Outside The Confines: Leaving Minnesota

The Twins had themselves a fire sale. Winners and losers at the Trade Deadline. The Speedway Classic didn’t go as planned. And other baseball news.

Good morning.

• The Twins traded 40 percent of their roster at the trade deadline. Bob Nightengale looks at the carnage in Minneapolis and the decision to trade Carlos Correa. Plus some assorted thoughts on the trade deadline.
• Julian McWilliams reports on the Twins decision to sell and why the Red Sox didn’t do more.
• Ken Rosenthal and Dan Hayes report on Correa’s final days in Minnesota. (The Athletic sub. req.) Correa was making plans in Minnesota up until the final moments.
• Brian McTaggart explains why Correa doesn’t have a problem moving to third base.
• One player the Twins didn’t trade was Byron Buxton, who has no-trade protection and no plans to waive it, saying “I ain’t going nowhere.” Matthew Leach reports.
• One really cool thing the Twins did was send closer Jhoan Duran’s entrance music and stadium graphics along with him to Philadelphia. Matt Gelb writes about how the Twins and Phillies got together and made Duran’s debut in Philadelphia a memorable one. (The Athletic sub. req.)

In case you missed his entrance.

• Mike Axisa has Trade Deadline winners and losers.
• Grant Brisbee, Stephen J. Nesbitt and Andy McCullough have winners and losers of the Trade Deadline. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Anthony Dabbundo had Trade Deadline winners and losers.
• Ben Clemens has Trade Deadline winners and losers.
• Dayn Perry and Mike Axisa hand out Trade Deadline grades for each team.
• The ESPN dot com baseball writers offer their takes on the Trade Deadline and where teams stand now that it’s over.
• Dan Szymborski looks at how each team’s postseason projections changed at the Deadline.
• Kiley McDaniel ranks all the prospects traded at the deadline.
• For a different take, Eric Longenhagen ranks all the prospects traded at the deadline.
• Jayson Stark sums up the “weird and wild” in the Trade Deadline. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Mike Axisa explains the limited ways teams can still add players after the Deadline.
• After all their acquisitions at the Deadline, the Yankees released right-hander Marcus Stroman. This is one of the ways teams can still add players as the former Cub is a free agent.
• The three relievers and an outfielder that the Yankees picked up at the Deadline combined to blow Friday’s game against the Marlins. But Yankees fans were completely chill and understanding that anyone can have a bad game, right? Jack Baer reports.
• Yankees manager responded to criticism of the team from Yankees legends Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez by saying that such stuff “comes with the territory.”
• The Marlins sweep of the Yankees means that Miami is the only team with a lifetime record above .500 against the Bronx Bombers. That number counts the 2003 World Series, so Miami is actually one game below .500 against New York in the regular season.
• MLB’s “Speedway Classic” was finally played on Sunday after a four-hour rain delay on Saturday and one-half of a rain-soaked inning. Ian Casselberry has the best ten photos from the two-day event.
• Joe Mock writes about what he learned during the Speedway Classic.
• Will Laws praised MLB for bringing a game to this underserved area of Appalachia, even if things didn’t go as planned.
• On the other hand, the rain delay brought out a lot of problems with some fans comparing it to the infamous Fyre Festival.
• Will Leitch has seven storylines to follow in August.
• Commissioner Rob Manfred downplayed his reported confrontation with Phillies star Bryce Harper, calling it “not all that significant.” (The Athletic sub. req.) Patrick Mooney reports.
• Brewers star rookie Jacob Misiorowski went on the injured list with a leg injury. Misiorowski says he only expects to spend the minimum 15 days on the IL.
• Rockies closer Seth Halvorsen went on the IL with an elbow strain. That begs the question “The Rockies have a closer?” Well, not anymore, I guess.
• Kevin Baxter catches up with 82-year-old former Angel Dan Ardell, whose only major league hit in 1961 was a walk-off single — that the other team won. Ardell talks baseball and his successful post-playing career.
• David Adler explained why Angels lefty Yusei Kikuchi got much better results after he stopped throwing his best pitch.
• Next year the Frederick Keys will return to organized baseball as the Orioles’ High-A farm club. Their current affiliate, the Aberdeen IronBirds, will join the MLB Draft League.
• Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese player in MLB, returned to New York for the Cooperstown ceremonies and threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. The 81-year-old reminisced about his career and his many legendary teammates on the 1964-5 Giants. David Adler has the story.
• Finally the Portland Pickles, who play in the college wooden bat league West Coast League, got a random fan from the stands to play in a game as part of a Fan Appreciation promotion. The first time up, he walked and scored. The second time up, he hit a two-run home run.