Maybe it’s irrational. But I’ve been rolling it around in my head for weeks. I think that there are a lot of things at play as Twins fans look at their favorite team and feel like there’s an anchor attached to the team.
It’s natural to have fatalistic feelings in times like this, but I think there is something unique about the Twins’ situation. Literally one year ago, they were in playoff position, and today they’re vying for one of the top lottery picks. They just traded nearly half of their active roster. And it all feels stuck.
I’m not about to point out what moves worked and what didn’t, who should be cut or fired, or anything like that. I just want to investigate why it seems like the Twins are trapped, and like it’s not going to change anytime soon.
First, there are a lot of pieces of this roster that do feel lodged in place. Maybe not in the bullpen, and not for as long as it might appear, but they do feel stuck. There’s been very little turnover, year-to-year. After 2023, the Twins lost Sonny Gray, Donovan Solano, Joey Gallo, Michael A. Taylor, Kenta Maeda, and Emilio Pagán, then traded Jorge Polanco. They were replaced with Carlos Santana, Manuel Margot, Anthony DeSclafani, Jay Jackson, Steven Okert, and Justin Topa.
That turnover largely consisted of downgrades, and after 2024, all but Topa were gone, along with Max Kepler, Caleb Thielbar, and Alex Kirilloff, this time replaced with Harrison Bader, Danny Coulombe, Ty France, and (later) Kody Clemens.
You’ll notice that the last wave was smaller. It’s easy to point at this factor as the key—there’s been very little new blood brought in from outside the organization, and in 2025, there was even little new blood called up internally. Luke Keaschall is the only notable prospect to see any real success with the Twins this season.
That lack of additions can be chalked up to two factors: a tightening of the belt by ownership and a lack of activity from management. After the Pohlad family spent 10 months attempting to sell the team, fans patiently waiting for change there were rewarded with the most inconsequential version of said sale: additional minority partners. Thus, even as the sale was technically completed, ownership is still left almost exactly where it started.
The inactive management team is also still here (at least for now). Don’t get me wrong; I was in favor of largely keeping the team intact after 2024. I also believed that the team hit a rough skid, but had the ability to compete for a division title again after a reset. But that doesn’t mean that the team doesn’t feel stuck in place, after effectively running it back in the wake of a disastrous collapse one year ago.
One perplexing aspect of this feeling, however, is that inactivity is a recent phenomenon for this front office, not their modus operandi. This is a front office that, at least compared to previous iterations, tends toward risk-taking and creativity. Three times, they signed the largest free-agent contract in team history—once with Josh Donaldson, and twice with Carlos Correa. The first Correa contract started a league-wide spree of creative, incentive-laden three-year contracts with player opt-outs after each year.
This is the same front office that traded a fan favorite and batting champion for a frontline starter, absorbing the risk of public discontent. This is the same front office that waited out a market and tried to sign Lance Lynn and Logan Morrison to pillow deals when they had nowhere else to turn. Even as recently as 2024, they traded Polanco for prospects, bullpen depth, and starting pitching depth, before using the salary saved to acquire a first baseman and another middle reliever—creatively skating under their spending cap and checking several items off their offseason shopping list.
Obviously, I’m not speaking to the success of these moves; I’m merely pointing out that this very front office—one that has largely been the same for the better part of a decade, at levels from leadership to analyst, only growing—was making risky decisions on a routine basis relatively recently. Their risky 2022 trade deadline, in which they acquired a frontline starter, closer, and setup man, was followed up with back-to-back acquisitions of one middle reliever who didn’t finish the season on the roster in 2023 and 2024.
It wasn’t always like this, but it’s sure like this now.
Even on the field, though, the sense of ruthless repetition is getting palpable. This was the fifth season in which fans asked if Jorge Alcala could take the next step; if we’d see a healthy and productive season from Royce Lewis; and if Trevor Larnach would finally hit his ceiling. Really—we’ve been asking those same questions since 2021. The same was true with Chris Paddack since 2022. Ditto for pop-up prospects like Edouard Julien and Jose Miranda. Is this the year they start acting normal? The big three in the rotation have all been around for at least three years, without anyone else sneaking into the conversation over the last two.
There are bright spots on the horizon, like Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez, Kaelen Culpepper, or Connor Prielipp. But they also seem so far away, for a team that feels like it’s at its waist in mud, led by the same manager who has led largely floundering teams who just couldn’t quite make it work for a half-decade.
Again, this isn’t an analysis of what needs to happen or what went wrong. I’m just trying to work through why it feels like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel today. Maybe that feeling stretches throughout Twins Territory. Maybe the prospect pipeline has you feeling some creeping hope, even amid the gloom of this finish. Either way, though, it’d be great to see some tangible change this fall.