Minneapolis – The Minnesota Twins’ 2025-26 off-season is officially underway. They’ve hired Derek Shelton as the 15th manager in franchise history. The Twins have also shaved players off the 40-man roster to make room for those whom they want to protect from the Rule 5 Draft in a couple of weeks.

But aside from those items, almost everything else that happens in a typical off-season is unknown when it comes to the Twins. We don’t know how much payroll they have to work with. We don’t know who will be joining the Pohlads in ownership as their new limited partners. And we don’t know whether they intend to keep or trade away key players like Pablo López and Joe Ryan to make the team somewhat competitive in 2026.

However, we can assume that the Twins will add top prospects such as Andrew Morris, Connor Prielipp, and Gabriel Gonzalez to the 40-man roster to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft. Beyond that, the construction of next year’s roster has no clear answers.

Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey tried to provide some clarity to what their plans could look like in constructing the roster for next season after Shelton’s introductory press conference.

“My goal this offseason is not to take away from this team,” said Falvey. “We’re going to have to evaluate every opportunity that comes our way. There’s going to be a lot of calls on players on our team because we think we have some talented players. I have little doubt that it will be part of our process. At the same time, my personal goal is to find ways to augment and add around it.”

The Twins are going to entertain offers on López and Ryan, but Falvey indicates they’re going to need to be “blown away” by trade packages teams send for their top two starting pitchers. Keeping at least one or both López and Ryan will help Minnesota have a better chance to contend next season, even if it’s still a long shot. But by not moving one or both, it gives the fans some belief that the team will not be as dismal as it was down the stretch in 2025.

That leads to the bullpen, the part of the team with the biggest holes to fill.

In the past, Falvey-led front offices have filled the bullpen with young internal candidates who haven’t made it as starting pitchers. From what Falvey said on Tuesday, that will be one part of the process to rebuild the bullpen beyond Cole Sands and Kody Funderburk, but we don’t know whether that’ll be via free agency or trade.

“There’s areas we do need to rebuild in the bullpen,” said Falvey. “But that’s an area you’ve seen in the past before — young players who just got their feet wet at the big-league level find a way to turn it up and become really good stabilizers in your bullpen. We’re going to need some of that. We’re probably going to need some external additions.”

We still don’t know how the Twins will fill out their bullpen because we don’t know how much payroll they have to work with. We still don’t know who the Pohlads’ limited partners are or how that will influence what they spend on the team.

“I don’t have a timeline right now; some of that is owed to the process of finalizing a deal, so to speak, behind the scenes,” said Falvey. “But at the end of the day, once the Pohlads give me an indication of that, there will be some subsequent to that baseball process. That’s a little bit above my pay grade. When they tell me, I’ll know, and at this point we’re just not there.”

While the new limited partners are still unknown for now, there should be an answer to who they are before November is over. The MLB Owners meetings will take place from November 18 to 20 in New York City, and fans should expect the approval of new limited partners for the Twins to be on the agenda.

And once those new limited partners are approved to join the Twins ownership group, there will be an indication of whether the team’s payroll will increase, remain the same, or decrease. The Pohlads still need to pay off nearly $500 million worth of debt.

“There’s work to be done, and my position to ownership has consistently been, I think this is a group that can go compete, that we can invest in and build around,” said Falvey. “I don’t have any specifics around on that around payroll, payroll number. I’m just trying to continue to build a plan around the options that are available to us via trade, free agency, or otherwise, that can find ways to augment the group.”

The answers to many of these questions are on the horizon, but all of the off-season plans and moves for the Twins are now contingent on the league’s pending approval of new minority owners. Once they are approved, there will be answers on whether payroll will stabilize around $100 million next season or fluctuate. Once they set a number, we’ll have a better idea of whether players like López and Ryan will start the season with the Twins.

For the time being, Twins fans at least have the upside of many Rule 5 eligible players to speculate on being added to the roster and simulate where they might end up in the MLB Draft Lottery, having the second-best odds in this year’s group. But, as things were two years ago, all indications point to the Twins not making any significant moves to reconstruct the roster until the New Year.