The Minnesota Twins are not having a good offseason. After deciding to keep all three of Byron Buxton, Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez, the team has done very little to build around those three. Minnesota sold heavily at the 2025 MLB trade deadline, shipping away almost their entire bullpen, which is an area they have yet to really replenish this winter.
While the Twins signed Josh Bell, it wasn’t long before an unexpected AL Central rival one-upped that move. Following a 102-loss season, the Chicago White Sox made a free agency splash on Sunday and signed Japanese superstar Munetaka Murakami. While there are obvious concerns with Murakami’s offensive profile and how his game will translate to the big leagues, Chicago taking a swing on his upside is more than Minnesota has done all winter.
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Factor in the big offseason the Kansas City Royals have had, and both the Cleveland Guardians and Detroit Tigers returning groups that were a tier above the rest of the division a season ago, and you have a Twins team that is falling way behind. If this front office is not going to do what’s needed to address the roster’s holes, then the Twins need to pick a direction and trade their top talent.
“Some of it is going to have to come from outside, some of it is going to be guys stepping up,” Twins president of baseball and business operations Derek Falvey said earlier this month via MLB.com. “There’s no question. You’re not going to have an entirely filled bullpen from external. You’re going to have some guys that are already in that group. But I would say that, as it stands right now, we’re going to look to add to it.”
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He added, “I said this at the [General Managers’ Meetings in November], I was hoping to find a way to build around the core that we have. I think we have that ability now to try and navigate through that. And we’ll figure out exactly what that looks like through the course of the offseason.”
Falvey gets green light to build around Twins’ top players
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That adding has yet to take place. While it is still just December, other teams are making moves and the Twins are falling behind. The free agency market is drying up, and the big fish still out there certainly are not coming to Minnesota. It will be interesting to see what happens between now and spring when the season begins.