Twins say a new era is dawning

The Minnesota Twins had a big “to-do” at the Mall of America on Friday, November 18 when the organization announced that a “new era of Twins basball” was dawning with their first brand refresh in 35 years. According to Pat Reusse about 1,500 of the Twins loyalists were in attendance to witness the club roll out a new set of uniforms and modify their TC insignia. It is kind of ironic that the Twins chose the MOA which is where Metropolitan Stadium once stood as the place to roll out these changes.

The Twins brought in Jose Miranda, Luis Rivas, Joe Ryan, Jorge Polanco and Byron Buxton to model the uniforms and caps. Four jerseys , a new “M” cap logo with four-pronged “North Star” and a revamped “TC” insignia were all part of the showcase. One of the jerseys can be worn home or away with white or gray pants.

• The new primary home uniform features a red “Twins” script stitched on a white base and navy numbers.
• The primary road uniform is pinstripe gray (for the first time since 2009) with red numbers and block-lettered “Minnesota” on the chest.
• In a twist, the Twins also revealed a dark navy blue alternate home/road uniform with white lettering and red numbers designed to be worn with white (home) or gray pinstripe (road) pants.
• The starkest change is the home alternate uniform. It’s the only two-color outfit in the new rotation, with navy “Twin Cities” script across a cream colored top. There’s also a crisscrossed flag emblem on the left sleeve representing the neighboring cities.

The new Twins “M” cap with a red star reminds some people of the Florida Marlins “M” and other say it looks conspicuously like the “W” logo the Washington Senators used before moving to Minnesota in 1961.

Later in the day the Twins made a couple of trades. First they traded third baseman Gio Urshela to the Los Angeles Angeles for minor league pitcher Alejandro Hidalgo, a 19 year-old Venezuelan right-hander who just finished his second year of pro ball. It appears that the Twins were going to non-tender Urshela because of the expected salary (projected at $9.2 million) he would get through arbitration so in this deal they at least got a young minor league prospect that was rated as the 21st best Angels prospect and is currently slotted as the Twins number 25 prospect.

In the second trade of the day the Cincinnati Reds and Twins agreed on a Friday evening trade sending infielder Kyle Farmer from Cincinnati to Minnesota. The Reds landed 25 year-old right-hander Casey Legumina in return. Legumina pitched with High A Cedar Rapids this past season. Farmer is second year arbitration-eligible, and is projected to make $5.9MM. The 32 year-old Farmer was originally an eighth round selection in 2013 as a catcher by the Los Angeles Dodgers before being traded to the Reds in December 2018. The last time Farmer was used as a catcher was with the Reds in 2019 and he caught 15 games. Maybe the Twins can plan on him being their emergency catcher.

Nothing that transpired yesterday is going to make the Twins any better than they were this past season but you have to start some place and it is good to see the Twins start to make some moves even if I kind of like Urshela and would not have minded him staying with this team. The rebranding won’t help the Twins win but it will probably put more money in the Pohlad’s pocket from new jersey and cap sales and maybe they will spend some of it on more pitching help. I am trying to be positive here, it is still early in the off-season.

One thing that jumped out at me was that Max Kepler was not one of the players invited to model new uniforms and he is one of the Twins senior players in term of seniority, still a starter and a fan favorite, at least with the ladies. I think that sends a pretty clear message that Max had better not sign any long term leases.

Another thing that might help is that the New York Yankees will not recognize the Twins players behind the new uniforms aand the Yankee hex will come to an end, that alone would be worth the rebranding costs.