Carlos Correa hit second and played shortstop in the Minnesota Twins’ final home game of the 2022 season. He had a disappointing July (.175/.264/.350) during his first season with the Twins, but he was hitting .355/.412/.589 in the final month of what many thought was his only season in the Twin Cities. It looked like a quintessential Minnesota sports story. Correa played his best baseball in September for a team that would finish with 78 wins, then leave in free agency.
Perhaps Correa was Minnesota’s Music Man. He had come to save the Twins a year after they had World Series aspirations following two AL Central championships, only to leave a sub-.500 team for a big-market team on the coast. José Miranda (.272/.325/.435) hit ahead of Correa on that September 29 game against the Chicago White Sox. Luis Arráez (.315/.372/.419) hit behind him, but the rest of the lineup didn’t offer Lucas Giolito much of a challenge.
Gio Urshela and Gary Sánchez, the remnants of Minnesota’s ill-fated Josh Donaldson salary dump trade with the New York Yankees, hit 4 and 5 in the lineup. Former fifth-overall pick Nick Gordon hit seventh, and post-hype prospect Gilberto Celestino hit eighth. Rocco Baldelli had rookie Matt Wallner in the nine-hole. Injuries had sapped most of the Twins’ offensive firepower, and they ceded the division to the Cleveland Guardians in the season’s final month.
In response, the Twins front office loaded the roster with depth last year. They re-signed Carlos Correa, grabbed Donovan Solano late when he seemed redundant and picked up Michael A. Taylor to step in for Byron Buxton in center field. They were so deep that they sent Wallner down after he hit .363/.714/1.000 from May 23-28.
Minnesota’s additional investment in roster depth paid off. Royce Lewis spent the first half of the season recovering from his second ACL injury, Buxton never played center field, and plantar fasciitis hampered Correa. Still, the Twins reeled off 87 wins, won a playoff game for the first time since 2004, and a playoff series for the first time since 2002.
However, the Twins announced they would cut payroll this season in response to the television deal’s instability, which cut into their depth. Some players started slow, like Carlos Santana and Manuel Margot, and have been more productive recently. However, they lost frontline starter Sonny Gray to the St. Louis Cardinals in free agency, and Kyle Farmer has regressed this year (-0.5 WAR).
Due to injury, Anthony DeSclafani never pitched this season, forcing Louie Varland into the major league rotation. Willi Castro has had to step up as Minnesota’s utilityman in Farmer’s place. Prospects have filled most of the other gaps. Brooks Lee stepped in for Lewis when he got injured and looks major-league-ready. David Festa made two spot starts when Chris Paddack needed rest for arm fatigue. Wallner has broken out of his slump, and Trevor Larnach has had a resurgence this year.
The Twins have developed position players well, to the extent that they have too many players for the holes they need to fill when everyone is healthy. If Austin Martin can back up Buxton in center, and Larnach and Wallner can play the corner outfield spots, where does Max Kepler fill in long-term? And if Lewis, Correa, and Lee are manning the infield, where does Edouard Julien fit?
However, they only have too much depth if everyone stays healthy and Larnach and Wallner don’t slump again, and depth drove winning for the Twins last year. So, as much as they could use a playoff starter and another reliever for bullpen insurance, they also need depth in case injuries strike late in the season. Minnesota led the AL Central for most of the year in 2022, only to relinquish it once injuries piled up. Conversely, Correa, Lewis, and Buxton weren’t healthy for most of the season last year, and they got further than they had in the playoffs in over two decades.
The Twins must balance depth, long-term competitiveness, and urgency as the deadline nears. They shouldn’t listen to offers on their four best prospects at the deadline. Walker Jenkins, Lee, Emmanuel Rodriguez, and Festa are part of their future and will help them keep their contention window open. The individual game and series outcomes are random relative to other sports, and the best teams give themselves multiple opportunities to win in the playoffs. Jenkins, Lee, Rodriguez, and Festa are cost-controlled players with upside who should be part of Minnesota’s core going forward.
However, great organizations also express urgency to fill needs by the deadline. The Twins must ensure they have three viable playoff starters, and that may mean parting ways with position players to win now. Winning teams trade from an area of surplus to address an area of need, and Minnesota lost Gray, a viable playoff starter, in the offseason. Unless they believe Bailey Ober or Simeon Woods Richardson can start a playoff game, they must add a postseason-caliber starter.
Ultimately, Minnesota’s identity is a hard-hitting, bullpen-driven team this season. Joe Ryan has pitched at nearly an All-Star level this year, and Pablo López’s underlying numbers indicate he’ll pitch like an ace again. The Twins will also need a healthy lineup to generate offense in the postseason and a bullpen capable of getting the ball to Griffin Jax and Jhoan Durán late in games. Striking the right balance between aggressiveness and prudence at the deadline is the only way they’ll have a strong enough roster to build off last year’s success.
