Ryan Jeffers nearly delivered the kind of swing that can change a game in a flash Monday night, turning on a Kenley Jansen pitch and sending it 411 feet to center. The ball stayed just short, landing in Max Clark’s glove at the warning track. A little more carry, a little more pull, and the Twins catcher would have launched a go-ahead two-run homer.
Even without that last bit of distance, Jeffers has been on a heater. Monday was his eighth straight start behind the plate, a workload that’s basically unheard of for a Twins catcher in the modern era. Over that stretch, he has piled up four home runs and 11 RBIs, and with the season slipping away from Minnesota, he’s making a strong late push to be named the 2026 Twins MVP.
At this point, it’s hard to build a stronger case for anyone else. Joe Ryan and Byron Buxton spent much of the year as the leading candidates, but both have seen their arguments weaken badly in a second half where the team has dropped out of contention.
Ryan ranks last on the team in fWAR and Buxton is second-to-last. That opens the door to the rest of the field - Taj Bradley, Brooks Lee, Kody Clemens, Luke Keaschall - but none of them match Jeffers’ body of work.
That’s true even after accounting for the nearly two months he missed with a fractured hamate. Jeffers still leads all Twins position players in fWAR and sits third among MLB catchers. He has spent plenty of time in the second, third and fourth spots in the lineup, and his production has blown past the average at his position by nearly 200 points of OPS.
Now comes the part the Twins have to figure out. Jeffers is headed toward free agency, and that puts Minnesota in a tough spot with one of the better catchers to reach the market in years.
He’s under 30, coming off a career season, and positioned to land a huge deal. That should make the front office’s next step fairly clear: decide whether to extend a qualifying offer.
That offer would be worth roughly $23 million for one year, and if Jeffers declines, the Twins would receive what amounts to a second-round draft pick in return. That’s not the same as moving him at the trade deadline, but it’s still meaningful value for a player they chose to keep.
There’s risk in making the offer, of course, because Jeffers could accept. But right now, that doesn’t even look like a bad outcome.
FanGraphs has him at almost exactly that price tag - $22.6 million - for this season in 80 games. If the Twins bring back their best player on a short-term deal at that number, that should count as a win, especially if Tom Pohlad and the organization are serious about raising payroll and spending at a more credible level.
The more likely outcome is that Jeffers walks. He has wanted the security of a long-term deal for a while, and now he’ll get a chance to chase that on the open market with his value at its peak. He should have no shortage of interest, and the qualifying offer could still matter by narrowing the field a bit, since any team signing him would have to give up a compensatory pick.
If he leaves, the Twins will at least get back a relatively high draft pick and some help for the system. But that won’t come close to replacing what they’d lose in the short term.
Jeffers is the longest-tenured Twin aside from Buxton, he leads the team in fWAR this season, and he ranks second among Twins position players since 2023. He’s been one of the club’s essential pieces, and losing him would leave a huge gap.
That makes the next few days important. The deadline to extend the qualifying offer comes five days after the World Series, and Jeffers then gets 10 days to decide. If he declines, the Twins should be ready to use that $23 million on upgrades elsewhere.
And if the mere possibility of having to commit that money keeps Minnesota from making the offer at all, then all the talk about a higher-spending future will disappear fast.
In Other News...
Twins Have A Late Season Roster Decision Three Saints Are Forcing
As the minor league season winds down, the Twins are starting to sort through the kind of late-season roster questions that can shape September depth, and three St. Paul Saints stand out in that conversation. Emmanuel Rodriguez is back from injury and has flashed the kind of offensive production that can force his way onto a major league radar, while Cody Morissette has taken a clear step forward at the plate since joining the organization.
Aaron Rozek adds a different kind of value, giving Minnesota another arm to consider as pitching depth becomes more important in the stretch run. With the Saints' season nearing its finish and big-league roster decisions coming into focus, the Twins have a few performances in St. Paul that are making it harder to ignore what comes next. [Read more 🡒]
Kaelen Culpepper Is Giving The Twins A Real Shortstop Decision
Kaelen Culpepper has spent just 100 plate appearances in the majors, but he has already made the Twins think seriously about what comes next at shortstop. In that small sample, he has hit .297/.350/.451 with five doubles and three home runs, while also showing the kind of bat speed and defensive comfort that can make a young middle infielder hard to take out of the lineup.
The more he plays, the more the job starts to look like his, especially with his glove holding up at shortstop over 203 innings and his offensive approach bringing real life to the position. Culpepper still has to keep building, stay healthy and prove he can carry it forward, but the Twins appear to be moving toward a future where he is the full-time answer there next season. [Read more 🡒]
Twins Did Everything They Could And Still Got This Ending
The Twins spent the second half trying to claw their way back into the race, and for a while it at least felt plausible. Their playoff odds were around 40% in August, the front office pushed chips in with trades for pitching help, and the organization kept leaning on its young talent by promoting top prospects Kaelen Culpepper and Waker Jenkins. Even as the season slipped, the message from the club was clear: they were not going to let the roster sit still and accept the slide.
Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan kept playing through injuries, Ryan Jeffers continued to emerge as one of the teams most reliable contributors, and the Twins still found a way to stay in the conversation longer than it might have seemed possible. But the second half never produced the sustained run they needed, and now the math has finally closed the door on postseason contention. For a team that kept searching for answers all the way to the end, the ending still lands hard. [Read more 🡒]