It was a difficult decision, Derek Falvey recalls. Jake Westbrook had been a mainstay of Cleveland's rotation for more than five years, had won 14 or more games three different times, had recovered from Tommy John surgery. But the Indians were in fourth place, far out of the 2010 pennant race, and Westbrook would be a free agent in two months.
"It's never easy to trade away an established player off the major league team. That guy's been contributing for you, sometimes for a lot of years, so it can be an emotional thing," Falvey said. "You never take that lightly."
But Falvey's boss at the time, Cleveland General Manager Mark Shapiro, made the tough call a couple of hours before the July 31 trade deadline: They would deal Westbrook to the Cardinals in a three-way trade, even though all they would receive in return was a little-known former fourth-rounder pitching for San Diego's Class AA team. "I wish I could tell you we all knew Corey Kluber would develop into a [two-time] Cy Young winner," Falvey says of one of the best trades in Indians history, "but I'd be lying."
Still, the Kluber deal, one of a series of deadline trades the Indians made during his nine years in Cleveland, was revelatory for Falvey, now in his second season as the Twins' chief baseball officer and top decisionmaker. Carlos Carrasco, Mike Clevinger and Michael Brantley were, like Kluber, largely anonymous minor leaguers when Cleveland acquired them for established big-leaguers in deadline deals, and all now are important players on a team headed to its third consecutive AL Central championship.
Consulting on those trades gave Falvey the confidence to make similar deals with the Twins. Trading well-known veterans for teenagers who fans have never heard of can be pretty unpopular, in the clubhouse and in the stands.
But "because of how I learned the game — it was a much more common practice in Cleveland — it feels like a normal course of action. We have to convert those shorter-term assets into potential opportunities for long-term benefit," Falvey said. "… But I recognize now that, especially in the volume [of transactions], it's a departure from the norm in Minnesota."
He's right, the Twins hadn't ever made six trades in 10 days. Their success in vets-for-prospects trades, in-season or after it, is pretty spotty, too. Alex Meyer, prize of the Denard Span trade, washed out here. Kris Johnson, the pitching prospect acquired for Justin Morneau, had a three-game Twins career. And while Carlos Gomez had two memorable seasons with the Twins, the relatively paltry return for Johan Santana damaged the team's future.
Then again, in July 2012, the Twins turned a fading Francisco Liriano into a two-prospect package that included Eduardo Escobar, a productive hitter and utility player for nearly six years. In the winter of 2004, the Twins dealt their All-Star catcher, A.J. Pierzynski, for Joe Nathan, Boof Bonser and Liriano, all little-known at the time. And at the deadline in 1996, Seattle wanted third baseman Dave Hollins, who led the Twins in homers at the time, and gave up a 21-year-old Class A first baseman for him: David Ortiz.
![Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost exchanged words with home plate umpire Ted Barrett after being thrown out of the game in the fourth inning. ] CARLOS GONZALEZ ï cgonzalez@startribune.com ñ July 9, 2018, Minneapolis, MN, Target Field, MLB, Minnesota Twins vs. Kansas City Royals](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/3AWAGMKC46ARAI7XQUPX63HFBY.jpg?&w=712)
