NEW YORK — The Twins were looking to add a starter ahead of Tuesday evening’s trade deadline. But while plenty of starters were on the move in the past week, the Twins were unable to strike a deal to bolster their rotation.
When the 5 p.m. CDT trade deadline had come and gone, the Twins had made just one addition, trading minor league infielder Jay Harry to the Toronto Blue Jays for reliever Trevor Richards, who is expected to join the team in New York for Wednesday’s series finale.
“When I look at it, at what ultimately transpired, we were in on some conversations about players that moved. But there wasn’t something that felt like it fit for us, ultimately that lined up,” president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said. “When I think about where we are now, relative to where we were before, it’s the way I always tend to feel when I’m at this point in the season: A lot of what you’re going to do is already in that room.”
The price for players within the American League Central — both the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers were sellers and traded starting pitchers — seemed to be much higher than the price for teams outside of the division, Falvey said.
And he also indicated that some of the asks from teams for players with little future control were for “some of the best players in our whole system.”
“We couldn’t find overlap and intersection there,” Falvey said. “This was not about something specific financially or otherwise. This was just about being able to find the right deals and teams being willing to deal more directly with us.”
The one deal they did pull off was a deadline day swap for Richards, who is a seven-year veteran who has pitched for four different teams.
Richards, a 31-year-old right-hander who will be a free agent after this season, has a 4.64 earned-run average across 52 1/3 innings this season. While Richards had a 2.57 ERA through June, he has had a tough month of July, giving up 15 earned runs in 10 1/3 innings. He has been historically tougher on lefties than righties, which should be helpful for the Twins.
“We’re adding a very good, proficient arm,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s really a guy that can match up against both lefties and righties. He has got an excellent changeup, and he just pitches. He can go two innings and maybe even more than that if you need him to. He fills a lot of different responsibilities and holes in a bullpen.”
His ability to go multiple innings is one of the reasons the Twins preferred him over Josh Staumont, whom they designated for assignment on Tuesday to create space on the 40-man roster.
Falvey also said he views Justin Topa, who is currently rehabbing from a knee injury and nearing a return, as another deadline addition because he has been out for the entire season thus far.
While the Twins, who are tied second place in the division, weren’t as aggressive as the first-place Cleveland Guardians or Kansas City Royals, the team they are tied with, Falvey said he believes the group within the clubhouse “is going to help elevate us the rest of the way.”
“We’ve competed to this point, put ourselves in a good position. And now we’ve got to go find a way to compete the rest of the way and hopefully finish off an opportunity to really get to where we want to go in the postseason,” Falvey said.
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