Two offseasons ago when the Twins signed Josh Donaldson to the largest free-agent contract in team history, they knew what they were getting into.
Donaldson was a three-time All-Star and former AL MVP winner coming off a great, healthy 2019 season with the Braves. He was also 34 years old, with an established reputation as an outspoken, often abrasive clubhouse presence and a history of calf and hamstring injuries that caused him to miss part of 2017 and most of 2018.
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Some potential free-agent suitors opted against pursuing Donaldson because of his age and leg issues, others due to his personality. In mid-January, with most of the other big-name free agents already signed, Donaldson’s market wasn’t as robust as he’d expected. Few teams were willing to give him a $20 million-plus salary for three guaranteed years.
When the Twins raised their offer to four years and $92 million, they got him.
In the early stages of that offseason, the Twins’ free-agent focus was on starting-rotation help. “Impact pitching” is what president of baseball operations Derek Falvey called it publicly when previewing the front office’s plan. The Twins had just set the all-time MLB record for homers in a season, so adding another slugger to the Bomba Squad hardly seemed like a priority. They needed arms, not bats.
Right-hander Zack Wheeler was their No. 1 target, but he strongly preferred to stay on the East Coast and signed a $118 million contract with the Phillies, which was far beyond any offer the Twins would have made him anyway. Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg were never in the Twins’ price range, and the organization failed to land other obvious targets such as Madison Bumgarner, Hyun Jin Ryu and Dallas Keuchel.
By mid-January, the Twins had money to spend but no impact pitching left to spend it on in free agency. So they pivoted to Donaldson, a power-hitting third baseman whose arrival pushed Miguel Sanó across the diamond to first base. It wasn’t impact pitching, but the Twins saw an impact bat as a better investment than lesser arms and believed value was value.
Donaldson wasn’t part of the Twins’ initial offseason plan. He was anything but a seamless fit, on or off the field, but he was a damn good all-around player and a household name whose pricey addition to a 101-win roster created lots of well-founded buzz and optimism. Not only were the Twins well aware of every risk with Donaldson, but those risks were also why he was available to them at all.
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Two years and two months later, having watched as every risk came to fruition, the Twins concluded they simply needed to be out of the Donaldson business. Two seasons were enough, and they had no interest in two more. They were willing to give away Donaldson and the rest of his contract for nothing in return, but as was the case at the July 30 trade deadline, there were no takers.
Donaldson was owed $50 million: $21 million in 2022 and 2023 plus a $16 million team option or $8 million buyout in 2024. He was viewed as a negative asset across MLB, meaning his remaining contract was bigger than his perceived worth. That’s not uncommon for a 36-year-old in the middle of a big contract, and it left the Twins with two options to dump him.
They could eat a portion of his remaining contract, reducing the total cost to another team by essentially covering the difference between the $50 million Donaldson was still owed and his perceived value. No teams were willing to take Donaldson and the full $50 million off the Twins’ hands, even for little in return, but they likely could have enticed someone for closer to $30 million.
Josh Donaldson, all smiles, and Rocco Baldelli at Donaldson’s introductory news conference in 2020. (Hannah Foslien / Getty Images)Or the Twins could entice a team to take Donaldson by attaching a different form of value, substituting players for money and clearing the full $50 million off their books while avoiding the indignity of eating millions just to be rid of a deal they gladly handed out two years earlier. And that’s the route they chose, sending Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ben Rortvedt to the Yankees as the sweeteners.
In return, the Twins received catcher Gary Sánchez and infielder Gio Urshela, two competent veterans with some upside. Whatever you think of the deal, and wherever you side on Sánchez and Urshela having positive, negative or neutral value relative to their combined $15 million salaries, it certainly looks and feels like an actual baseball trade as opposed to a pure salary dump.
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There’s plenty of room to debate whether the Twins picked the best option to dump Donaldson, and there’s even some room to debate whether dumping him was a smart move, regardless of how they did it. After all, he was very productive and mostly healthy in 2021, playing 135 games and hitting .247/.352/.475 with 26 homers. He ranked fourth on the team with 3.2 Wins Above Replacement.
For all of Donaldson’s faults and the warranted skepticism about how he’ll age, he was one of the Twins’ better players, and the multiple-trade process involved in dumping him resulted in likely downgrades at two positions. Donaldson is a better all-around third baseman than Urshela, and Mitch Garver — the cost to add and then flip Kiner-Falefa — is a better all-around catcher than Sánchez.
Those two downgrades might be minimal, and there’s certainly some chance Urshela and Sánchez will outplay Donaldson and Garver over the next two seasons. (Sánchez is a free agent after 2022, while the others are controlled through 2023.) But from the Twins’ point of view, those are secondary issues. They made the trade to wash their hands of Donaldson, period. They’d seen enough.
Regardless of how Donaldson, Kiner-Falefa, Garver and Rortvedt fare in their new homes, and no matter how Urshela and Sánchez perform for the Twins or even if they never play for them at all, Minnesota’s front office viewed dumping Donaldson and the full $50 million as a win to be celebrated. Of course, they’ve already been wrong about Donaldson once. They celebrated plenty then, too.
While the off-field impact of removing Donaldson from the clubhouse was a factor, the more tangible impact will come from how the Twins reinvest the money saved by removing his contract from the books. Financial flexibility is something front offices love to talk up, but it has no value in and of itself. It only becomes valuable when it’s used, and even then only when it’s used well.
And that’s where the Twins find themselves after making three big trades in three days and having paid a toll to undo the Donaldson mistake. Their payroll sits around $94 million — 22nd in MLB and about $35 million below their recent spending levels. It’s not obvious the roster is better than it was when the lockout ended. It’s as easy to argue it’s slightly worse.
Sonny Gray, acquired from the Reds for 2021 first-round pick Chase Petty, is a major, much-needed rotation upgrade, but the Twins had plenty of room in the self-imposed budget to add his $10 million salary without ditching Donaldson. Their two other deals boil down to Donaldson, Garver (who briefly turned into Kiner-Falefa) and Rortvedt for Urshela, Sánchez and two pitching prospects.
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Depending on your viewpoint, it seems reasonable to see the collective impact of those swaps as making the Twins either slightly better or slightly worse. It’s ultimately semantics for a last-place roster that still needs major pitching help and still doesn’t have anyone the Twins trust to play shortstop. FanGraphs projects the Twins to go 80-82. Baseball Prospectus has them at 84-78. Treading water.
If, however, the Twins can turn the increased financial flexibility into a free-agent deal with All-Star shortstop Trevor Story or to facilitate a trade for a front-line starting pitcher such as A’s rotation-mates Frankie Montas or Sean Manaea, this confusing flurry of trade activity and quest to dump Donaldson will make sense. Until then, the Twins have earned any skepticism they get.
(Photo: Brace Hemmelgarn / Minnesota Twins / Getty Images)
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