Entering July 24th 2017, the Minnesota Twins were 49-48 coming off a 9-6 loss to the Detroit Tigers the night before. The Twins now stood 2.5 games back of Cleveland, and ready to make a push towards claiming the AL Central crown for the first time in 7 years. "Falvine" decided to push the button, making their first major trade during their Twins tenure, and acquire Atlanta Braves starter, Jaime García . Finally, after years of purely terrible baseball, the Twins were back, and the Front Office was willing to go for it.  

Now, it's July 28th 2017, the Minnesota Twins are in Oakland, and on a 4 game skid as they sit 49-51. Jaime García takes the mound for the first, and only time as a Minnesota Twin. He pitches well, but unremarkably as he leads the Twins to a 6-3 victory ending the losing streak with a decent stat line: 6.2 IP  7 K  3 BB  8 H 3 ER. Flash forward a bit further to July 30th, the Twins are 50-52, Cleveland has gone on a run, and the Twins are 7 games out. Oh, how the turn tables. Falvine decides they're no longer pushing for that first division title in 7 years, so why hold onto the rental they just acquired? So, after spending less than a week as a Twin, Jaime García packs his bags once again and heads to the Bronx to become a Yankee.

As the leaves turn from green to wonderful fall colors, the Twins find out it didn't really matter if they bought or sold. Jaime García didn't pitch very well as a Yankee, and the Twins still managed to claw to a 85-77 record, going from the worst team in baseball to a wild card team in just a year. 7 years of terrible baseball. 13 years without a playoff victory, now with a chance to change that. October 3rd 2017, enter: the New York Yankees. We all know how this story goes, there's no point in reliving this one again.

So, okay, the trades themselves, what exactly happened? Looking back, I think we can safely consider Jaime García's performance itself a wash and rather insignificant. But what about the prospects involved?

Trade 1:

The Minnesota Twins receive:

SP Jaime García, C Anthony Recker, Cash Considerations. (Recker was soon released and never played for the Twins)

The Atlanta Braves receive:

SP Huascar Ynoa

Trade 2:

The Minnesota Twins receive:

SP Zack Littell , SP Dietrich Enns

The New York Yankees receive:

SP Jaime García

So essentially, the Twins gave up Ynoa, to get Littell and Enns. Neither Littell or Enns are with the Twins anymore, and only Littell had marginal success. Meanwhile, I have yet to mention the ginormous horse in the room. Huascar Ynoa has been the ace of the Atlanta Braves pitching staff thus far in 2021 pitching 44.2 Innings while garnering 1.8 bWAR. However, he could be out the rest of this year. That being said, the Braves potentially have a really good pitcher for a long time to come, and Falvine essentially gave Ynoa to them for free. Not every trade works out, many work out great, and many don't, and unfortunately this whole saga is the latter. Perhaps the best part of this whole saga for the Twins is that a day after sending Jaime packing to New York, they signed a guy from Utica with a rad mustache who was driving for Uber, fan fave Randy Dobnak.

Once again, all stats are thanks to Baseball Reference, and the picture thanks to MLB.com. What trades should we revisit next?