Twins’ Derek Falvey on lack of trades: ‘I believe in our group’

NEW YORK – The Twins will trust their own rotation depth to get them to the playoffs and beyond, and they will stick with the outfielders they’ve got. Same goes for the bullpen, with one exception.

“We had a lot of time spent on deals that ultimately didn’t come to pass,” Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey said Tuesday after closing only one deal, to acquire Blue Jays reliever Trevor Richards for a Class A infielder, during one of the busiest MLB trade-deadline periods in years. “I believe in our group. Rocco [Baldelli, the manager] does. I know the players believe in themselves. I feel like this is a group that we want to go to battle with.”

Maybe so, but Falvey admitted he tried to upgrade certain areas of the team, particularly the rotation. But with so many competitors for the few pitchers available, the cost in prime prospects was high — higher than Falvey was prepared to pay.

“When you make those deals, you’re giving up something that could contribute down the line for something you hope will impact you in the short term,” Falvey said. “In many cases, [teams asked for] the top of our top [tier of prospects], and ultimately, we said that for short-term rentals and situations like that, that wasn’t something that we really wanted to touch.”

Falvey denied that the Twins’ payroll level scuttled any potential deals, saying that the Pohlad family that owns the team has never turned down a pending trade for financial reasons.

“That was not something that came to pass over the last 24 to 48 hours here, something that was presented to us that was limited financially,” he said. “We were definitely targeting certain types of players that we thought could really impact us and those deals didn’t come together. It wasn’t about financial conversations.”

In fact, he added, the Twins tried to put together a couple of deals that involved more than one other team — “spent a lot of time on those, actually,” he said — only to see them snag during negotiations.

Richards cost the Twins 23-year-old Jay Harry, their sixth-round pick last summer from Penn State. Richards was a good pickup, Falvey said, for a bullpen that mostly lacks a multi-inning option.

“A guy who can bridge through the middle of the game,” is how Falvey described Richards, a seven-year veteran with Miami, Tampa Bay, Milwaukee and Toronto. “He’s a righthander who has found a way to get through lefthanded pockets of lineups with his changeup. He’s really got a good secondary pitch that can get lefties out.”

Richards has a 4.64 ERA in 51⅓ innings this season, with 49 strikeouts and 24 walks. He has given up seven home runs.

Matt Wallner was warned by Baldelli not to throw as hard as he could — he could reach the mid-90s in college, he said — when he took the mound for the first time as a professional Monday. But the outfielder had a theory he intended to test: “I know it’s harder to hit 40 [mph pitches] than 70.”

So Wallner stuck to lobbing the ball toward the plate, careful not to hit anyone, “throwing as slow as I could.”

Well, except for two occasions. When he reached two-strike counts against Brandon Nimmo and Ben Gamel, “I was like, ‘If I can get a strikeout, that would be sick.’ " So he unleashed his “fastball” — a 75.2-mph pitch that Nimmo turned into a fly ball to left field, and an 81.1-mph pitch to Gamel that bounced in the dirt.

“I thought that was going to work after not showing it,” Wallner said.

The Twins signed former Kansas State shortstop Kaelen Culpepper, their first round pick in the amateur draft.

He will get a $3.93 million bonus, the slot value for the 21st overall pick.

Culpepper, a righthanded hitter, batted .328 with 11 homers, 15 doubles, 59 RBI and nearly as many walks (35) as strikeouts (41) in 61 games.

Listed at 6-foot, 185 pounds, Culpepper has a flatter swing that is more geared toward doubles than homers. His draft stock surged when he had a breakout 2023 season, and he was one of the better performers on USA Baseball’s National Collegiate Team with Larry Lee — Twins infielder Brooks Lee’s dad — as his manager.

Baseball America rated Culpepper as the 34th-best player in the draft class.

• Randy Dobnak, who last pitched in the majors in 2021, was called up from Class AAA St. Paul on Tuesday. The righthander has started 19 games for the Saints this year, and owns a 9-5 record with a 3.61 ERA.

• To make room for Dobnak, the Twins designated righthander Josh Staumont for assignment. Staumont didn’t give up an earned run in his first 19 appearances this season, but had given up 10 runs in his most recent 4⅓ innings. The Twins made another spot on the 40-man roster by transferring first baseman/outfielder Alex Kirilloff to the 60-day injured list.

• Righthander Brock Stewart will be placed on the injured list when Richards arrives on Wednesday, after the shoulder pain that kept him sidelined for nearly three months returned this week. Stewart gave up eight runs in his first three appearances since coming off the IL.

• Patrick Winkel and Jair Camargo homered and the Saints beat host Iowa 5-4. Twins reliever Justin Topa, on rehab assignment, struck out two in a 1-2-3 seventh inning.