquez and Ty France could also draw interest.
Righty Chris Paddack might be compelling to teams in need of starting pitching, as he’s been durable and at times very effective, if inconsistent. But one factor Falvey and company must consider is that even if the Twins sell, they’re still not completely out of contention. For some of their pending free agents, the Twins have an obvious in-house candidate to step in and take over. But with three starting pitchers currently on the injured list, parting with Paddack might create a hole they’d be challenged to fill. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t make such a move, but there are additional complications in some cases.
“You evaluate every circumstance based on what is presented to you, based on everything you navigate through the course of a season,” Falvey said. “You try to figure out how you put your team in the best position to grow, build, contend and find ways to always acquire talent if you’re on that side of the equation. I think, for us, every situation will be evaluated independently. There is no one size fits all approach to any of these conversations is basically what I’m trying to say.”
Sunday’s loss marked the second time in three series since the break that the Twins missed an opportunity against a non-contending team. They dropped a series in Denver coming out of the break against the last-place Rockies, and lost the last two after winning the series opener against last-place Washington, which had already begun to sell.
Stars like Carlos Correa and Royce Lewis have shown encouraging signs lately, and Bailey Ober and Luke Keaschall could return from the injured list soon, giving optimism that the Twins can rally over the final two months. On the other hand, Byron Buxton suffered an injury Saturday night and David Festa is newly on the IL, muddling that picture.
“The only thing you can work on right now is, what has happened is fact,” Falvey said. “What has transpired to this point is fact. You have to make decisions based on that and your best assessment of where everything else is. … I think what I mean by that is, if we’d had a meeting a week ago, we’d have said the same thing about a different combination of issues.
“It’s the reason we are where we are right now and not where we wanted to be from a record standpoint. So you have to try to assess where you are today and make decisions based on that information. We’ll make those over the course of the week, I’m sure.”