Minneapolis – The Minnesota Twins find themselves in a good position with just three games remaining before the trade deadline. They have a 46-48 record, and in any normal season, two games below .500 before the break isn’t all that glamorous.
However, the American League is 185-233 against the National League throughout the year in Internleague play. Because of that, the Twins sit two games back of the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians for the AL Central, and one game back of the third AL Wild Card spot.
The Twins face the Los Angeles Angels, the league’s worst team, this weekend before heading into the All-Star Break. They have a realistic chance of finishing with a winning record going into the All-Star break and have also positioned themselves as buyers at the 2026 trade deadline.
Given the distrust that fans have of the ownership group, Twins Chairman Tom Pohlad knows this will be as important a deadline as ever to be buyers and back up his words from earlier this year.
“This is a build, and they will come situation,” Pohlad said Thursday morning. “The fans are not going to come back based on words. They’re going to come back once they see investment in the team and success on the field. I know that.”
It will be Twins GM Jeremy Zoll’s job to put together the on-field investment. Earlier in the week, when the Twins returned from their road trip at 44-47, Zoll reiterated that the team is unlikely to know whether it’ll be buyers or sellers until the week leading up to the August 3 deadline.
“There’s still a lot of games left to unfold, and teams aren’t really making those declarations until the last possible minute,” Zoll said. “And in turn, you need the full market to develop to be able to have things happen. So we’re continuing to evaluate things.”
Byron Buxton is the one Twins player whose name has frequently come up in early deadline rumors. And each time his name has come up, Buxton has shot down any rumors that he wants to leave Minnesota. A week later, Zoll did the same. During his breakfast with the beat on Thursday morning, Pohlad backed up the team’s desire to keep Byron Buxton in Minnesota.
I wasn’t surprised. I’ve had a fair amount of talk — conversation with Byron over the course of the year, and I think we’re just really lucky that a player of his talent is that committed to this team, particularly when in recent years, I don’t know that we’ve fully earned that level of loyalty and commitment, right? And we’re gonna show him the same level of loyalty and commitment going forward.
You know, that’s one of those things that’s very untouchable. You could say that no player is not tradeable, but that’s about as close as it gets. You know, when you have that kind of relationship, some things have got to be bigger than, you know, other things. Buxton’s in that category.
The Twins won another series against Cleveland, extending their run to seven wins in their last eight. On Friday afternoon, they traded High-A catcher Ryan Sprock to the Toronto Blue Jays for RHP Tommy Nance.
A day after Pohlad acknowledged the team’s need to improve itself on the field in the coming weeks, the Twins began the trade deadline period as buyers, and backed up their owner’s words.
“Early on I may have made comments like we’ve got to build a business that can support more investment on the field,” said Pohlad.
“Well, to build the business, we’ve got to win. And to win, we’ve got to put a better product on the field. There does need to be an upfront investment made. But when we make an investment, we have to be successful. We have to f—ing win. If we do that, then people will come, and it will all work.”
Nance is just one small move to bolster a Twins bullpen that has seen its fair share of struggles all season. They own an MLB-worst 5.28 ERA on the year with a fWAR of -0.1. Nance has a 3.82 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 24.5% strikeout rate, and 9.4% walk rate on the year.
It’s also a move that continues the trend of adding never-ending arms to Minnesota’s pen as the season goes on. Zoll and his front office have acquired eight other relievers this season, via trade, waiver claim, or free agency, to bolster the pen. While some have had more success than others, trading away a notable prospect such as Sprock, who just won the Florida State League Player of the Month, shows the Twins’ willingness to build a winning team on the field now and not next season.
“I think it’s always everyone’s goal, we’ve talked a lot about, about it a lot of wanting to play meaningful games in September,” said Zoll. “When there’s been a couple of lows in the schedule and tough losing streaks, this group has done a phenomenal job of bouncing back at every turn. And couldn’t be prouder of how Shelty and the staff have rebounded at every turn and put us in a position that we can keep having those conversations.”
“I think JZ’s done a phenomenal job,” Pohlad said.
