The Minnesota Twins are heading into the offseason with a familiar mix of hope and warning lights blinking all over the place.
Chairman and owner Tom Pohlad called the 77-85 finish a missed opportunity, pointing to a young core that includes Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez and Kaelen Culpepper. He said the organization has to do more to back that group.
“We have a young, exciting core in place and now it’s ownership’s responsibility to support them,” Pohlad said. “I understand [the fans’] patience in this market has run out, and I can assure you we have a sense of urgency. The work to build on the foundation we laid this year began [on Monday].”
Pohlad did not put a number on next year’s payroll, but he did say the Twins will do what they need to do to add depth. On paper, that sounds like a club trying to push forward. In practice, the question is whether Minnesota is actually as close as it thinks.
There is real reason for optimism. Culpepper handled his first big-league look well.
Jenkins settled in after a rough start to his major league career. Rodriguez looked like someone who belongs in the majors, and he joins a rising group that also includes Luke Keaschall, Brooks Lee, Taj Bradley, Zebby Matthews and Connor Prielipp.
If the Twins can add useful bullpen pieces and some depth for the rotation and bench, that would be a solid start. A new collective bargaining agreement could also shape the market in a way that helps Minnesota, with a salary cap and floor potentially widening the pool of available players and forcing more spending.
Still, this is a franchise that has been here before.
The 2015 Twins finished 83-79 and just missed the postseason. They had a respectable core in Joe Mauer, Brian Dozier, Kyle Gibson and Phil Hughes, plus a wave of young talent arriving in Eddie Rosario, Miguel Sano, Byron Buxton, Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler. The front office responded with an active winter, signing Byung-Ho Park and trading Aaron Hicks to the New York Yankees for John Ryan Murphy.
If you know the Twins, you know how that turned out.
Park lasted 62 games before being released. Murphy played in only 26. Dozier hit 42 homers, but five pitchers on the staff finished with ERAs above 5.00, and the season collapsed into what was described as “a total system failure,” ending at 59-103.
The next year brought some correction. Minnesota reached the playoffs at 85-77, and the optimism returned as several of those younger players kept maturing in the majors, with Jose Berrios joining the mix.
The Twins again acted aggressively, bringing in Lance Lynn and Michael Pineda, trading for Jake Odorizzi, and adding Addison Reed, Fernando Rodney and Logan Morrison. It looked like another step forward.
Instead, it was another false start. Lynn, Morrison and Reed flopped.
Sano and Buxton were derailed by injuries. Dozier regressed.
Jake Cave became a household name for all the wrong reasons, and the Twins fell to 78-84, a season that ended Paul Molitor’s run as manager.
The franchise did eventually break through with “The Bomba Squad,” but that came four years after the club first convinced itself it was ready to take off. That’s the tension hanging over this winter, too. The current group has upside, but there are enough familiar cracks to make you wonder if the climb is already starting to wobble.
Monday’s press conference added to that unease. Jenkins will have arthroscopic surgery on his right elbow to clean up bone chips and a bone spur.
Zebby Matthews is dealing with a flexor pronator strain and is likely to rehab through the offseason, though Twins fans know how quickly that can change. Byron Buxton is coming back from hip surgery and is probably good for about 100 games.
There’s also the question of Ryan Jeffers. The front office has the green light to offer him a qualifying offer, but after a sharp spike in production this season that may not hold, it might be wiser if he does not accept.
The Twins’ player-development track record adds another layer to the concern. Buxton and Sano were early examples of prospects who flashed right away before regressing as the league adjusted. Royce Lewis, Matt Wallner and Edouard Julien followed that path, and Lee and Keaschall could be next.
That leaves the veteran group at the center of the discussion. Minnesota likely values the leadership they bring, but that same core has been part of five meltdowns in the past six seasons.
Even the year the Twins won the AL Central and a playoff game, the division played a major role. They did get through a Wild Card series, but a better team quickly ended the run.
Free agency could give the Twins some help, though the most likely additions are the kind of short-term, low-cost fixes that have burned them before. Trades are possible too, but impact talent is hard to find, especially for a roster that just benefited from what was essentially a pillow fight in the AL playoff race.
So yes, there is optimism in Minnesota. There always is, for a while.
But there’s also a long Twins history of convincing themselves the next step is right there, only to discover the floor is lower than it looked. If they spend this winter chasing bargain solutions, it could set them up for another frustrating turn whenever baseball is played in 2027.
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