Torii Hunter had a real choice to make in the winter of 2014, and even now he still circles back to it.
At 39, after a long run that started with the Minnesota Twins and stretched through big seasons with the Los Angeles Angels and Detroit Tigers, Hunter was deciding where to play what would become his final year. Minnesota wanted him back.
So did the Kansas City Royals, fresh off a trip to the World Series. And as Hunter recently explained on the To The Majors podcast with Kevin Pillar and Cody Allen, the decision was closer than people might think.
“I had a decision to make, and guess what the decision was: should I go to the Royals, or should I go to the Twins?” Hunter said.
Kansas City had plenty going for it. The Royals had just been on the sport’s biggest stage in 2014 and were built around a young group that looked ready to keep winning. Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain were all rising pieces, and Alex Gordon was still one of the better two-way outfielders in baseball.
But Minnesota had something else to sell.
Hunter’s history with the Twins was never simple. The club drafted him in the first round of the 1993 MLB Draft, and he grew into one of the most familiar faces in franchise history. Then, after the 2007 season, the Twins let him leave in free agency.
He signed with the Angels and kept producing, which made the chance to return seven years later feel loaded. Hunter said on the podcast that his wife did not want to go back to Minnesota after the way his first run there ended, and the Royals were still sitting there as a legitimate option after their World Series season.
Then Mike Herman, who had been on the Twins’ communications staff during Hunter’s first stint with the team, gave him a different reason to come home. Herman told Hunter that one more year in Minnesota could push him near the top of the franchise record book and deepen his place in team history.
“He was like, ‘Hey, come back, and you’ve got an opportunity to be in the top five in every category with the Twins, and you’ll go down in history or whatever. And we love you,’” Hunter recalled.
That pitch landed. Hunter chose Minnesota, and the Twins got one more season from a player who had already meant so much to them.
In 2015, he hit .286 with 22 doubles, 22 home runs and 81 RBIs, giving the club the kind of steady veteran production they wanted from a player in his age-40 season. Just as important, he got the ending he wanted.
He retired as a Twin.
The only problem was how close Minnesota came to making the postseason that year.
The Twins entered the final weekend of the 2015 season with a shot at an American League Wild Card spot, and the Royals were the team waiting at Target Field. Then Kansas City swept Minnesota, locked up the top seed in the American League and watched the Twins’ playoff hopes disappear. The Royals went on to win the World Series, beating the New York Mets.
That outcome still feeds Hunter’s what-if.
“If I would have chose the Royals, would I have won my World Series?” Hunter said.
It’s the kind of question that lingers because Hunter never got a championship during a career that included eight postseason trips. He came close more than once with the Angels and Tigers, but the ring never came.
Could it have happened in Kansas City? Nobody can know.
Baseball doesn’t hand out guarantees, and one player doesn’t rewrite a postseason by himself. But the Twins gave Hunter something the Royals couldn’t: the chance to close the book where it started.
He got to return to Target Field, a ballpark that had barely existed as an idea when he left Minnesota. He got back into the clubhouse, reconnected with the organization and walked away from the game as a Twin.
The ring never arrived. The regret still hangs around. But for Hunter, and for the franchise that drafted him, the ending still fit.
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