The Twins landed veteran reliever Jeff Hoffman from the Blue Jays to finish off a bullpen rebuild.
The Minnesota Twins closed out deadline day with their biggest swing of the summer, agreeing to a trade with Toronto on Monday that brings in veteran reliever Jeff Hoffman.
Pitching prospects Dasan Hill and John Klein are headed to the Blue Jays in the deal along with minor league infielder Dameury Pena and $250,000 in international bonus pool money, per Ben Nicholson-Smith.
ESPN's Jeff Passan was first to report the news.
The trade lands just hours before the 6 p.m. ET cutoff and caps a stretch of moves that already brought A.J. Minter, Dean Kremer, and Tommy Nance to Minneapolis in the past three weeks.
The Bullpen Was Always the Target
General manager Jeremy Zoll told reporters earlier that the Twins would buy, and he pointed straight at a relief group carrying a 4.91 ERA after losing Anthony Banda and Cole Sands for the season.
"We're going to focus on finding ways to continue to improve the bullpen and that'll be a clear focus," Zoll said, via MLB.com.
Hoffman gives that plan a finishing piece, arriving with a 3.94 ERA and the best strikeout rate of his career across 51 appearances.
The 33-year-old opened the season as Toronto's closer, lost the job after a brutal opening stretch, and rebuilt himself as the setup man in front of Louis Varland, allowing earned runs in just one of his ten July outings.
Varland came over from Minnesota at last year's deadline, which makes this a strange little full circle for a bullpen the Twins tore apart themselves.
What Toronto Gets Back
The Blue Jays sit at 52-60 and last in the American League East, and after sending Kevin Gausman to the Cubs on Sunday, moving Hoffman was the natural next step of the sell-off.
Hoffman is also owed $11 million next season on the three-year deal he signed before 2025, so Toronto clears real money here while adding three young players to the system.
Hill is the headliner, a 20-year-old lefty who stands 6-foot-5, touched 100 mph this spring, and climbed to No. 5 in a Minnesota farm system that gave the front office plenty of prospect capital to spend.
Klein is a 24-year-old righty from Brooklyn Park who made his big league debut for the Twins in May, while Pena is a 20-year-old infielder seen as one of the best pure contact hitters in the organization.
Losing a hometown arm and a lefty who throws 100 will sting, but controllable relievers of Hoffman's quality do not come cheap in August.
Where the Twins Stand Now
Minnesota enters Monday at 56-57, third in the American League Central and one game behind Cleveland for the final wild card spot.
A year ago this front office shipped out eleven players at the deadline on the way to a 70-92 finish, so buying four times in a month is a real change in direction.
The bullpen that dragged the first half now runs several arms deeper, Hoffman is under contract through next season, and a team one game out of a playoff spot decided it was done waiting.
