{"id":471292,"date":"2025-12-11T03:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T03:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/471292\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T03:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T03:47:11","slug":"twins-exploring-mid-tier-first-base-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/471292\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins Exploring Mid-Tier First Base Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

After entering the offseason as expected sellers, the Twins have seemingly reversed course. They\u2019re now inclined to hold\u00a0Byron Buxton<\/a>,\u00a0Joe Ryan<\/a> and Pablo L\u00f3pez<\/a> while making a few depth additions. Speaking at the Winter Meetings, general manager Jeremy Zoll highlighted revamping the bullpen and adding a power hitter<\/a> as two offseason goals.<\/p>\n

Minnesota has never spent much on the bullpen under president of baseball operations Derek Falvey. That\u2019s likely to continue this offseason, as they\u2019ll presumably take a volume approach and bring in a few arms on one-year deals. They could aim a bit higher in their pursuit of a power hitter. That\u2019s likeliest to come at first base.<\/p>\n

Dan Hayes of The Athletic<\/a> reports that Minnesota has checked in with each of\u00a0Ryan O\u2019Hearn<\/a>,\u00a0Rhys Hoskins<\/a> and\u00a0Josh Bell<\/a>. Hayes writes that the front office has around $20MM to spend this offseason. That opens the ability to play in the third or fourth tier of free agent bats. \u00a0The Twins should be able to find an upgrade over utility player Kody Clemens<\/a>, who\u2019s probably the top in-house option at first base.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Hearn, a lefty bat, would be the most expensive of that trio. The 32-year-old is coming off a .281\/.366\/.437 showing with 17 homers across 544 plate appearances between the Orioles and Padres. He has been an above-average hitter in three consecutive seasons. O\u2019Hearn has improved his approach while hitting between 14 and 17 longballs in each of the past three years.<\/p>\n

That should be enough to secure a multi-year contract. MLBTR predicted a two-year, $26MM deal in ranking O\u2019Hearn the #30 free agent in the class. A $13MM average annual value would evidently be within Minnesota\u2019s overall budget, but that\u2019d leave very little room for the bullpen or a utility infielder. It seems likely the Twins would aim lower if O\u2019Hearn\u2019s market pushes into an eight-figure annual salary.<\/p>\n

Hoskins and Bell are more straightforward one-year deal candidates. The former is coming off a .237\/.332\/.416 showing with 12 homers in 90 games for the Brewers. He got out to a hot start but had a terrible June before suffering a left thumb sprain. That cost him six weeks and opened playing time for\u00a0Andrew Vaughn<\/a>, who surprisingly thrived in Milwaukee. Hoskins was relegated to a bench bat role when he returned in September. He\u2019s only a season removed from hitting 26 homers, albeit with a middling .214\/.303\/.419 overall slash line.<\/p>\n

Bell has signed a series of one-year deals over the past few seasons. He played on a $6MM contract with the Nationals in 2025, batting .237\/.325\/.417 with 22 longballs across 533 plate appearances. Bell is exceptionally streaky within seasons but pretty consistently ends up as a slightly above-average overall hitter at the end of the year. (He has some parallels to former Twins outfielder Eddie Rosario<\/a> in that regard.) That was again the case this past season. Bell took a .219\/.307\/.372 line into the All-Star Break before rebounding with a .267\/.353\/.489 performance in the second half.<\/p>\n

Hoskins is a right-handed batter. Bell is a switch-hitter who has generally been better from the left side of the plate. A righty bat might make more sense given the presence of lefty-swinging first base\/DH options like Clemens,\u00a0Matt Wallner<\/a>,\u00a0Trevor Larnach<\/a> and\u00a0Edouard Julien<\/a>. Lefty-hitting Nathaniel Lowe<\/a> and right-handed\u00a0Paul Goldschmidt<\/a> should also be available on one-year deals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After entering the offseason as expected sellers, the Twins have seemingly reversed course. They\u2019re now inclined to hold\u00a0Byron…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,3541,822,60,3190,4,130,626,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-471292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-josh-bell","10":"tag-minnesota","11":"tag-minnesota-twins","12":"tag-minnesotatwins","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-rhys-hoskins","15":"tag-ryan-ohearn","16":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115698889338753032","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}