The Twins spent the days before the deadline doing exactly what a team stuck in the wild card race is supposed to do: kicking every tire on the pitching market. Two of the names they kept coming back to were Angels lefty Reid Detmers and hard-throwing righty Jose Soriano, according to MLB Trade Rumors.
Detmers was the first swing. Minnesota reached out to the Angels about the 26-year-old, but the front office never put together an offer strong enough to pry him loose from Los Angeles, and Detmers stayed put. That's not exactly a shock -- the Angels have fielded calls on Detmers for what feels like years now and rarely bite.
Soriano was the more interesting chase. Per MLBTR, the Twins tried to get him even before he ended up dealt to Toronto, reportedly willing to put top shortstop prospect Kaelen Culpepper on the table to make it happen. The Blue Jays wanted more -- specifically Riley Quick, a 2025 first-rounder (No. 36 overall) who's shot up Minnesota's system and into top-100 prospect conversations league-wide. The Twins weren't willing to attach both of their best young pieces, and the talks died there.
Soriano ultimately landed with Toronto, who sent Arjun Nimmala and other minor leaguers to the Angels to get the deal done -- a package Minnesota clearly wasn't matching once Quick got involved.
So instead of landing a controllable starter with upside, the Twins pivoted to volume and bullpen depth, bringing in relievers AJ Minter, Jeff Hoffman and Tommy Nance along with starter Dean Kremer. It's a less flashy return than swinging a deal for Detmers or Soriano, but it also cost Minnesota zero of its top prospects -- a tradeoff that says a lot about how the front office valued Culpepper and Quick going into next season.
Whether that restraint pays off depends entirely on how Kremer, Minter, Hoffman and Nance perform down the stretch. But the fact that Minnesota was willing to walk away from two attractive arms rather than gut its farm system is the real headline here -- even if it's Detmers and Soriano's names attached to the story.