Minnesota Twins Trade Pair of Starting Outfielders

While the Florida Marlins are throwing their players overboard amid their sinking franchise, another is quietly doing the same albeit with a much brighter outlook. Twins fans have sat through the first truly abysmal in the last decade and are now faced with that word we all hate to hear attached to our favorite teams: rebuilding.

That’s the conundrum the Minnesota Twins find themselves in, as while they have tools to win now they don’t have all of them and the question is do you try to bet the farm that you can indeed win a World Series in the next two years or do you start over and try to build a winner around an aging Joe Mauer.

What the Twins need is pitching, and what they have a plethora of is outfielders, so Minnesota is having their cake and eating it too in terms of rebuilding and winning now. The Twins needed pitching and they got it, but they are still a year or so away from being impactful. The Twins had a plethora of outfielders but they traded away two starters to get the aforementioned pitching.

But the Twins are confusing fans and writers everywhere by their recent moves involving those two starting outfielders. The Twins traded Denard Span to the Washington Nationals for high-end prospect pitcher Alex Meyer, who has a fastball that has been clocked at over 100 mph. But while the move gave the Twins a potential quality starter, it was also a move that appeared to clear the way for Ben Revere to take over in center field.

Revere had filled in plenty for Span last season when Span was bothered by a head injury, and he had gained a lot of respect in the Twins clubhouse. But days after trading Span, Minnesota pulled the trigger on a deal that sent Revere to the Phillies for two more pitchers.

When it comes to trades, the Twins are a little behind in class. They traded away Johan Santana when they couldn’t afford him and while Santana is tossing no-hitters in New York, the Twins have nothing left on their roster from that trade. They also traded away Jason Bartlett and Matt Garza for Delmon Young, a guy they traded a season ago to the Tigers.

J.J. Hardy was acquired using Carlos Gomez (from the Johan Santana trade) and he was then traded to make room for Tsuyoshi Nishioka who is now gone as well.

So you begin to see a track record here.

The Twins needed pitching — badly. Minnesota acquired Vance Worley who is a mid-rotation pitcher, but he instantly becomes the front-end man in the Twins rotation. Things are bad in Minnesota when it comes to pitching and the rest of the team is aging. Justin Morneau likely won’t last the season in a Twins uniform and Joe Mauer is a shell of his MVP self.

The Marlins are baling on themselves and they know it, they’re not trying to hide it. But the Twins are being more sneaky about trying to bail themselves out but the outcomes of next season might look scarily similar.