The Twins’ decision to move Louis Varland at last year’s trade deadline keeps getting harder to defend.
Minnesota had plenty of understandable sell-offs during that deadline frenzy, but the Varland deal always felt like the front office pushed its reliever logic too far. Nearly a year later, the return still hasn’t done much to soften that view.
The headliner in the package was Kendry Rojas, a borderline top 100 prospect whose profile came with plenty of risk baked in. The Twins pointed to him as the key piece that made the deal work, but his track record already carried warning signs: two straight injury-shortened seasons and some control issues that made a bullpen future easy to imagine. The lefty did bring real stuff, with a high 90s fastball and a plus slider, but the floor was never easy to ignore.
Rojas got to St. Paul right away after the trade and struggled to a 6.59 ERA in eight starts.
He reached the majors this season, but a triceps injury knocked him out for a month. In 16 innings with the big-league club, his 18.3% walk rate has kept him from helping a pitching-thin roster, and he’s since been sent back to Triple-A.
The other piece in the trade raised even more questions. The Twins already had a crowded group of left-handed hitting outfielders, yet they still added Alan Roden, giving them three lefty corner outfielders acquired at the deadline.
Roden got hurt almost immediately after the deal and never made the 2026 Opening Day roster. A shoulder injury this spring cost him more time, and he still hasn’t appeared in the majors this season despite putting up a near 1.000 OPS in St.
Paul as a 26-year-old. There just hasn’t been a spot for him.
Minnesota then went into the 2026 season calling itself a contender, and that has at least been somewhat supported by the American League’s weakness and the team’s offense. But the bullpen has been the glaring problem, and the Twins barely addressed it after what amounted to a fire sale there in the offseason.
That’s why the Varland move stands out even more now. It left the 2026 roster with no real bullpen fallback, and the combination of payroll constraints and the club’s confidence in its reliever philosophy has turned that unit into a mess that has already cost them a lot of games. Nobody was expecting Varland to be one of the best relievers in baseball this year, but even matching his 2025 level would have given the Twins an anchor.
The issue is that there never seemed to be a strong enough reason to deal him unless the return was overwhelming. Instead, Minnesota wound up with a position player it didn’t need and a volatile pitching prospect who could end up in the bullpen himself.
The organization’s belief that relievers don’t matter was on full display, and the cost has been immediate in a season where the rest of the league has still left the Twins hanging around the wild card race. Just avoiding a bottom-five bullpen would have put this team in much better shape.
There’s still a chance the story changes. The Twins could trade for relief help, which would only make the original Varland move look worse.
And if Rojas settles in as a starter, the deal could eventually work out in value terms. But that’s a long way from where things stand now, and it doesn’t erase the damage to Minnesota’s 2026 push.
If Rojas sticks in the rotation over the course of his Twins career, the club could still come out ahead eventually. Right now, though, that outcome doesn’t look especially likely.
Varland might not have fixed everything on his own, but he would have been more valuable in the bullpen than the return Minnesota settled for. At the very least, the Twins could have gotten more for a controllable arm at a position they needed instead of dumping him for whatever they could get.
There’s no getting around it: the Varland trade looks bad, and it has looked worse with time.
In Other News...
Two Unexpected Twins Could Be In Real Deadline Danger
With the Twins sitting at 42-46 and still close enough to keep the conversation pointed toward October, the front office is in an awkward middle ground. If the club hangs around, the deadline should be about adding help. If the season slips, though, Minnesota could wind up listening on players who were never supposed to be part of a sell-off conversation in the first place.
Kody Clemens and Ryan Kreidler fit that strange category. Both have played well enough to draw attention, and both bring the kind of defensive flexibility that contenders like to stockpile, even with several years of team control still attached. For a Twins organization trying to balance the present against a wave of younger talent, that makes them more than just useful depth pieces. It also makes them the sort of names that can surface quickly if the standings push Minnesota toward a different kind of deadline. [Read more 🡒]
Twins May Finally Have A Real Opening For Kendry Rojas
Kendry Rojas has given the Twins enough to keep paying attention. Acquired from the Blue Jays in the Louis Varland trade, the left-hander has shown the kind of velocity and slider that can make evaluators dream on his upside, even if the rest of the package is still a work in progress. Since arriving in Minnesota, he has bounced between starting and relieving without a firm home, which has left the organization weighing what kind of pitcher he is most likely to become.
The appeal is obvious, but so is the uncertainty. Rojas still has to tighten his command and find more consistency, and the Twins have not yet settled on whether his best path is to keep building as a starter or to simplify things in the bullpen. For now, the question is less about whether his stuff plays and more about how Minnesota wants to use it, with Varland serving as the clearest example of one possible route. [Read more 🡒]
Twins Enter Another Deadline Crossroads With No Room For Error
The next few days may say as much about Minnesotas roster plans as they do about its place in the standings. A weekend series against the Yankees arrives with the Twins still chasing ground in both the division and the wild-card race, and it comes at a point in the season when every result seems to carry extra weight. For a club trying to stay relevant without losing sight of the bigger picture, this is exactly the kind of stretch that can sharpen the front offices thinking.
How the Twins handle Friday through Sunday could shape the tone around the clubhouse and the decision-making upstairs as the trade deadline approaches. A strong showing would keep the conversation pointed toward the postseason chase, while a rough one would only deepen the pressure on a team already walking a fine line. Either way, Minnesota is entering another crossroads with little margin left to waste, and the answers may start to come quickly. [Read more 🡒]