Twins linked to Dodgers, Brewers, Red Sox in trade rumors

As the July 31st non-waiver trade deadline approaches, the Twins are looking more and more like sellers, and it appears that is indeed what the Twins plan to do. Darren Wolfson got some insight from Twins GM Thad Levine a couple days ago about where the team is at:

To sum it up: the team is in the “feeling it out” phase of pre-trade-deadline talks, basically seeing where teams are at and who is interested in what. They don’t appear to be active sellers quite yet.

According to rumors, there have been a couple of teams particularly interested in making a deal with the Twins:

• Jon Morosi of MLB.com reports that the Brewers have expressed interest to the Twins about a possible deal for Brian Dozier or Eduardo Escobar. Milwaukee, who currently leads the NL Central, has a pitiful infield and is looking to improve. They’ve also been linked to the Orioles in a possible trade for Manny Machado, but, like, who hasn’t been at this point?
• The Twins have also been rumored to be (stop me if you’ve heard this one) talking to the Dodgers about a possible Brian Dozier trade, according to Jeff Passan. If you don’t remember (you do remember), the Twins and Dodgers talked about a possible Dozier trade for the entire off season about two years ago, and nothing ever happened. The Dodgers ended up trading the one guy they were offering — Jose De Leon — to the Rays for Logan Forsythe instead, and guess what? It turns out Logan Forsythe actually sucks, and the Dodgers still need a capable second baseman.
• Folks in New England, hold on to your butts: Jerry Crasnick reports that the Red Sox are interested in the Fernando Rodney Experience! Boston, who is too good and has too much dang money, reportedly wants another arm for their bullpen, and Rodney has one of those. Apparently former Tigers GM and current Red Sox GM Dave Dombrowski is fond of the guy. I don’t blame him — despite his rocky start to the season, Rodney has been pretty likable to me. I just wonder what the Twins will do with all those intense intro graphics they created at Target Field... How much will it cost to convert them into the Trevor Hildenberger Experience? The Ryan Pressly Experience? Gabriel Moya?
• Meanwhile, Judd Zulgad of ESPN 1500 thinks the Twins need to trade Joe Mauer to the Yankees. Yes, this is an actual thing Judd said and wrote about. No, I don’t know why. Not only does Mauer have a full no-trade clause, the Twins would not be able to get much for Mauer, and there is no reason the Yankees would want Mauer. Maybe the air conditioning broke at the ESPN 1500 office? Someone bring Judd a glass of water.

Those are the main rumors out there for now, but we aren’t even in full trade-deadline season yet. Expect things to heat up especially after the All-Star break.