In 2014, the Minnesota Twins were coming off their second straight 66-win season and had the fifth overall pick. Three highly-regarded pitchers – Brady Aiken, Tyler Kolek, and Carlos Rodón – went 1-2-3 in the draft. That left Minnesota waiting to see who the Chicago Cubs would take with the fourth pick.
The Cubs selected Kyle Schwarber, then a catcher, fourth overall. Minnesota pounced on the opportunity to take Nick Gordon. “We’ve been locked in on Nick,” former Twins scouting director Deron Johnson said.
We obviously liked some of the pitchers taken ahead of him, but he’s been our guy since the start. We like his ability to play shortstop. We like his swing. I think he’s going to have power down the road. He’s going to stay at shortstop in my mind, and has [a] great work ethic. He’s a great kid and obviously has big-league bloodlines with his brother and his dad. We expect big things from him.
Gordon’s father, Tom “Flash” Gordon, is a three-time All-Star who pitched 21 years in the league. His brother, Dee, was in the middle of his first of two All-Star seasons. Nick Gordon looked like a steal. Minnesota hadn’t had an impact shortstop since Cristian Guzmán left in 2004, and they needed young stars to help turn the team around. “I can be a line-drive, gap-to-gap hitter, but I think I can hit 20 to 25 bombs a year. I could be that leadoff guy like Carl Crawford or Derek Jeter,” Gordon said. “I pattern my game after those guys.”
On Monday, the Twins traded Gordon to the Miami Marlins for Steven Okert. The 32-year-old reliever fits a more immediate need. Minnesota is bolstering its bullpen after losing Sonny Gray to free agency. Gray pitched 184 innings last year, and there is uncertainty with the back end of the rotation. Therefore, the Twins are wise to add bullpen depth. They also are trading from a surplus with Royce Lewis, Carlos Correa, Edouard Julien, Alex Kirilloff, José Miranda, and eventually Brooks Lee in the infield.
Gordon quickly ascended through the minor leagues. In 2018, he hit .212/.262/.283 in Triple-A but was 4.5 years younger than his competition. A year later, Gordon hit .298/.342/.459 in Triple-A. However, he battled injuries, got COVID, and had a severe case of gastritis in 2020. “I’m lucky to be alive,” he told The Athletic in 2021. Gordon hit .240/.292/.355 in 73 games as a rookie that year and seemed to be carving out a major league role.
In 2022, Gordon hit .272/.316/.427 as a fully-healthy 26-year-old utilityman. He only had nine home runs and wasn’t a full-time shortstop, but it felt like he had revived his career. Entering spring training a year ago, Gordon said he was willing to play all over and focused on developing power. But he got off to a slow start, hitting .127/.143/.200 in April. But he improved in May, slashing .250/.250/.500 with two home runs.
Gordon was playing his best baseball when he fouled a ball off his right leg in a May 18 game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. He stayed in to finish the at-bat but left the game with a fractured shin, which ended his season. “I wish Nick didn’t have to take that last swing, knowing now that his leg was fractured,” Baldelli said after the game. “Doesn’t look like it’s displaced, or he further hurt himself talking that extra swing. But I’ll bet it was painful as hell.”
Just as he started to find himself at the plate, Gordon’s season was over. On Saturday, Gordon lost his salary arbitration case against the Twins. Forty-eight hours later, they traded him to Miami. It was a relatively low-wattage move. Minnesota swapped a utility man for a 30-plus-year-old reliever. They dealt from a position of surplus to add depth to their bullpen. It was a good process.
But there’s always risk in trading a 28-year-old former prospect for a reliever on the wrong side of 30. In hindsight, Twins fans would have loved to see Schwarber fall to them. They also could have drafted Aaron Nola, who the Philadelphia Phillies took seventh overall. But Aiken didn’t sign with Houston that year, which created a mess for the Astros organization. He became one of three players to go 1-1 and never play in the major leagues.
Kolek last played in 2019 and never got past A-ball, making him the fifth player taken second overall who failed to reach the major leagues. That made 2014 the first draft in major league history where the first and second picks never played in the bigs. In hindsight, the Twins did well in drafting Gordon. The trade is a success if Okert rounds out a steady bullpen unless Gordon starts to tap into his draft-day potential. He probably won’t become Jeter or Crawford, but Gordon seemed to be finding himself before injuring his shin last year.
