With time running out before the non-waiver trade deadline Saturday, we’re still looking for the white smoke to flow from Bill Smith’s Target Field office indicating he’s made a deal that will assure the Twins a championship. Yet, strangely, virtually nobody outside of Twins Territory seems to be mentioning the Twins as a buyer at the deadline. Not Tom Corcoran at SI. Even his peer at SI, Jon Heyman, barely mentions the Twins in his trade deadline article.
Click on the Twins summary at MLBTradeRumors.com and outside of old posts about Dan Haren, it’s slim pickings. A casual mention of interest in the Jays’ reliever Scott Downs, the Nats’ closer Matt Capps and the Cubs’ starter Ted Lilly. (Of course, this could all change at any moment!)
Of course, some folks locally are still riding Smith and the Twins pretty hard about making a move to improve the team.
Seth Stohs mentioned a number of the Twins’ minor league arms who are stepping up their games perhaps just at the right time in his Twins Centric post. However, the much-maligned back end of the Twins current rotation (Baker, Slowey, Duensing) have picked things up a bit if you’re willing to discount the fact that they did so against the lowly Orioles.
So I thought it would be a good time to take the pulse of the Knuckleballs community (we aren’t quite big enough to be Knuckleballs Nation yet, are we?). What do you think the Twins should do with regard to the impending trade deadline? As always, feel free to expand on your votes in the comments section. – JC
how come bill smith waist time on trying to get pitchers that have a no trade clause in there contract i sure wish they would have got shawn marcum in a trade. is there any chance of getting a pitcher like marcum.
Outside of a few tweets here and there, I haven’t seen much about Marcum being made available. Seems to me like he’d be tough to get.
As for why Smith bothers to inquire about pitchers who have the Twins listed an their ‘no trade’ list, keep in mind that being on that list doesn’t mean the Twins can’t get him. Players waive that kind of thing all the time… for a price.