Interest in Twins players figures to be high at trade deadline, but Derek Falvey doesn’t tip his hand

Twins President Derek Falvey says he doesn’t label his team as buyers or sellers at any trade deadline, but the large scouting presence at Target Field this weekend tipped how the rest of the league thinks he will operate this week.

Falvey expects trade talks to pick up with a few days remaining ahead of Thursday’s 5 p.m. deadline. The Twins have a 50-55 record and sit six games out of a playoff spot. There are only three American League teams — the Orioles, Athletics and White Sox — with worse records.

“I think there’s a lot more made of how much happens in the week prior to the deadline than what actually happens, quite frankly,” Falvey said before the Twins lost 7-2 to the Nationals on Sunday. “There are a lot of discussions, don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of calls back and forth. In terms of actual proposals and offers, this stuff tends to come as you get much closer to the deadline.”

There have been a few trades in the past few days, but the Twins have several players who will attract attention from contending teams. At least seven teams sent scouts to Target Field this weekend: the Yankees, Phillies, Mariners, Rays, Rangers, Padres and Reds.

Relievers Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax are drawing the most interest on the Twins, though they will carry a high price tag because neither will reach free agency until after the 2027 season. Scouts don’t expect All-Star Joe Ryan to be traded this week because it’s rare for a top starting pitcher to be traded midseason when he’s two years from reaching free agency.

Harrison Bader, Willi Castro and Danny Coulombe are the ones with the most suitors among Twins players who will be free agents at the end of the season. Chris Paddack, another pending free agent, is expected to have a solid trade market, too.

“You want to try to build a pipeline of talent,” Falvey said. “We’ve had some conversations about players with multiple years of team control in years past. We’ve traded and we’ve acquired players with multiple years of control that look like that at the deadline. I feel like we’re going to approach it exactly the same way and continue to try to figure out what the right deals are for the Twins, both short term and long term.”

Now, it appears the Twins are leaning toward at least trading away some of their pending free agents.

“Entering the break, it felt like we were gaining a little bit of momentum,” Falvey said. “The last couple series haven’t gone as well as we would have hoped. Now the job is just to evaluate what comes our way and navigate in any direction possible. We still feel like there’s a lot of talent on this roster.”

All-Star center fielder Byron Buxton, who left Saturday night’s game because of left side soreness, underwent a magnetic resonance imaging exam Sunday that revealed cartilage irritation in his rib.

“That’s a good outcome,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We’ll see how he is [Monday] and so on, but to be day-to-day with what he left the game with, it’s a good thing.”

Buxton made a leaping catch against the center field wall in the first inning Saturday, and he exited after the sixth inning.

• All 30 major league teams wore retro caps this weekend in honor of Sunday’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The Twins wore their old lowercase “M” logo, which the team used from 1987 to ’12 and wore during its two World Series championship seasons. Zebby Matthews, after completing his postgame news conference Friday, asked a club staffer when the team used to wear those caps before adding, “This logo is sick!”