Last week, the MLB Winter Meetings were held in Orlando. In a sport where the offseason moves at a snail’s pace, the meetings are one of the biggest events of the year. A couple of big contracts get done, and the framework for blockbuster trades begins to form.

It’s an exciting time, unless you’re a Minnesota Twins fan. The Twins spent the Winter Meetings on the sidelines. There wasn’t even a whisper of a move that could help the team in 2026.

However, The Athletic reported that the team is planning to keep Byron Buxton, Joe Ryan, and Pablo López, so the meetings could have gone worse. But while the Twins may view that as an olive branch to fans who have been scorned over the past year, the bill is still out there, making this team matter next season.

In all fairness, most Twins fans checked out a long time ago. Blowing up a contender, pulling the team off the market, and replacing Rocco Baldelli with former bench coach Derek Shelton is enough for anyone to focus their attention (and money) elsewhere. But if Twins fans are still holding hope, it rests with Buxton, Ryan, and López.

Even with the Twins pulling the purse strings tighter last week, they have a chance to compete in a wide-open division. The Detroit Tigers remain the class of the division, but that could change meaningfully if they trade Tarik Skubal in the coming months. The Cleveland Guardians are the division’s resident cockroach; they always hang around despite a small payroll, but they aren’t an unstoppable powerhouse. The Kansas City Royals are stuck in the middle, and the Chicago White Sox are in a rebuild despite winning the No. 1 overall pick in last week’s draft lottery.

By keeping Buxton, Ryan, and López, the Twins have a path to winning. López and Ryan form a top-of-the-rotation that can compete with most teams in the American League. Buxton reintroduced himself as one of the best players in baseball after battling injuries for most of his career. Royce Lewis, Luke Keaschall, and Brooks Lee form a promising young core with Walker Jenkins and Kaelen Culpepper likely to make their major league debuts next summer.

If one of the pitchers acquired at last year’s trade deadline, including Mick Abel or Taj Bradley, takes a step forward, the Twins could be in the hunt in a mediocre division. But that’s also assuming they make a move to complement it.

That’s where the problems begin. After trading away Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, and Louie Varland at last year’s deadline, the Twins have multiple holes to fill in their bullpen. Their first-base situation is another void after releasing Jose Miranda earlier this offseason, and the Twins could use some veteran depth they haven’t had due to payroll constraints over the past two seasons.

If there’s good news here, it’s that Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic estimated the team’s payroll at $113 million, which is about $17 million over the current $96 million projected by FanGraphs. The bad news is that the Twins are one of four MLB teams that haven’t signed a major-league free agent as of Sunday morning, including the Boston Red Sox, Washington Nationals, and Colorado Rockies.

Even if the Twins didn’t have the payroll, it’s not like Minnesota is a destination at the moment. Players watched as the team burned everything to the ground last July. They also probably heard about ownership putting a sleeper hold on its fan base by tightening the purse strings. Anyone who visited the Twins after the deadline last year can see how toxic the environment has become, leading them to sign elsewhere and prompting the team to look internally for answers.

That’s where things get difficult. If the Twins can’t find those answers, it negates the benevolence of keeping Ryan, Buxton, and López. While dealing any of that trio would drag fan morale lower than it’s ever been, ownership has already used their feelings as a speedbag since 2023, right-sizing their business and making them an afterthought within their own market.

The likely counter is that if the Twins contend with those three on the roster, the fans will slowly come back. But even then, it might be best just to rip off the band-aid and trade all three – especially with a lockout coming during the 2027 season.

It’s a lesson the Twins may have to learn if they can’t (or won’t) add anyone in the next month or so, and it could make the possibility of trading one of their three stars even greater as the offseason drags along.