Author: Steve Adams

Following a 2025 trade deadline fire sale, the Twins idled for half the offseason then feigned an effort at putting together a contender — all while slashing payroll to its lowest levels in a decade.

Major League Free Agent Signings

• Victor Caratini, C/1B: Two years, $14MM
• Josh Bell, 1B: One year, $7MM
• Taylor Rogers, LHP: One year, $2MM

2026 commitments: $16MM
Total commitments: $23MM

Option Decisions

• Team declined $2MM option on RHP Justin Topa in favor of $225K buyout (Topa remained under control via arbitration, agreed to $1.225MM salary for 2026)

Trades and Waiver Claims

• Acquired LHP Anthony Banda from Dodgers in exchange for international bonus pool space ($500K)
• Acquired RHP Eric Orze from Rays in exchange for minor league RHP Jacob Kisting
• Acquired 1B/OF Eric Wagaman from Marlins in exchange for minor league RHP Kade Bragg
• Acquired C Alex Jackson from Orioles in exchange for minor league INF Payton Eeles
• Acquired INF Tristan Gray from Red Sox in exchange for minor league C Nate Baez
• Traded RHP Pierson Ohl and 1B/2B Edouard Julien to Rockies in exchange for minor league RHP Jace Kaminska
• Traded C Jhonny Pereda to Mariners for cash
• Traded RHP Jackson Kowar (previously claimed off waivers) to Orioles for cash
• Traded INF/OF Vidal Brujan (previously claimed off waivers) to Mets for cash
• Claimed INF/OF Ryan Kreidler off waivers from Pirates
• Claimed RHP Zak Kent off waivers from Cardinals

Notable Minor League Signings

• Liam Hendriks (since released), Andrew Chafin (since released), Gio Urshela (since released), Orlando Arcia, Dan Altavilla, Matt Bowman, Julian Merryweather, Cody Laweryson, Grant Hartwig

Notable Losses

• Christian Vázquez, Edouard Julien, Pierson Ohl, Jose Miranda, Anthony Misiewicz, Thomas Hatch, Michael Tonkin, Génesis Cabrera, Jhonny Pereda, Ryan Fitzgerald (lost via waivers), DaShawn Keirsey Jr. (non-tendered), Carson McCusker (released to sign in NPB)

To call the past 18 months or so tumultuous for the Twins would be an understatement. After spending more than a year looking for a buyer, the Pohlad family pivoted and instead brought in several new minority stakeholders. They’d piled up more than $400MM in debt borrowing against the franchise, and that served as a major impediment to securing a buyer for the majority stake in the team. It was clear last summer — shortly after the team’s 11-player fire sale in July — that the Pohlads planned to keep the team in the family after failing to find a buyer. They originally announced that two new limited stakeholders were joining the ownership group, but the process of formally introducing those new partners dragged out for months.

The process was so elongated that as of the GM Meetings in November, longtime president of baseball operations Derek Falvey conceded that he had yet to be given a budget for the 2026 season. Falvey contended from the jump that he hoped to be able to add to the roster, but the Twins’ early inertia seemed to signal that the entire organization was in a holding pattern, from ownership on down to baseball operations.

One thing that became clear almost immediately was the need for a new manager. Rocco Baldelli was fired after seven seasons on the job. No manager would’ve succeeded with the collection of arms masquerading as a bullpen following last year’s deadline teardown, but Baldelli and Falvey had both seen speculation about their job security in recent seasons. Would that have been the case had ownership not slashed payroll immediately following 2023’s division title and playoff run? Perhaps not, but the Twins never really found the continuity for which they hoped under that leadership pairing even before the budget cuts.

A full-fledged search for a new skipper brought the Twins to … Baldelli’s former right-hand man, Derek Shelton. He’d served as bench coach for Baldelli prior to being hired as the manager in Pittsburgh, where he was fired last May. The Twins also considered former Minnesota hitting coach James Rowson (now with the Yankees), former Mariners skipper Scott Servais and Padres bench coach Ryan Flaherty before settling on Shelton.

By the time the ownership situation was finally resolved in December, we were already nearly halfway to spring training. The changes proved more substantial than expected. Minnesota announced three, not two, new limited partners. More notably, Tom Pohlad was named the team’s new executive chair and league-approved control person, taking over daily oversight of the team from his younger brother, Joe, who’d only ascended to that role about three years prior. Joe Pohlad is still listed as a board member on the Twins’ web site, though Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote earlier this month that Joe is no longer with the organization in any capacity.

As if the Pohlad family palace intrigue wasn’t confounding enough, the Twins would soon see their entire baseball operations outfit upended. After spending nearly the entire offseason as the Twins’ baseball ops leader, Falvey was suddenly and unexpectedly ousted on Jan. 30 — just two weeks before spring training commenced. He’d held his post as the Twins’ baseball operations leader since 2016.

The Twins announced it as a “mutual parting of ways.” Both Falvey and Tom Pohlad made public statements that struck the general tenor one would expect. Pohlad thanked Falvey for his years of service and his work to modernize the club; Falvey thanked the family for the opportunity and voiced a love for the organization. Both parties publicly stated that a change was likely best. In the aftermath, Falvey conceded that he and Joe Pohlad had a different working relationship and that Tom wanted to run things “a little differently.” Jeremy Zoll, who’d been promoted from assistant general manager to GM the offseason prior (after GM Thad Levine left the organization), is now running baseball operations.

All of that behind-the-scenes drama left the Twins in an odd spot. Once new ownership was in place, it seemed there was a green light for some modest spending, but that’s a much different revelation in mid-December than in early November. The Winter Meetings had come and gone by the time the front office had any sort of direction on spending. A significant portion of the offseason’s free agent and trade options had come off the board.

Between Tom Pohlad’s ascension to executive chair and Falvey’s departure, the Twins did make some small additions. Josh Bell inked a one-year deal to help plug a gap at either first base or designated hitter. Victor Caratini signed a two-year deal to both give the club a credible backup to Ryan Jeffers and to provide a catching option in 2027 — an important factor to consider with Jeffers up for free agency at season’s end. Old friend Taylor Rogers returned on a low-cost $2MM deal — a bargain price with which it’s hard to find fault.

The earlier stages of the offseason had presented some smaller-scale additions. The Twins picked up reliever Eric Orze in a trade with the Rays and a right-handed corner bat, Eric Wagaman, in a small swap with the Marlins. They also added glove-first, out-of-options catcher Alex Jackson in a bit of a head-scratching trade with the Orioles. They didn’t give up a prospect of great note to get him (5’5″ utilityman Payton Eeles), but Jackson has never hit in the majors and wasn’t going to stick on the Orioles’ roster all winter. The Twins could perhaps have picked him up as a minor league free agent or signed a comparable player to a minor league deal in free agency. Instead, they locked Jackson in on a $1.35MM salary, and he’ll now open the season in Triple-A and off the 40-man roster; the eventual Caratini signing left him with no role on the roster, and he’s now been passed through waivers.

When the calendar flipped to February, it was fair to wonder whether the Twins might have some late splashes up their sleeve. Payroll was down more than $30MM from the prior season and more than $50MM from the 2023 peak. The Twins reportedly showed at least cursory interest in Framber Valdez before he signed with the Tigers and in Freddy Peralta before he was traded from the Brewers to the Mets. Tom Pohlad publicly confirmed that he made a multi-year offer to Valdez, though further details aren’t clear. Still, on Feb. 1, Pohlad publicly stated that there were “still some investments to be made” in the roster prior to Opening Day. A couple weeks later, he told the team’s beat, “I want to be aggressive.”

The Twins had ample opportunity to act on some of those statements. Beyond Valdez, names like Eugenio Suárez, Zac Gallen, Nick Martinez, Zack Littell and Chris Bassitt remained unsigned. (Giolito still hasn’t signed.) The Twins seemed like a decent fit to land one of the remaining arms, continuing their trend of being an active February shopper that we’d seen in recent seasons. When top starter Pablo López suffered a UCL tear during his first spring bullpen session and former top prospect David Festa incurred a shoulder injury not long after, the fit grew even more obvious.

The Twins, however, not only stood pat on adding a starter. They opted to forgo making almost any more additions whatsoever. The Twins picked up left-hander Anthony Banda after he was squeezed out of the World Series champion Dodgers’ bullpen and designated for assignment, swinging a small trade sending international bonus pool space in the other direction. It was a nice enough value move, but it was hard to imagine a club that traded five relievers the preceding summer would go the entire offseason with its only notable bullpen acquisitions being Banda, Orze and Rogers.

That’s precisely how things played out, however. The Twins never added another starter after losing López for the season and Festa for at least the short term. Despite a wide-open bullpen mix and the clear ability to entice a veteran reliever by offering an easy path to ninth-inning work, Rogers and Banda were the lone veteran arms brought in. The Twins added Liam Hendriks, Andrew Chafin and Dan Altavilla on minor league deals, but none made the club. The former two have already been released. Waiver claim Zak Kent joined in March and won a spot in what can charitably be described as one of the five or six worst on-paper bullpen groups in the game.

Instead, the Twins are betting almost entirely on in-house upgrades and breakouts. It’s more than fair to want to get long looks at righties Taj Bradley and Mick Abel after both were focal points of the returns in last year’s deadline sell-off. But the Twins really only have six viable rotation options to begin the season, and that’s giving a lot of credit to three pitchers (Bradley, Abel and the already-optioned Zebby Matthews) who were once touted prospects but haven’t proven anything in the majors yet.

They Twins are a Joe Ryan injury away from the rotation being a bounceback hopeful (Bailey Ober), an out-of-options former top prospect who almost lost a roster spot last year (Simeon Woods Richardson) and that Bradley/Abel/Matthews trio. It should be noted, too, that the team’s inability to pick a lane led to holding onto Ryan, who entered the offseason as an obvious trade candidate and would have fetched a massive haul. It’s possible he’s the most sought-after trade chip at the deadline, but if Ryan suffers an injury of note, the decision to both hold onto him and forgo even a half-hearted effort to build out a competitive roster will be one of the great missed opportunities in recent memory.

There are prospects behind the current group of starters, many of whom will be ready this season. Connor Prielipp is already a top-100 prospect, and the Twins are quite high on fellow southpaw Kendry Rojas. Left-hander Dasan Hill has gotten some top-100 love, and righty Andrew Morris lacks ceiling but is a near-MLB-ready back-of-the-rotation option. It’s not as though the organization is wholly lacking depth, but the Twins’ inaction and sole reliance on these untested arms doesn’t square with Pohlad’s assertion that there is/was room to invest and that he hopes to be aggressive.

The bullpen with which the Twins will break camp includes Rogers, Banda, Orze, Kent, Justin Topa, Cole Sands, Kody Funderburk and Cody Laweryson (who made his MLB debut with the Twins last year, briefly went to the Angels on waivers, and is now back with the Twins). It’s frankly hard to fathom that a team that shipped out Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Louis Varland, Brock Stewart and Danny Coulombe last July would do so little to add to the relief corps in a meaningful way. As with the rotation, it simply doesn’t gel with the comments Pohlad has made since Falvey’s departure.

In the lineup, there’s a bit more cause for hope, but the group is still underwhelming. Byron Buxton had his best season ever in 2025, slugging 35 homers and swiping 24 bags. Top prospect Luke Keaschall has done nothing but hit since being taken in the second round of the 2023 draft, and he burst onto the MLB scene with a .302/.382/.445 slash that was followed by an even bigger spring performance (.377/.411/.717). Jeffers is quietly one of the better offensive catchers in the game. Bell isn’t a great hitter, but he’s been above average every season of his career other than 2020 and is annual 20-homer threat. Caratini is coming off a solid offensive showing in Houston.

There’s upside beyond the veterans. Matt Wallner has immense power (and an equally immense strikeout rate). Royce Lewis and Brooks Lee are former high picks and top prospects who have battled injuries but have notable ceilings, at least at the plate. Consensus top-100 prospects Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez and Kaelen Culpepper are all close to MLB-ready.

There’s no immediate room in a crowded Twins outfield for either Jenkins or Rodriguez, however, which begs the question as to why a budget-crunched Minnesota club tendered a $4.475MM contract to a plodding lefty corner outfielder, Trevor Larnach. Perhaps they felt they’d be able to trade him for a bullpen arm, but Larnach looks like a square peg on a roster that’s already full of defensively limited hitters with glaring platoon issues. His presence on the roster surely helped push Alan Roden, who came over alongside Rojas in the Varland trade and outperformed Larnach this spring, to Triple-A St. Paul.

The bench is also something of an island of misfit toys. Caratini is nominally part of that group as the backup catcher, but he’s a better hitter than many of the actual bench players and will probably see a fair bit of run at DH. Kody Clemens went on an otherworldly tear after being acquired early last season but cooled off later in the year. James Outman‘s lack of minor league options always made him an odd target for the Twins last summer, particularly considering his long-running contact issues and his status as yet another left-handed outfielder on a roster chock-full of them. Tristan Gray, 30, and the since-optioned Eric Wagaman, 28, were acquired in small trades and are fringe big leaguers. Austin Martin was once a top pick but is now more of a utility player with a limited MLB track record.

It’s technically not out of the realm of possibility that with good health and plenty of breakouts/rebounds for young players (e.g. Abel, Bradley, Jenkins, Lewis, Lee) that the Twins silence doubters and take advantage of the weak AL Central to hang around the Wild Card chase in the first half. (If they do so, Pohlad could get another crack at making good on converting his words into actual action.) It is, however, extremely unlikely. The Twins look like one of the weakest teams in the majors, entirely reliant on young players exceeding expectations that were set in place by a gutted roster and an ownership group seemingly unable to get out of its own way.

“I’d love to get off this payroll thing for a second. Let’s judge the success of this year on wins and losses, and on whether we’re playing meaningful baseball in September,” Pohlad said in February. Based on the way the remainder of the offseason played out following those comments, it’s hard to imagine he’ll actually have to wait until September for that introspection.

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