ST. CLOUD, Minn. -- Take your pick of quantitative metrics, and it's a safe bet that they'll paint a thoroughly positive picture of the impact that Josh Donaldson should have on the Twins' offense and defense. As analytically oriented as the Twins are, they're just as thrilled about what their new third baseman will bring to the table that can't be tabulated with a formula or in a chart.

"It's edge," Twins general manager Thad Levine said. "It's whatever you want to call it. Grit. Edge. Fire.

"The thing that we heard from every teammate that's ever played with this guy is this guy challenges you to be a better version of yourself than you think you're even capable of, and then holds you to that challenge."

That much was immediately clear to both Levine and Twins manager Rocco Baldelli when they jumped on a lengthy phone call with Donaldson to sell him on the Twins before he agreed to a four-year, $92 million contract to join the club. Levine remembers some similar calls throughout his career as an executive during which the player might have seemed uncomfortable or terse. This wasn't one of those. There was an evident click on both sides.

Levine joked that if they hadn't cut off that conversation with Donaldson, they would still be talking baseball.

"When you get into conversations with people, you can tell when they have maybe one or two things that they want to talk about and then they lose interest, or if they're just hungry for more, and the conversation just kind of carries on," Baldelli said. "It was great baseball talk. It definitely helped us as much as it helped Josh."

In the conversation, there was, of course, the roster-building element of how Donaldson could fit into an overloaded lineup set for a window of championship contention with young talent. Then, there were the intangibles -- namely, the level of urgency that Levine felt Donaldson's personality could bring to a young clubhouse new to being among the elites of the sport.

Even after a 101-win season and a runaway American League Central crown in 2019, the Twins continued their unending cycle of postseason futility by extending their record streak of postseason losses to 16 games, including 13 to the Yankees. For the Twins to get over the hump and compete for titles while their team is built to do so, it could take a nudge to break them out of it.

"We have a real great core of young players who still believe that they're invincible and believe that they're going to be given opportunities to win throughout the course of their career," Levine said. "The more people we can surround them with who can elevate that urgency such that they know that you never miss on these opportunities, and he's the type of player who we thought could do that."

Furthermore, Donaldson also spoke to the Twins more broadly about his career trajectory and his philosophies and learnings from the hurdles that he's faced. According to Levine, Donaldson emphasized that, much like Nelson Cruz one year ago, he was at the stage of his career where he was hoping to be a leading figure in a young clubhouse -- to help younger teammates avoid the pitfalls that he himself had faced early in his career.

"That really resonated with us," Levine said.

That's important because the clubhouse leadership over Donaldson's tenure should have a particularly long-term impact on the direction of the franchise. The Twins have assembled a homegrown ace in José Berríos and a record-breaking lineup featuring homegrown starters at seven positions, and several top prospects important to the club's future will soon join it, including Royce Lewis, Alex Kirilloff, Brusdar Graterol, Trevor Larnach, Jordan Balazovic, Jhoan Duran and Ryan Jeffers.

Adding Donaldson's fire to Cruz's cool leadership by example could make for a significant balance.

"[Donaldson has] played in the playoffs seven of the last eight years in three different franchises," Levine said. "You don't make a lot of an individual's winning percentages in a team sport, but I don't think that's a coincidence. This guy's drive towards excellence, I think, is a little bit more than most."