\n\tMinnesota Twins pitchers and catchers reported to camp on Thursday, so spring training is officially on. Position players will trickle in over the weekend leading up to the first full-squad workout next Monday. Exhibition action kicks off with a contest against the Gophers on Friday, February 20th, followed by the first Grapefruit League game against Boston the following day.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tComing off a 92-loss season, and a chaotic winter that saw more change off the field than on, expectations are fairly low but uncertainty is running high. The Twins have much to figure out and many questions to answer in the six weeks leading up to Opening Day in Baltimore on March 26th.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\tKey Position Battles<\/p>\n
\n\tBackup SS: Brooks Lee<\/a> has not proven himself in terms of ability or durability, making this a critical piece of depth. The main contenders are Ryan Kreidler<\/a>, Tristan Gray<\/a> and Orlando Arcia<\/a>, with the latter needing to earn a spot on the 40-man roster.\n<\/p>\n \n\t4th and 5th SP: The three proven veterans \u2014 Joe Ryan<\/a>, Pablo Lopez<\/a>, Bailey Ober<\/a> \u2014 are locked into the top spots, leaving the bottom of the rotation open for competition. Presumably Simeon Woods Richardson<\/a> and Taj Bradley<\/a> are currently stopping the chart, since they’ve got significantly more experience than the rest of the pack, but guys like Zebby Matthews<\/a>, David Festa<\/a> and Mick Abel<\/a> could shake things up with strong, healthy showings.\n<\/p>\n \n\t4th OF: As things currently stand, Trevor Larnach<\/a> and Matt Wallner<\/a> appear to be the starting corner outfielders, at least against right-handers. Byron Buxton<\/a> will of course be in center. The Twins need a player who can back up all three outfield spots, and might have room for only one between Austin Martin<\/a>, Alan Roden<\/a> and James Outman<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \n\t6th, 7th, 8th RP: The following bullpen spots are more or less claimed, pending health: Cole Sands<\/a>, Taylor Rogers<\/a>, Justin Topa<\/a>, Eric Orze<\/a>, Anthony Blanda. These are all relatively proven MLB relievers. That leaves three spots up for grabs among a group that includes incumbents Kody Funderburk<\/a> and Travis Adams<\/a>, along with numerous NRIs and starters with conversion potential. It’s going to be a free-for-all, but situational usage in spring games should give strong indication of who the team favors.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \tHealth Situations to Monitor<\/p>\n \n\tBailey Ober: His mechanics were a mess last year, which Ober admits was due in part to nagging injury issues. He spent the offseason trying to get right, but his velocity and overall quality of stuff in camp will tell the story.\n<\/p>\n \n\tDavid Festa: His 2025 season ended with a scary diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome, but Festa avoided surgery and supposedly went through a fairly normal offseason. He’s a really important part of their pitching plans, whether as starter or reliever, so hopefully the righty is able to quickly put last year’s shoulder problems behind him.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tCory Lewis<\/a>: He’s in camp as a non-roster invite and looking to put himself on the MLB relief radar, but Lewis and his intriguing knuckleball will be slowed out of the gate by a “moderate subscap” (shoulder) issue, keeping him down for at least the first two weeks.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tMatt Canterino: Recovering from shoulder surgery, Canterino is not expected to pitch this spring, but he’s still in camp, soaking everything in. It’s been a hell of a road for the right-hander, now 28 with just 85 professional innings thrown, but he’s worth dreaming on because the raw stuff is amazing.\n<\/p>\n \n\tRoyce Lewis<\/a>: No specific injury concerns, but it seems silly not to list Lewis as a health situation to monitor. Last year he suffered a hamstring injury in spring training that cost him the first month, adding to a string of misfortune that finally seemed to let up in the second half last year. How will Lewis look physically coming off an offseason spent building on his healthy finish?\n<\/p>\n \tTop Twins Storylines to Follow in Camp<\/p>\n \n\tBuilding a bullpen from scratch \n\tWBC departures create veteran leadership void \n\t“The one good thing about that this spring is because of the WBC, and we\u2019re losing three starters to the WBC, we\u2019re going to be able to evaluate guys in more meaningful innings. And what I mean by that is, the challenge with evaluating pitchers, especially starting pitchers, in the spring is who they face. Because all of a sudden they end up piggybacking or pitching innings 4-6 and then they get guys that may be in Double-A or Triple-A because Major League players have rotated out. This spring we\u2019re going to have the ability to evaluate because three of our top guys are pitching for their country.” – Derek Shelton to media including Twins Daily on Thursday\n<\/p>\n \n\tEyes on the shortstop position \n\tProspects showcase what they’ve got \n\tIt’s been a long, tumultuous offseason and I find myself feeling as low on the outlook of the Minnesota Twins as I have entering any spring in a long time. Still, I’m very happy baseball is back and there will no shortage of things drawing my interest over the next month and a half leading up to Opening Day. What’s catching your attention as 2026 spring training gets rolling?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minnesota Twins pitchers and catchers reported to camp on Thursday, so spring training is officially on. Position players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,977,978,822,60,3190,4,169,975,976,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-570286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-blog","10":"tag-forum","11":"tag-minnesota","12":"tag-minnesota-twins","13":"tag-minnesotatwins","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-rumors","17":"tag-schedule","18":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116063726815511585","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570286","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=570286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Sorting out the bullpen makeup and hierarchy feels like easily the most pressing challenge ahead of Derek Shelton<\/a> and Co. this spring. They’ve got a lot of high-leverage gaps to fill and a lot of unknowns vying for opportunities. Exhibition games in March aren’t always the best basis for informing important roster decisions, but that’s the task at hand. Keep a close eye on who’s getting put into games and when.\n<\/p>\n
The Twins opted to build around their trio of veteran All-Star talents rather than trading one or more and committing to a full-on rebuild. They see value in staying relatively competitive, as well as keeping these respected voices in the clubhouse to guide a bunch of developing players. But for much of this spring camp, all three of Ryan, Lopez and Buxton will be away, representing their countries in the World Baseball Classic. That could create some tricky dynamics as Shelton looks to establish a new clubhouse culture, but the flip side is that there will be more innings and at-bats available for other auditioning players.\n<\/p>\n
There’s a reason I listed backup shortstop atop the list of key position battles above. The Twins have much to figure out at this all-important spot in the post-Carlos Correa<\/a> era. FanGraphs has Minnesota ranked dead last in projected WAR at SS. We’ve got to see something from Lee this spring, or at the very least he needs to stay healthy and keep the back problems at bay. The notion of Tristan Gray or Ryan Kreidler as Opening Day starting shortstop is scarily plausible. Will Kaelen Culpepper<\/a> make a statement and accelerate his timeline?\n<\/p>\n
On that note, the biggest reason to feel optimistic and hopeful about the Twins \u2014 even if not in the short term \u2014 is the wave of talented, highly-regarded prospects who are on the doorstep of the major leagues. Many of them will be seeing plentiful action in Twins camp, including Culpepper, Walker Jenkins<\/a>, Emmanuel Rodriguez<\/a>, Connor Prielipp<\/a> and Gabriel Gonzalez<\/a>. Up-and-comers like these offer the most compelling reason to tune into some of Minnesota’s 25 spring games available to stream<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n