An uptick in trade discussions is coming. The Minnesota Twins’ front office expects it.
With the club in a financial bind, its young players earning more money and payroll stagnant at $130 million, teams will probably spend the next few months trying to pry key pieces from the roster.
Speculation is likely to run rampant and include players previously believed to be unavailable, including Carlos Correa. But even though he was careful to not rule out any possibilities, Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey suggested he isn’t ready to seriously entertain those inquiries.
Earlier this week, Falvey — who previously noted he’ll need to be creative when addressing the 2025 roster — said the Twins plan to move forward with Correa and Byron Buxton, each of whom has a no-trade clause, and starting pitcher Pablo López. The talented trio is set to earn a combined $72.5 million next season, roughly 55.8 percent of the team’s projected payroll, but Falvey sees them as key pieces as the Twins look to rebound from a disappointing end to the 2024 season.
“Everyone is always going to ask when you’re a team in the payroll bracket that we are,” Falvey said. “I feel really confident those guys are going to be part of the ability for us to do what we want on the field. They’re going to fuel us hopefully to some of the success we want to have. … I feel really good about those players.”
Falvey specifically was asked about Correa after the team’s All-Star shortstop was mentioned in a speculative piece by the New York Post’s Joel Sherman. Though Sherman merely viewed it as a possibility, Correa, whose salary jumps to $36 million in 2025, was named as a way the New York Yankees or New York Mets could improve their respective rosters.
Though they’d likely need to absorb a bad contract from the Mets or Yankees in a Correa trade, shedding the final four guaranteed years and $128 million of his contract would provide the Twins with the flexibility they desperately need.
Carlos Correa and Derek Falvey smile after Correa re-signed with the Twins in January 2023. (Abbie Parr / Associated Press)
The Twins are unquestionably in a different spot now than they were when Falvey and company extended Buxton, Correa and López between December 2021 and April 2023. The team entered the 2023 season with a club-record $154 million payroll, meaning it had room to add Michael A. Taylor, Joey Gallo, Donovan Solano and Kyle Farmer, players who mostly contributed to the Twins winning the American League Central title.
Last year, that mobility disappeared after ownership slashed the payroll by $30 million. To finalize their roster, the Twins went shopping in the discount aisle with disastrous results. They added Anthony DeSclafani, Manuel Margot, Jay Jackson, Josh Staumont, Justin Topa and Carlos Santana, with only Santana providing good value.
But despite the vastly different financial picture, Falvey said his highest-priced players remain part of the plan.
“They’re also really good and key members of where our team is,” Falvey said.
Where the front office sits may surprise fans focused on the team’s miserable, no-good, awful, dismaying, epic collapse. It’s not easy to look past the end, when the Twins went from a sure thing to make the playoffs to finishing 12-27 and spending their October watching Detroit and Kansas City in the wild-card round.
But even with the financial limitations, the team that is projected to return already looks pretty good on paper. Bet Online has given the Twins the best odds of winning the AL Central and listed them as 25-to-1 to win the World Series.
“It leaves us scratching our heads that much more about how did that happen at the end of the season,” general manager Jeremy Zoll said. “We feel really good about the core group of players we have and that a number of players are due for a big step or a bound in certain cases.”
The Twins aren’t looking to take a step back. Possessing better young starting pitching depth because of last year’s injuries to DeSclafani, Chris Paddack and Joe Ryan, they expect to contend for the division title.
Ridding themselves of Correa, whom FanGraphs valued this year at 4.3 WAR, isn’t the type of move a team with postseason aspirations makes.
Correa’s plantar fasciitis issues in each of the past two seasons are concerning and limited him to 86 games in 2024. But the Twins don’t have many players capable of producing a .310/.388/.517 slash line. Correa also makes the Twins a smarter club because of his off-the-charts baseball IQ.
Another potential factor: The Twins are headed into their first season with a direct-to-consumer broadcast model available to fans.
Gone are the halcyon days when the Twins received money from every cable customer in the region regardless of whether they watched games, a figure that amounted to $54 million in 2023, according to court documents. Now, the team must sell itself to its consumers. Attractive rosters full of talented players would seem to be imperative.
Trading Correa to reallocate payroll isn’t likely to win over potential subscribers.
Still, Falvey said a no-trade clause isn’t a nonstarter in trade talks. Though the player ultimately decides whether to waive their power and accept a trade, Falvey noted that a front office can nevertheless entertain offers and eventually bring the possibility to the player.
Falvey won’t close the door on any possible moves. You never know when a team might hit you over the head with an offer, providing value that’s impossible to pass up.
The Twins will need to complete at least a trade or two to reallocate their financial resources and sign free agents. The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman reviewed the team’s likeliest trade candidates on Thursday. But those deals are more likely to include lesser players — Falvey doesn’t sound motivated to consider deals for his star players.
“Teams come at us all the time,” Falvey said. “We reserve the right to have that conversation at any point in time with any player and agent; that’s part of the process across the whole league. But (asking a player to waive a no-trade clause is) not something we’re focused on.”
(Top photo of Carlos Correa: Quinn Harris / Getty Images)
