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Looking back on Minnesota baseball history, Black players like Kirby Puckett, Dave Winfield, Mudcat Grant, or Torii Hunter often stand out. Two names, even more recognizable, are often overlooked.
Roy Campanella
Roy Campanella was the sixth player to break the MLB color barrier and the third Brooklyn Dodger. He was on Branch Rickey’s shortlist of players he had signed to integrate baseball. As the son of a Black mother and an Italian-American father, he was seen as a candidate before Rickey settled on Robinson.
Before signing with the Dodgers in 1946, he spent nine years with the Negro Leagues Washington Elite Giants, having joined the team as a 15-year-old. In 1946, he was sent to Nashua, NH, after Brooklyn determined that the Danville Dodgers in Illinois was not a location prepared for integration.
He then spent 1947 in Montreal, where Robinson had played the year prior, rather than for the AAA St. Paul Saints. Again, the Dodgers feared the American Association was unprepared for integration.
Robinson broke the MLB color barrier in 1947, playing first base for the Dodgers, and Dan Bankhead became the second Black Dodger later that season. Campanella was knocking on the door of the big leagues, and at the beginning of the 1947 season, he registered his first MLB plate appearance as a Brooklyn Dodger, being hit by a pitch, as was the practice at the time for Black players. 
He played in a few more games in Brooklyn but was sent down to AAA as part of an early-season roster trim. Before becoming a fixture behind the plate for the Dodgers, he needed to make one more stop: Lexington Park in St. Paul.
Although not the first Black player to play in MLB, he was the first in the American Association. By public accounts, the Twin Cities welcomed him. Hitting a home run in six consecutive games with 20 RBI in a week will do that to a community.
Many wondered why it had taken so long for a Black player to come to play professional baseball on their fields, and Campanella made a case for more to be accepted into town. His success as a ballplayer was bittersweet for the fans, though; the better he played, the sooner he would be called up to Brooklyn.
Campanella spent only 39 memorable days in St. Paul, belting 13 home runs with a .325 batting average over 35 games. He left for Brooklyn amongst Minnesota well-wishers who became lifelong fans of the star catcher, supporting him from a distance.
For ten years, Campanella sat behind the plate for the Dodgers, seen as one of the top players in the game. He was an All-Star for eight consecutive years, winning the MVP three times. Unfortunately, his career was cut short due to a car accident that left him paralyzed, but in 1969, he was inducted into Cooperstown.
He may be more famous for his Hall of Fame plaque, or his mentions in Billy Joel’s We didn’t Start the Fire and Talkin’ Baseball by Terry Cashman, but for five weeks, he was the talk of the town in the Twin Cities. When he left town, there was excitement about more Black players playing for Minnesota teams.
Willie Mays
The Twin Cities didn’t have to wait long before an even more significant Black figure came along. Another New York team also had a Minnesota farm team in the American Association—the Minneapolis Millers—who would get their own slice of Black baseball in the form of the Say Hey Kid.
Willie Mays was the 17th player to cross the color barrier at the Major League level. Like Campanella, he began his professional career as a teenager in the Negro Leagues, playing for the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948. Upon graduating high school in 1950, Mays had several contract offers but chose the New York Giants.
As a 19-year-old, Mays moved to Trenton to play in the Giant’s minor league system, seeing success, hitting .353 with four home runs in 81 games. The following year, 1951, he moved to Minneapolis to play for the AAA Millers.
If Twin Cities residents thought what Campanella did was special (and it was), they had a pleasant surprise with Mays. The 20-year-old, playing against a league of grown men seven years older than him on average, hit a blistering .477 with an absurd 1.323 OPS for the Millers.
His prowess with the bat wasn’t the only draw; he was also the most outstanding defensive centerfielder of his time (if not the greatest ever). The young man, who would go on to make a play simply known as “The Catch” just three years later in the 1954 World Series, was making highlight plays nightly in Minneapolis, including one catch climbing the wall in a style that Stew Thornley compared to Ken Griffey Jr. or Bo Jackson.
Those who did not learn their lesson about the fleeting nature of superstar prospects from Campanella’s time in the Twin Cities four years earlier had only themselves to blame for missing out on Mays tearing the diamond at Nicollet Park. He was in town for an even shorter time. Although he was with the team for 38 days—one fewer than Campanella. To make matters worse, the Saints were on the road at the beginning of his stay with the team, and he left the team for New York while they were on another road trip, actually staying in the Twin Cities for just over two weeks.
Mays didn’t even make it to June before leaving for New York. The spring weather had been poor, and many in town passed up a chance to see him, hoping to catch a game later in the season. So many had missed their opportunity that these people came to refer to themselves as the I Didn’t See Him Club.
Mays, too, left a group of lifelong fans in Minnesota. To soften the blow, the owner of the Giants, Horace Stoneham, wrote a letter published in local newspapers thanking the Twin Cities for supporting Mays and the Millers, promising to send additional talented players. He never sent anyone like Mays.
We can’t blame Stoneham for that, though, because only a handful of players in history are on Mays’s level—if anyone. That same year, he was named Rookie of the Year. Three years later, in 1954, he would make The Catch, win the World Series, and be named MVP. He won MVP again in 1965 and racked up 24 All-Star games in a 21-year career (the math checks out, I promise).
Mays ranks fifth all-time in WAR, per Baseball Reference, with 660 home runs (6th all-time) and 12 Gold Gloves. He was an all-around star, the likes of which we have not since seen. Mays, too, is enshrined in the chorus of Talkin’ Baseball and is one of the bastions of the sport. At 91, the 1979 Hall of Fame inductee still serves as one of the sport’s great ambassadors.
And the last thing he did before becoming all-caps WILLIE MAYS was amaze the spectators who braved the weather to watch him play home games in Minneapolis.
The sixth and seventeenth players to break the color barrier in MLB were Minnesota ballplayers the same year they made their historic entrances. Even if it was only for five weeks each, we should remember them in the annals of Minnesota baseball history.

There have been points this winter where we were waiting for a Max Kepler trade announcement within the coming hours, such as when Joey Gallo was signed. Here we are at the end of January, however, and not only is Max Kepler still a Twin, it appears that may not change after all.
When Disco Dan Hayes makes such a statement, it’s wise to listen. The Twins still see value in Kepler, at least more than other teams appear to on the trade market. It’s a fair stance. It’s hard to trade a player for less than a team feels they’re worth. That being said, if Max Kepler stays in Minnesota another year, the Twins need to get realistic about what they have in their homegrown corner outfielder.
Max Kepler was seen as a breakout candidate for years before finally doing so in 2019. His 122 wRC+ that year made him appear to be a future star player, slugging 36 homers and crushing lefties, his biggest weakness as a hitter. We now have about 1,500 plate appearances prior to 2019 and over 1000 after saying that Max Kepler is not the player he was in 2019, and it’s time the Twins stop pretending he is.
The realistic description of Max Kepler is that he’s a defense first strong side platoon player with a plate approach that should keep him out of the everyday lineup. In about 1,100 plate appearances since 2019, Max Kepler has slashed .220/.314/.392. His 98 wRC+ is 2% below league average for that time period, but playing the premier offensive position of corner outfield means that he’s even further below average than that relative to his positional peers. 
The Twins roster is ripe with reasons for Max Kepler not to have right field locked down everyday. Trevor Larnach nearly had as many Defensive Runs saved as Kepler in far fewer innings defensively in 2022, and there’s still a chance he hits left handed pitching and becomes a legitimate everyday player. Joey Gallo, for as much hate as he gets, is a legit plus player in the outfield defensively, and his career wRC+ is over 30 points higher against left handed pitching while his splits against right handed pitching are nearly identical to Kepler. Newly added outfielder Michael Taylor, who is known for being a non contributor offensively, blows Kepler away against left handed pitching for their careers.
 In 2022, Max Kepler took 60% of his plate appearances in the 1-4 spots of the lineup and about 43% of his plate appearances in the cleanup spot. There’s simply no justification for the Twins to continue this moving forward. With a career .744 OPS, Kepler hasn’t even reached the .720 mark since the shortened 2020 season. Even against right handed pitching Kepler has been surpassed by players such as Nick Gordon, who performed considerably better offensively as a platoon player in 2022. The Twins have assembled enough depth to keep Kepler from hitting in the heart of the lineup, and from playing in same-handed matchups at all. At 30 years old it’s time to recognize that this is the caliber of player that Max Kepler is.
All of this to say that Max Kepler is a fine player… as a depth piece. There will be times where his defensive value is needed, and given the Twins recent injuries, he'll be a fine everyday fill-in for short periods if need be. In terms of 2022 calculated value per WAR, Kepler was still a value as he was paid $6.75m and was worth a bit over $10m by 2022 free agency measures. His $8.5m salary in 2023 and $10m team option for 2024 become much more in question however.
If Kepler plays less in 2023 and/or his defensive value declines even slightly, he becomes less of a value and a prime candidate to have his 2024 option declined. This is why it’s still somewhat puzzling that the Twins don’t appear to be determined to trade him. With the shift ban on the horizon, it’s not a stretch to call it likely that Kepler’s value may never be higher despite the fact that it doesn’t look like he’ll benefit all that much from the rule change.
The Twins may still very well trade Max Kepler. If they don’t however, they need to use him in an appropriate role. He’s not a player whose performance demands at bats. He’s not part of the core of the lineup.
 

The Twins paid Miguel Sano over $9 million for only one home run among five hits in 60 at-bats in 2022. And then paid him another $3 million to simply go away.
Much has been made of Sanó’s inability to stay healthy or in shape or, simply, not show up a few dozen pounds overweight.
Everything above is completely true. So true, in fact, that even those who look for silver linings aren’t going to have much of an argument to make. 
But I still think the Twins should consider bringing him back into the fold. 
The expectations surrounding Sanó were sky-high well before he made his major-league debut as a 22-year-old in the summer of 2015. And despite striking out in over a third of his plate appearance, he still managed to hit 18 home runs in 80 games, reach base over 38% of the time and put up an OPS of .916. He rarely played in the field as he was coming off missing the 204 season because of Tommy John surgery, but the vision of being the third baseman of the future was still bright.
Of course, we all know what happened the next year: someone got the wise idea that Miguel Sanó could be a right-fielder (while literally every not-as-smart person knew he couldn’t) and Sanó was back to playing third base exclusively by July 1. 
Getting jerked around caused him to struggle offensively, but still he managed 25 home runs and bounced back to be an All-Star in the 2017 season. 
The 2018 and 2020 seasons were both really bad, but sandwiched around a 34-home run year in 2019 where Sanó post a career-high .923 OPS.
You could take the 2020 season for what it was - short with a lack of time to prepare - add it to the 30 home run season in 2021 and think maybe, just maybe, Miguel Sanó could get back on track in 2022. But that train derailed before even leaving the station. 
A torn meniscus on April 26 and more knee issues almost immediately after returning in July caused an abrupt end to a short, disappointing season.
The Twins paid Sanó more than $34 million as a major leaguer and watched him strike out over 1000(!) times. And when his Twins career ended unceremoniously when they bought out his contract, many were happy to wipe their hands off him.
And that’s fine.
But as you look at the current construction of the Twins roster, you can’t help but wonder about the health and depth of first base. 
Luis Arraez - all 5’ 10” of him - is expected to be the Opening Day starter. Arreaz was fantastic in 2021 and led the league in hitting, but is not your prototypical first baseman… and he’s not exactly a model of healthy knees.
Jose Miranda played a lot of first base last year… but with Gio Urshela getting traded, Miranda is the primary third baseman.
Alex Kirilloff is a solution… if he recovers from having his arm shortened after battling wrist that cut short his last two seasons.
Max Kepler and Joey Gallo are both options in the sense that they’re bigger targets, but neither has played a lot of first base recently. But that’s an easy fix. Tell ‘em Wash.
And there’s where Sanó should enter the conversation. On a minor-league deal with an invitation to Spring Training. If he shows up overweight and out of shape, you can cut him. If he shows up a little overweight and in a shape other than completely round, you can send him to St. Paul to hit bombs and be a call away if the questionable depth fails in front of him.
Miguel Sanó doesn’t have to be the #3 hitter. There doesn’t have to be the expectations of being an All-Star or hitting 30 home runs. But any gas that might still be in his almost-30-year-old tank sure beats the idea of rostering the likes of the Curtis Terrys, Roy Moraleses and Tim Beckhams of the world.
It does for me anyway.
 
 

One-year deals are an admission of fault. Either the market lacked quality, all trade routes fell through, or the internal options were so hideous that the team felt it necessary to promise a player pay for just a single year of their time. 
For the athlete, a one-year-deal represents one of two things: an opportunity to bounce back from a dreadful season, perhaps re-inflating one’s value before hitting the free market with a prettier sheen, or an acceptance of age, an understanding that father time’s inevitable march will render your talents useless. No team wants to lose out in a nebulous contract musical chairs, so the player Nelson Cruz’s it and agrees to one-year pacts before slithering away into retirement. Or he’ll sign with Pittsburgh.
Teams love diving into these waters. If the contract busts, they don’t have to be the poor souls legally stuck to an albatross, and their job security only takes the slightest hit. It was a good bet, after all. If the deal works, they look like genius, clairvoyant decision-makers who can reap the benefits of a productive player while raking in compliments. In a land where Xander Bogaerts signs for 11 years, that’s a reasonable pool to visit. 
There’s an emptiness to these deals, though. While professional sports is a business, we like to create connections with players, perhaps fooling ourselves into ignoring the massive amounts of money that exchange hands to allow their athletic ability to shine. When Max Kepler mans right field for the millionth time in a Twins uniform, our shared experience builds a connection, one that draws people closer to their romantic idea of a hometown sports team. What relationship will we have with Joey Gallo? How can we fully love a player destined to leave?
The player’s intentions become evident in this scenario. While Carlos Correa may become hands-on—which may not reflect well on him given the 2022 Twins’ record—other athletes may embody their hitman spirit, poisoning the clubhouse spirit with a selfish demeanor. 
The Twins, oddly, acknowledged this issue. Following the disappointing 2018 season, Derek Falvey admitted that their clubhouse grew a funky stink stemming from grouchy veterans on short-term deals. Logan Morrison and Lance Lynn were whiny and bad—that was what he wanted to say. 
In response to their problem, the Twins turned around and acted like they didn’t hear their own words. Nelson Cruz, Jonathan Schoop, and Martín Pérez signed up for a ride on the 2019 Twins bus—a booming home run tour of the United States—but that season appears fluky. A hyper-juiced ball? Two full seasons of below .500 play afterward? The only thing right about that year was the Yankees immediately spanking them the second October entered the equation.
Once COVID neutered the 2020 season, the Twins hopped back onto the ball, signing a litany of average talent to one-year deals, setting themselves up for a disastrous season the team is still reeling from. J.A. Happ almost threw 100 innings for the team. He made Dylan Bundy sound like a good idea.
The ultimate question is this: what’s the end goal? One-year contracts are supposed to plug holes, not dominate the team's structure; imagine a dam constructed out of duct tape. The guess is that the team is saving for some future move, but few long-term deals of that nature have come to fruition, and the only significant splash players—Josh Donaldson and Carlos Correa—are no longer Twins. Ehire Adrianza entered the batter’s box donning a Minnesota jersey more times than either of those players. 
They were able to nail down a Byron Buxton contract, although they seemed disappointed that they couldn’t trade him to Philadelphia for scraps beforehand. The Twins deserve credit for that signing, but his deal pays him $15 million a season—far less than the market rate for superstar talent. If anything, the agreement should fuel a spending spree: they have their star locked down for relatively little, add as many great players as you can.
Even with little tied down in their books, the Twins remained hesitant to drop enough money to coax Correa back home. There’s no purpose to their choices. They’re saving money for a future in which they save more money. Maybe they’re looking even further forward, but there’s no guarantee that free agents down the road—enjoy all that money, Rafael Devers—actually become available. 
Until that big, non-opt-outable deal occurs, they’ll remain in this loop, always saving for a someday that never comes.
 

Last year, the Twins were 20.7 runs worse than an average team on the bases, according to FanGraphs. That was the second-worst mark in MLB. They stole (or even attempted to steal) fewer bases than any other team. They took the extra base on hits at a below-average rate, and they made outs on the bases at an above-average rate. 
That has been a pattern throughout the Rocco Baldelli era, too. The team will point out that the whole league is moving away from steals and aggressive baserunning, and that may be true, but the Twins still stand out like a sore hamstring. Since 2019, the Twins have stolen just 134 bases. The Red Sox have stolen the second-fewest in MLB, at 191. The gap between Minnesota and Boston is larger than the gap between Boston and the Yankees, who have stolen the 14th-fewest over that span. 
Baserunning is a nuanced art, and when a team does it poorly, the field staff always gets the heat. In this case, though, it’s pretty clear that the front office is driving the systemic failure. It’s a part of their broader strategy. There are good reasons underpinning that strategy, too. That said, the strategy sucks.
The two free agent signees most on the mind of Twins fans at the moment provide a perfect way to understand what the team is doing. Last winter, they surprised everyone by signing Carlos Correa, albeit on a short-term deal. Correa was and is a premium talent, with a long track record of brilliant play. There’s almost no weakness in his game–almost. 
Correa is a terrible baserunner. He’s actually quite fast, once he gets underway, but he’s so conservative on the bases (and so hesitant, after years of such overcautiousness) that he can’t avail himself of his speed most of the time. While an excellent player overall, he has hurt his teams by hitting into too many double plays and doing too little on the bases in each of the last two seasons.
Why is Correa so careful? The hiccup that triggered the final twist in his second tour of free agency illustrates it. He suffered a significant lower-leg injury running the bases in the minor leagues in 2014, and some reports suggest that the San Francisco Giants’ hangup in reading his physical exam traced all the way back to that injury. 
This is one huge reason for the broader trend away from emphasizing baserunning, and for the Twins’ philosophy of treading lightly. Everyone, and especially the Twins, now views the risk of injury as part of the break-even calculations required when deciding whether to attempt a steal, whether to try to score from first on a double, and even how to instruct players about their mentality on the bases. 
Just as importantly, though, the Twins have arrived at a conclusion similar to the one articulated at the beginning of Moneyball. They think speed is overpriced, and they view it as a secondary skill set. They would rather select players for their ability to authoritatively pull the ball in the air, for instance, than select them for speed or baserunning savvy, because most games are impacted more by what one does in the batter’s box than by what one does on the basepaths. 
That’s why the Twins, even if only fractionally, were more willing than other teams to overlook Joey Gallo’s falling Sprint Speed. Once a comfortably above-average runner, Gallo (whose pull power- and patience-centered approach at the plate fit the Twins’ philosophy like a batting glove) has lost a step over the last few years, and is now about as slow as his huge frame would suggest. He’s still a fine defender, thanks to good reads off the bat and a strong arm, but he’s a below-average runner in either corner outfield spot, and might not be viable in center field any longer. He’s tangibly slower than Max Kepler, whose role on the club he figures to take in 2023.
These things matter, because the Twins’ proclivity for accepting less speed is also why they’re perennially saddled with so many injuries, and why they often feel like a sclerotic, one-dimensional team. While it’s secondary in the degree to which it directly affects most games, speed is a primary indicator of a certain kind of athleticism. 
In baseball, there are two main categories of athleticism, and many players excel in one or the other, rather than both. One type is the explosive, rotational athlete. These are the guys who can throw 103 miles per hour, have excellent Bomba Rates, and generally have a knack for transferring massive energy from the ground, through themselves, and into the baseball. 
The Twins collect these guys. In their farm system, they train guys to be great in this sector of athleticism. They consider the batter-pitcher matchup, with its intensity and its potential for premeditation and tactical aggression, the center of the game, and they put their resources into being ready to win it as often as possible.
The other main type of baseball athleticism is the one people more often mean when they use the word. It’s not about unidirectional energy flow, but about proprioception and hand-eye coordination. It encompasses balance, looseness in the hips, the ability to make last-second adjustments, and comfort doing usual things at unusual angles. 
This is what allows a great hitter, when fooled, to flick the ball the other way for a double. It’s the extra dimension of movement that always seems to let Javier Baez creatively slide around a tag–and the anticipatory quickness that allows Baez to thwart would-be tag evaders when he’s in the field.
Straight-line speed actually belongs to the first category of athleticism, as much as the second. It’s not a coincidence that, as he’s worked out who he is as a player, Byron Buxton has become a lethal power hitter, adept at turning on the ball and driving it in the air. He uses much of the same extraordinary musculature and intuitive sense of leverage to generate both that power and his awesome speed, at full gait. 
Buxton, however, has become a mostly stagnant and ineffectual baserunner, because he hasn’t cultivated the other dimension of athleticism. He gets into trouble when trying to change speeds or direction suddenly. He gets hurt. While pure speed itself comes from the same place as power, speed utility—and the health benefits of being lithe and fast—comes from that second type of athleticism. Buxton, like virtually all of his teammates, is missing that.
The Twins are selecting baseball-specialized athletes too often, and training the guys already in their organization to focus too much on that area. They don’t want to pay for a skill that seems to make up so little of the game, and that helps them keep up with other clubs in the power department. 
The tradeoff leads to all kinds of problems, though, like having two guys with below-average range and quickness on the left side of their infield in the first year without defensive shifts. (Kyle Farmer and Jose Miranda each do what the Twins want hitters to do, but both are insufficient multidirectional athletes if they’re to be paired at their current positions.) 
It also leads to more injuries, because the players they’re acquiring and developing are stretching their bodies to their limits in short, violent bursts, and lack the capacity for the tiny adjustments that can avert disaster. That’s all on top of the most obvious problem, which is this: The Twins let runs go unscored because they simply don’t have guys who can put pressure on defenses and fully exploit opportunities.
 

Liam Hendriks and Ryan Pressly spent one season pitching together on the Twins staff. It was 2013, when Pressly had just joined the club as a Rule 5 pick, and Hendriks was playing out the string with the organization that first signed him. 
At the time there was no indication we were looking at two of the future biggest relief stars in baseball. Hendriks posted a 6.85 ERA in 47 ⅓ innings and was waived in December, owner of a 5.31 FIP and 5.8 K/9 rate through 156 big-league frames. Pressly was moderately effective as a rookie long reliever, tossing 76 ⅔ innings at a 3.87 ERA but with an underwhelming 49-to-27 K/BB ratio. He might not have hung around the majors all season if the team were not compelled to do so by his Rule 5 status.
I don't really blame the Twins for moving on from Hendriks, though it would've been nice to see him at least audition in a short-burst relief role first. When they waived him, he was claimed by the Cubs, who themselves waived him 10 days later. The Orioles, who claimed him from Chicago, followed suit by waiving Hendriks in February. 
Hendriks landed with the Blue Jays, who traded him to Kansas City in July. The Royals then traded him back to Toronto in October. Three weeks later, the Jays turned around and traded him to Oakland. You still keeping track? Me neither.
Needless to say, it took a lot of scenery changes for Hendriks, and a lot of teams had him in their grasp (however briefly) before he finally settled in for the A's and began reaching his full form as the best reliever in baseball. 
Pressly, on the other hand, was already reaching his full form when the Twins decided to trade him to Houston at the 2018 deadline. This was a very different situation and one much more worthy of dissection.
There seems to be a misperception that Pressly was a poor performer in Minnesota who instantly flipped a switch to become elite with the Astros, but that's not really the truth. 
Pressly's development with the Twins was a slow and gradual process. With each passing season, his velocity would nudge upward a bit, along with his strikeout rate. Under two different managers and three different pitching coaches, Minnesota stuck with Pressly through some fairly uninspiring seasons, all in the hope he'd eventually reach the dominant peak they long envisioned.
In 2018, he did it. All that time and work finally paid off. By now Pressly was averaging 96 MPH with his fastball and decimating opposing hitters. 
In 47 ⅔ innings with the Twins he had a 13.0 K.9 rate and a 17.9% swinging strike rate. Those numbers ranked ninth and fifth in all of baseball, respectively. He had a 2.95 FIP at the time they traded him. His spin rates were off the charts. It's easy to see why the Astros came calling.
 

Unlike the rest of their deadline sell-offs in 2018 – including the Eduardo Escobar trade that brought in Jhoan Durán – the Twins were not motivated to move Pressly, who still had another year of team control remaining. But they liked Houston's offer of Jorge Alcalá and Gilberto Celestino enough to pull the trigger. 
A reasonable decision at the time, especially considering the general volatility of relief pitchers. But with the benefit of hindsight, we can say that this trade has been an abject disaster for the Twins thus far. 
Alcalá and Celestino, to their credit, have both reached the majors, and the book is far from written on them. But neither has proven to be a major impact player yet, while Pressly has gone on to become one of the most impactful relievers in the league – and one the Twins could've desperately used over these past four years. 
Late-inning relief has been perpetual thorn in the organization's side. Thrust back into championship contention sooner than expected in 2019, the Twins found themselves short-handed in the bullpen, and traded for Sergio Romo and Sam Dyson at the deadline. Minnesota still got swept out of the postseason, with relievers taking the brunt of the negative WPA.
In 2020, the bullpen was actually a big asset through the 60-game regular season, but again it was the relief corps (namely Romo) lapsing severely in the playoffs. I'll never waver that Minnesota's offense bears most responsibility for that miserable 0-5 stretch in October of 2019-20 (and the team's long-running playoff woes at large) but the fact remains: they ran out of guns in crunch time. 
Meanwhile Pressly was emerging as an All-Star annihilator for the Astros – not to mention a big-time postseason performer.
The 2021 and 2022 Twins seasons were tanked largely by dreadful bullpens, with the main culprits being veteran pitchers targeted as late-inning replacements to fill Pressly's void. 
By now it seemed no matter which route the front office went in seeking bullpen help – signing a steady established name (Alex Colomé), trading for a buy-low candidate (Emilio Pagán), trading for a buy-high candidate (Jorge López), sticking with their staples (Tyler Duffey), moving on from their staples (Taylor Rogers) – they could do no right. Their lack of late-inning dependability became a major hindrance, a chronic momentum-killer and source of angst for fans.
Through it all, Pressly just kept on dominating for the Astros, like almost no other reliever in baseball. With his help, Houston went to the World Series three times in four years, and just won it.
Now, there are a number of counterarguments people could make (and have made) to refute the idea that Minnesota blundered with this move. To me, they all ring a bit hollow:
They didn't have the coaching staff to unlock Pressly at the time. It's not exactly a big secret that manager Paul Molitor and bullpen coach Eddie Guardado were widely viewed as ineffective at translating and embedding analytics principles for players. I would respond that while these coaches might have been inherited by the current regime, baseball ops still controls who is on the staff. And, four months after Pressly was traded, Falvey would install his own new group led by the analytically-inclined Rocco Baldelli and Wes Johnson. If the Twins recognized what they had in Pressly, they could've held him and brought in the right people to bring it out.
He wouldn't have thrived here like he did in Houston. One might argue that, even with new coaches, Pressly would've never reached the heights he did in Houston, where his ERA dropped from 3.40 in the first half with the Twins to 0.77 post-trade. Astros pitching coach Brent Strom is regarded as one of the best in the biz. Fair point. But in reality, Pressly only needed to stay the course to be a massive asset in the Twins bullpen. As mentioned, he was statistically one of the most dominant relievers in the league BEFORE they dealt him.
They weren't going to sign him to the contract extension Houston did. The reason Pressly is still on the Astros is because they quickly signed him to a two-year extension, buying out his first two years of free agency with a two-year, $17.5 million option. (They recently re-upped with another two-year deal.) This Twins front office hasn't shown any willingness to extend relievers, or really even to shell out multi-year contracts to them. But ... there's no reason they COULDN'T have extended Pressly, other than their own volition. I think we're past the point of deferring to this front office's stubborn adherence to a status quo that hasn't gotten the job done. 
Ultimately, any counterargument that tries to absolve the Twins of blame in ends up directing it back to them in some different way. The bottom line is that they took a measured risk in trading Pressly and, like many they've taken, this one blew up in their faces. 
I'm not saying it's some unforgivable offense. One thing I like about this front office is their threshold for risk in the name of upside. It's possible we'll rue this particular decision less one day, because Alcalá and Celestino have years of control remaining and potential left to tap. 
Also, while the overall tone of this column may be critical, it should be emphasized that the Twins deserve credit for identifying and acquiring these talents to begin with: 
They found Hendriks as an unknown teenager in the barely-scouted continent of Australia. They developed him into a legitimate prospect, who appeared in back-to-back Futures Games, and a big-leaguer. The Twins set Hendriks on the path to stardom.
They identified Pressly as a seemingly unremarkable arm in the Red Sox system, one who'd barely pitched above Single-A at age 24. They developed him from solid MLB long reliever to effective middle reliever to outstanding setup man before flipping him to Houston where Pressly completed his evolution.
The Twins have shown an eye for the right relief talent, but they've usually been unable to properly actualize it while in Minnesota. In order to escape their cycle of bullpen torment, they need to break the spell.
Twins Daily Caretakers can now download the new chapter of the Offseason Handbook, "Scouring Free Agency for Relief Help," and learn about the options available to them as they look to break the spell. If you haven't yet, sign up as a Caretaker to access all of the Handbook content as it drops!