If Not Now, When?

The Twins need to push their chips in the middle of the table at this deadline -- no questions asked.

There’s no shortage of Minnesota Twins trade chatter on the internet right now. With that said, let’s add a bit more.

There’s no point in stating it in any flowery terms: the Twins need (redacted) pitching and they need it right (redacted) (redacted) now.

I’ll set the over/under at 2.5 pitchers acquired for the Twins. Anything less is unlikely to be enough; anything more should be considered a legit, honest effort at trying to win the division.

Maybe it’s a copout, but that isn’t to say that if the Twins make only two acquisitions — but they’re both very good ones — that it can’t be deemed a success, but again we have a pretty strong track record of how this front office conducts business, as noted in the most recently written article at Access Twins, which you can find here:

Desire vs. Reality: What to Expect from the Twins at the 2022 Trade Deadline

The biggest qualms I see from fans as we approach the deadline are one of two things:

1. The Twins need more pitching than they can reasonably acquire to even compete

2. The Twins can’t afford to thin the herd, so to speak, in a farm system that isn’t as highly ranked as it has been in recent seasons

Let’s attack these points in order.

First of all, I think the Twins definitely need to acquire at least one pitcher who can start a game for them in October — and most likely one who would start Game 1 or 2. I am more than fine with Sonny Gray getting the ball for Game 1, but would really rather see him get Game 2 with Joe Ryan nailing down the third spot.

I think the Twins can win a series with that starting trio, though I’d be even more enthused if a top starter and a depth guy like, say, Jose Quintana was acquired. The Twins don’t just need to get the pitcher who can help them get through the playoffs, but potentially a back-end guy who can get them to the playoffs as well.

Adding multiple starters, or even just one, gives the Twins a better shot at chewing up more innings to start games. The Twins bullpen is, without a doubt, not particularly good, but it’s going to be difficult for any unit to be good when it’s asked to get anywhere from 10-15 outs per night.

Moving an underperformer or two adds more competition to a bullpen that needs to cover fewer innings, thus raising the unit’s collective water level.

It should also help the group that perhaps both Kenta Maeda and Jorge Alcala will rejoin the ranks at some point. Neither are sure-fire guarantees to help the team down the stretch, but at the start of the year, neither were Griffin Jax or Jhoan Duran, either. Fill the cupboard and maybe then you can make a decent meal, right?

But that’s before considering additions to the bullpen, and it’s not like peak Andrew Miller or Aroldis Chapman are available at this deadline. That might drive the price up on a guy like David Bednar or Joe Mantiply, but that doesn’t mean that the Twins can’t — and for that matter, shouldn’t — shop the bargain aisle.

Even just bringing in a guy like Mychal Givens would help considerably, and he most likely wouldn’t cost all that much to acquire from the Cubs while all the attention is on where teammate David Robertson — another viable target — will land.

Would it be preferable to add a Mychal Givens and, say, a Ryan Brasier as opposed to a Robertson? I can’t say for sure without knowing who the roster casualties would be — but again lifting the bullpen’s collective water level would go a long way as well.

The second issue about prospect depth is a non-starter for me.

Is it great to have a vast and deep farm system? Sure.

Is it absolutely necessary when you already have a pretty good MLB team? I’m less convinced.

If you’re wondering where all of the team’s prospect depth has gone, just turn on Bally Sports North on any given evening around 7:00 p.m. You’ll see Jose Miranda and Alex Kirilloff, or maybe hear about the injured Royce Lewis or Trevor Larnach in passing. Gilberto Celestino has been more than capable as a fourth outfielder. Nick Gordon is mixing and matching across the diamond and not embarrassing himself.

That’s where all the prospect depth went — this is the fifth-youngest offense in MLB and fourth-youngest in the AL by weighted batter age (26.9) at Baseball Reference. In short, it weights the amount of plate appearances a player has taken with their age — and the Twins offense is young.

Every position has at least one player who can reasonably be expected to hit at a league-average rate, if not better, and is under the age of 30. In many cases, they’re not even 25.

In reality, most of those guys listed above have recently graduated or will very soon from prospect lists at your favorite outlet, yet are still technically learning on the job. Miranda is the best example of that, especially with how well he’s been hitting since his return from a “demotion” to St. Paul that lasted about 24 hours. Since then, he’s hitting .333/.376/.553 with 162-game paces for 28 home runs, 32 doubles, 174 hits and 119 RBI.

Hoarding prospect depth serves no purpose when all it results in is 40-man bottlenecking and angst about guys not developing the further they get up the organizational ladder.

The Twins would be wise to use some of this depth — they have a lot of shorstop-ish prospects as well as some guys who can fake it at second base or a corner and really hit — to fill a place of need. This is doubly true when so many of them are having great seasons, which can’t really be said about the team’s similarly-ranked cache of pitching prospects.

And to circle back, those places of need are starting pitching and relief pitching of pretty much any (redeemable) quality.

But there’s another reason for the Twins to push their chips in the middle — and it’s a big one.

The elephant in the room is that Carlos Correa’s “three-year” deal is going to be a one-year deal with an opt-out. Regardless of what happens with him moving forward, this is the one year the Twins have with him for sure.

Not going all-in — or even just mostly in — is a slap in the face of everyone invested in this team.

It would be a waste of a year where a superstar fell into their lap. It would be a waste of a year where the division very well could do the same.

Many Twins fans don’t feel like simply getting to the playoffs is enough at this juncture. They want to see wins — if not single games, but maybe even a series or two. Nobody would complain about a World Series, obviously.

And it can be easy to look at the New York Yankees or Los Angeles Dodgers and feel like the Twins can’t compete with them. Maybe they can’t — over the long haul.

But if last year’s stretch run and postseason told us anything, it’s that you never really know.

The Braves acquired Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler — two sluggers slumping with their respective teams — and went on to win a World Series with their superstar Ronald Acuna Jr. and top-tier starter Mike Soroka sidelined and with a patchwork pitching situation.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — things do not have to be perfect for a team to win the World Series.

And thus, the impetus is on this front office to do what it takes to get to October — with a little bit more. It’s not enough to win the division by a few games with 88 wins — though that’s exactly what the Braves did last season — but it’s also time to buck the trend and go out and get a difference-making pitcher at the deadline.

If not now, when?