Red Sox sneak in and steal potential Twins trade target
Feels like the Twins could have gotten involved if they wanted to.
Things have seemingly started to turn around for the Minnesota Twins lately, which is what happens when you play bad teams.
After starting the year out 7-13, the Twins have bounced back nicely after a home sweep of the Chicago White Sox and a favorable west coat trip that features a series against the Los Angeles Angels.
Over the last stretch of games, Minnesota’s offense has come roaring back to life after going M.I.A. for most of the first month. Winners of their last five games, the Twins are outscoring opponents 30-14 and dormant bats like Carlos Santana are starting to wake up.
This comes less than a week after the team’s offense was so unbeleivably bad that it seemed like a DFA candidate was the right guy to help fix thing. Garrett Cooper became a hero of Twins Twitter after the Chicago Cubs decided to let him go despite having a pretty solid season thus far.
He hit lefties hard and plays first base, which should have spoke to the Twins given how badly Santana was struggling. If Cooper ever was a legit candidate to help bail Minnesota’s offense out, he’s no longer an option after getting shipped up to Boston.
Twins miss out on potential trade target thanks to the Red Sox
On Saturday the Cubs traded Cooper to the Red Sox for cash, a move that it feels like the Twins could have pulled off if they really wanted to.
Cooper was hitting .270/.341/.432 this season in 37 games for the Cubs when they decided to DFA him, a move that seemed to puzzle some fans. Immedietly the Twins made sense as a potential landing spot, both because of the offense he’d help add and the seemingly low cost of acquiring him.
It felt at the time like the Twins would just have to claim him off waivers from Chicago, but something along the lines of what Boston pulled off was probably the route the team needed to take. It’s a path the front office has already gone down a few times this season, trading cash to both the Blue Jays and Orioles for low-tier minor leaguers.
This would have added a Big League bat to the lineup, and while Cooper wasn’t the sexiest option on the market he would have filled a need.
To be fair, the Twins offense is starting to wake up but how much of that is real and how much is the mirage of playing truly awful teams. Cooper wasn’t a fix-it-all addition, but this also feels like the Twins leaning on the same hoping-and-wishing strategy that got them into this deep hole in the first place.
