Souhan: Twins could use someone like Brent Rooker ... who they once traded away

Did you see him at the All-Star Game?

Did you see him in the Home Run Derby?

The star outfielder, drafted by the Twins last decade, reminded everyone who might have lost track of him that he is one of baseball’s best power hitters.

We’re talking, of course, about Brent Rooker of the Athletics.

The Twins selected Rooker with the 35th pick in the 2017 draft. He became one of their better hitting prospects, but had trouble passing a large group of similarly talented hitting prospects. The Twins were also concerned with his fielding, baserunning and strikeout rate.

He had potential, but would he become a valuable everyday player? And did the Twins, featuring Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis and Ryan Jeffers, need another righthanded bat?

So in April of 2022, the Twins traded Rooker and closer Taylor Rogers to the Padres for starter Chris Paddack and reliever Emilio Pagán.

As with so many trades, you could have evaluated this deal differently at different junctures.

At the moment, the deal is both understandable and hurtful.

The deal made sense at the time. The Twins didn’t want to spend big money on Rogers, and they were confident in their wealth of quality bullpen arms, including current closer Jhoan Duran and setup man Griffin Jax. Both have outperformed Rogers.

The Twins have also had great success dealing hitters for pitchers. They tend to spend their highest draft picks on hitters and know they can’t (or won’t) compete financially for the best free-agent pitchers.

Paddack has a 4.88 ERA as a Twin. Pagán’s Twins statistics wound up looking decent — he had a 3.67 ERA with the Twins — but he was unable to hold down a late-game role, and when he was bad, he was horrid (although he is now the very effective closer for the Reds).

Rooker was traded by San Diego to Kansas City, where he did nothing and was designated for assignment. He was claimed by the A’s, and he has been one of the best power hitters in baseball over the last three seasons.

He has hit 89 home runs since the start of the 2023 season. The Twin with the most homers in that span: Buxton, with 56.

Three teams with highly thought-of talent evaluators had Rooker in uniform and decided he wasn’t a part of their future. For some reason, he blossomed with the A’s, the worst of the four teams he has played for.

If Rooker had remained with the Twins and produced at this level, he would be their everyday No. 3 or 4 hitter. He would be a younger version of Nelson Cruz.

The Twins have won three division titles under Rocco Baldelli. Two came when Cruz was batting third for them, and the other came when Lewis took over the No. 3 spot and looked like the second coming of Kirby Puckett.

But trading hitting for pitching is one of the Twins’ strengths. Pablo López, Joe Ryan, Paddack, Simeon Woods Richardson, Jhoan Duran all came to the Twins in trades. The Twins traded three hitters — Luis Arraez, Cruz and Eduardo Escobar — for López, Ryan and Duran. They would do all of those deals again.

They would not trade Rooker for Paddack if they knew then what they know now.

As the Twins resume play, they are in need of reliable middle-of-the-order production. Ty France is 2-for-25 with zero RBI in July. Correa is having a terrible season offensively, and the Twins don’t know if they can count on Lewis, Matt Wallner and Trevor Larnach as run producers.

Rooker is in the first year of a five-year, $60 million contract. The A’s aren’t thought to be interested in trading him, and it would be awkward for the Twins to trade assets for someone they traded away before.

If not Rooker, then the Twins could use someone like him — a reliable run-producer in the middle of a middling lineup, to support what, when healthy, could be an exceptional pitching staff.