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Amidst a disappointing 2025 campaign, the Minnesota Twins decided to sell the farm. The 2025 MLB trade deadline was transformed due to the Twins' choice to trade 11 players to eight separate teams. Now that the deadline is a few days removed, it's easier to judge just how well Minnesota did. While chief baseball officer Derek Falvey, GM Jeremy Zoll and the rest of the Twins' brass decided to get rid of almost everything that was not bolted down, who they did keep was notable.
First was center fielder Byron Buxton, who finally looks like the player that Minnesota has always hoped he would be. This season, he's been largely healthy. It was also rumored that he could be dealt before the deadline. However, the Twins held firm. It's easy to see why: as long as Buxton is healthy, he's certainly a top ten (if not top five) center fielder. Those types of players don't grow on trees.
Neither do elite starting pitchers. Minnesota possesses two of the game's top starters in right handers Pablo Lopez and Joe Ryan. While Lopez is currently on the IL with a strained shoulder, Ryan has taken his place at the top of the Twins' rotation. The 29-year-old is currently 10-5 with a 2.87 ERA and was considered to be one of the top pitchers on the trade market.
However, Falvey, Zoll and other team leaders didn't receive a package worthy of extracting Ryan and his two years left of club control. The right hander is slated to be a free agent in 2028. The choice to not trade him, however, was a big mistake. In fact, it's a mistake that Minnesota could live to regret as the 2025 season comes to a close.
Not trading Joe Ryan may come back to haunt Twins
It's fair to say that the Twins would have received a pretty big haul for Ryan. The stats above don't even tell the full story. To start, the righty has already set a career high in WAR with 4.4. This is still with basically two months left in the season, so as long as he remains healthy, he'll certainly increase that total. Unfortunately, it will be a bit tougher to add on to his ten wins. If he doesn't receive run support (which will be tougher after the team traded away players like shortstop Carlos Correa), then the former Tampa Bay Ray will be hard pressed to succeed.
There were a host of contenders who were searching for impact starting pitching. This includes clubs that the Twins did business with, such as the Chicago Cubs (who received utilityman Willi Castro from Minnesota) and the Houston Astros, who re-acquired Correa. The Twins traded Chris Paddack, one of Ryan's rotation mates, along with a good chunk of their bullpen. In the flurry of trades the team completed before the deadline, they received a lot of good talent in return.
Imagine the return for Ryan. The Boston Red Sox did balk at Minnesota's price, and other clubs did as well. But does that mean the Twins should have lowered their asking price? After all, Ryan is 29. If the Twins aren't back in postseason contention by the time he's slated to leave in free agency, would he leave the franchise? If so, then Minnesota's leadership might look back to this deadline as the moment when they lost their ace. As painful as trading Ryan would have been, losing an ace like him for nothing in the future will hurt so much more than the haul they could have received at the end of July.
