Toronto pushed hard for him, and the Twins thought they received a lot in return. Inside the Target Field board room, there was excitement they picked up Rojas, a 22-year-old lefthander. He might not show up on lists of top-100 prospects, but he was good enough that he skipped past Class AA after only four starts with 30 strikeouts and two walks. The Twins envision Roden, who hit .302 in his minor league career, as a potential regular starter.
“We weren’t actively shopping certain guys that we traded this deadline, Louie Varland being a clear case,” Falvey said. “We told them to be motivated it would take real upper-level talent, impact talent.”
After the deadline passed, with a dizzying seven trades completed on the final day, there was more work to be done. The Twins had eight spots to fill on their major league roster for Friday’s game at Cleveland, and that would create a large ripple effect to backfill players at the subsequent four minor league affiliates.
Before they started hours-long work on resetting their post-deadline rosters, the front office staff took a 20-minute break to process everything that had just happened.
The Twins, in many respects, were starting over.