The Twins are wrapping up a season that has already crossed the point of no return, and that makes this a good time to look ahead. They enter the final three games at 75-84, locked into a losing record but still ahead of where they finished in 2025.
If they’re serious about climbing back into the playoff picture in 2027, the offseason can’t be treated like a cleanup project. There are real holes here.
The biggest one sits in the bullpen.
That was the soft spot from the start, and even with trade-deadline additions, it never became a strength. The concern only grows now because A.J.
Minter and Taylor Rogers are both headed for free agency, which could leave Minnesota short on left-handed relief help as well. But even if both were guaranteed to return, the bullpen would still need work.
This is not a unit the Twins can afford to roll back and hope gets better on its own.
Minnesota already made that mistake once when it came into 2026 without properly fixing the relief corps. Doing it again would be asking for the same problem to keep showing up. If the goal is to compete next season, adding legitimate major-league arms to the bullpen has to be near the top of the list.
Catcher is next, though there’s a big asterisk attached to that spot.
If Ryan Jeffers somehow returns, the problem basically disappears. That’s not the expectation, though, and the Twins need to prepare for life without him.
Victor Caratini is the only other big-league catcher in the organization, and he did not look like someone the club could lean on as a regular this season. Ideally, his role would shrink in 2027, not grow.
The trouble is that free agency doesn’t offer an easy answer. Jeffers is the best catcher available this winter, and it isn’t close.
If he leaves, the Twins probably won’t find a clean replacement on the open market. A trade may be the more realistic route, but that brings its own challenge: quality major-league catchers are hard to find, and Minnesota would have to give up something meaningful to get one.
Still, until a catching prospect is ready, the Twins need an upgrade over Caratini.
Then there’s first base, where the options are messy in a different way.
Royce Lewis does not hit enough for the position. Josh Bell is an impending free agent, and the team didn’t trust him there anyway.
Kody Clemens or Luke Keaschall could be moved over, but that would create other problems. It would put real pressure on Clemens’s bat, strip away the value of his versatility, and waste the defensive tools Keaschall does bring.
Lewis may still be the answer there. With a full offseason to settle in at first, he could take a real step forward defensively.
He already looks like a plus receiver of throws and just needs to clean up some rough edges. The bigger question is whether the bat will be there enough next season to justify everyday play anywhere, much less at a position built around offense.
Getting a real first baseman would help the lineup and keep Clemens and Keaschall in spots that better fit their games. It could also give the Twins a more flexible path forward, including the possibility of non-tendering or trading Lewis to open up roster and payroll space.
So yes, there’s plenty to sort through. But the bullpen, catcher and first base stand out above the rest. None of those fixes will be easy, and the Twins can’t afford to just assume the issues will disappear on their own in 2027.
In Other News...
Twins Front Office Reset Just Took Another Significant Turn
The Twins front office makeover picked up another notch this week with the mutual parting of ways with assistant general manager Daniel Adler. Adler had been in the organization since 2017, when he was hired by former president of baseball operations Derek Falvey, and his exit comes as the club continues to reshape its leadership structure under general manager Jeremy Zoll.
Zoll is now expected to keep building out the department with new hires after a string of departures has changed the look of the operation. With Falvey already gone earlier this year and another longtime voice now out of the picture, the Twins are steadily moving into a new era in the front office. [Read more 🡒]
Twins Suddenly Have A Closing Debate They Cant Ignore
The Twins bullpen has been one of the seasons most revealing storylines, and not for the kind of stability clubs usually want at the back end of games. Minnesota set an American League record by turning to 15 different pitchers for saves, a sign of just how often the ninth inning has shifted from one arm to another. Jeff Hoffman became the latest name in that mix, but the larger picture is still centered on how the team has tried to piece together a reliable finish.
Yoendrys Gmez has been the most productive option overall, leading the club with 21 saves, though his season has been uneven enough to keep the debate alive. After a dominant stretch earlier in the year, he struggled in September, which is why the Twins are still weighing what the late-inning hierarchy should look like moving forward. Hoffmans emergence only adds another layer to a bullpen that has spent much of the season searching for a clear answer. [Read more 🡒]
Twins Showed Enough Promise To Make 2026 Even More Frustrating
The Twins are closing out a 75-84 season without a playoff berth, and for stretches they looked capable of being more than the record suggested. A sweep of the Braves stood out as one of the sharper stretches, and the club got real signs of life from young talent such as Luke Keaschall, Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez and Kaelen Culpepper, all of whom added a little more reason to think the next wave is coming.
Still, the frustration comes from how often the promise was undercut. Injuries, especially to Byron Buxton, kept the lineup from staying whole, and the bullpen never quite settled into the kind of reliable unit needed to survive a long season. So even with development worth noting, the Twins are left with the familiar mix of encouraging pieces and a bigger question hanging over the winter: how do they turn those flashes into something that actually lasts? [Read more 🡒]