The Doug Mientkiewicz Trade Postmortem

Now, 2+ years after the deal went through, Twins fans finally know what we got for Doug Mientkiewicz. Absolutely nothing but the peace of mind of getting rid of Doug Mientkiewicz.

Back in 2004, the Twins had a 1st baseman playing in Rochester who looked like the best power hitter to come through the organization since Kent Hrbek, while the Twins were starting Mientkiewicz, a gold glove fielder who couldn't hit anything, not a good trade-off at 1st base. They had to get playing time for Justin Morneau at the major league level, so the Twins fielded any and all offers for a 30-year old 1st baseman to use as a late-inning defensive substitution. In a four way deal, Mientkiewicz went to the Red Sox, and the Twins got Justin Jones, a 19-year old class A pitcher who just had his pitching arm come detached from its socket and go flying over the plate, or some other less zany but still career threatening injury. Mientkiewicz was really popular in Minnesota, and fielded the last out of the World Series when the Red Sox won that year. Things seemed pretty good for him, and a lot of Twins fans wondered why a team contending for division titles was trading away starters for dim prospects.

Then he started acting really nuts, and got into a feud with the Red Sox over the World Series game ball, which he had just kept in his glove following the last out. Eventually, honest to god, they refused to pay him $50,000 for it, but asked to "borrow" it, and then never gave it back. Mientkiewicz also claimed credit for the Red Sox victory, because of his critical contributions as a sub on 8th and 9th inning ground-outs. Since then he's been shown the door by the Mets and was antsy to get out of KC after an atrocious year. It seemed good to see the back side of him, and just remember him in his exuberant, rally-cap, not quite so insanely self-aggrandizingly insane days with the Twins. And Morneau did win the MVP. The real upside to the trade was supposed to be the gamble that Justin Jones could become a lights-out major league pitcher. He had the talent to do it, if his arm recovered, which was unlikely enough to make him equal in value to Doug Mientkiewicz. Now, two and a half years later, he's been picked up by the Washington Nationals in the Rule V draft.

In brief, the Rule V draft is a mechanism by which every winter, major league teams can take underutilized players from each other's minor league organizations to keep anyone from anti-competitively stockpiling talent that should be on display in the majors. Anybody who takes a player this way has to keep them on their major league roster for the year, so it's only worthwhile if the player can contribute at a higher level for a different organization. Jones obviously developed into a major league pitcher, but it didn't do us any good, so the Twins traded Mientkiewicz for nothing. (There is a possibility under Rule V that the Nationals would return Jones to the Twins if they can't keep a roster spot for him.) I really would have enjoyed seeing Jones pitch once for the Twins as the conclusion to the Mientkiewicz saga, but alas, it was not meant to be.

I guess they can't all be like the time we robbed the Los Angeles Giants of San Francisco so badly in the A.J. Pierzynski trade. But that's another story.