This offseason the Minnesota Twins have some work to do after tearing down the roster last summer. The focal point will be the bullpen and first base, but Derek Shelton’s team as a whole will need to come in with a new look.
Some of the changes could be simply putting familiar faces in new roles. That happens often in baseball, and with plenty of young talent, there’s opportunity for the front office to get creative internally.
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Healthy Luke Keaschall can play the outfield
Last season Luke Keaschall made his highly-anticipated debut for the MN Twins. He played through an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery in 2024, and it meant that his full throwing clearance wasn’t going to happen in 2025. Expected to be at 100% this season, Bobby Nightengale says he should get work in the outfield.
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The Twins want to give Luke Keaschall some experience in the outfield. He played some outfield during his 2024 minor league season, but he stayed at second base this year after recovering from elbow surgery.
A forearm fracture cost Keaschall three months last season and scuttled plans to experiment with Keaschall in the outfield.
“It could be really valuable if he could run out to left field or center field along the way,” Twins General Manager Jeremy Zoll said. “We’re going to have some more formal conversations on what all that is going to look like pretty soon.”
In the minors Keaschall has 173 2/3 innings in the outfield. All of that experience has come in center field. His speed makes him an ideal fit there, and his arm strength isn’t a problem in the middle or left field. For Derek Shelton this season, the Twins could use him to give starter Byron Buxton a blow.
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As a rookie Keaschall batted .302/.382/.445 across 49 games. He had 14 doubles, four home runs, and swiped 14 bases. Unfortunately Keaschall missed time with a broken forearm as well, but the injuries look to be behind him at this point.
Positional flexibility helps Keaschall balance out the Twins. He’s a right-handed hitter that can break up the lefties, and playing some on the grass won’t have him stretched needing to be elite on the dirt.
Pitching changes coming too
It’s a certainty that the Minnesota Twins need to overhaul their bullpen. After stripping it down to the studs last summer, there is very little left. Relief help often comes cheaply, and that will benefit the front office. Internal candidates should be expected to take roles as well, however.
The Twins haven’t committed to which starters will convert to relievers. Marco Raya, who spent the entire year in Class AAA, seems likely to end up in the bullpen.
Members of the front office are split on Connor Prielipp’s role. The lefty has the potential to be a frontline starter, which would take a little longer to unlock, or an impact reliever.
Prielipp started throwing a sinker at the end of last season. Twins player development staff want to “get one more crack trying to finish developing his [pitch] mix,” Zoll said.
Raya is a former top prospect but he had an ugly 6.02 ERA in St. Paul last year. The strikeout stuff is there, but walk and home run rates got gaudy. It seems pretty straightforward to send him to the bullpen and see if he can be a guy right from the jump.
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Prielipp is fun to dream on as a starter, but he’s dealt with so many injury issues that a relief role seems to make sense. Minnesota will probably wait to make that commitment, but it’s one they’ll be faced with answering this season.
If there’s a big league starter that could move into the bullpen, David Festa seems like the guy. He’s coming back from thoracic outlet syndrome, and he had a 5.40 ERA (4.88 FIP) in 53 1/3 innings last year. Another bump in velocity could happen out of the bullpen, and his limited pitch mix would play better there too.
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