A Way-Too-Early Minnesota Twins 2026 Opening Roster Projection

[beckmt]

Saw tonight that Festa should be ready for spring training.  Do not know if this makes a difference, but if healthy would give him a good chance of being on the roster.  

Does Fitz play SS, that may be the short term solution.  Don't see the Twins spending any major money this winter.  Expect Ryan to be traded, since he does not seem to want to be here.  Rest will sort itself out next season, as we need to get most of these hitters to 1000 mlb plate appearances and  see what we have. Outside of a reclamation project or two, don't see signing any bullpen help.  They will just see what they have.  

[tony&rodney]

Josh Naylor will cost somebody $80-100M over 4-5 years. The Twins are not going there.

There will be some potential for 4-7 trades this offseason. The roster churn will continue. The current roster is a surefire 100 loss outfit. The late July purge will continue rendering most of the guesses from this article and the comments far off.

We should take another look in a couple of months.

Until then, I hope everyone is enjoying watching the current Twins and finding a little time to follow the last week of regular season games across baseball.

[TwinsDr2021]

17 hours ago, DocBauer said:

Totally get where you are coming from. And at some point, a signing like we're speaking about doesn't make sense. But considering how low the Twins payroll projects to be once Larnach is presumably moved out...$90M...and factoring in the minority cash flow to eliminate debt, the Twins have room to add to the payroll and still end up less than the approximate $140M that the BEGAN 2025 with.

Again, you logic makes sense but if I am the owner, I have been hearing the same stuff for the last few years. 

5.25 for Santana, 10 plus for Farmer, 6 for Margot, 4 for DeSclafani, How many tens of millions on CC, how much on Donaldson, 3.5 for Bader, 11 for Gallo. 

If I am the owner I fire this FO and would be willing to do what you say, but if I don't fire, I am done with spending money.

[Linus]

Here is my concern: our current lineup is deficient in scoring runs, fielding and team speed. Adding Josh Naylor doesnt fix this mess. The lineup needs better production from every position except catcher and CF (second base if Keaschall is for real). Some of this could come through guys like Lewis playing better but that is what they counted on this year and we can see how that worked out. Realistically this is a 2-3 year fix and that is assuming Jenkins et al pan out. I think the FO knows this and is why they were comfortable blowing up the pen, and why Ryan and López shouldn’t be buying lake homes. 

[Brandon]

20 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

If the Twins are actually going to try next year, why in the world would 28 year old McCusker be part of that team (His speed and defense, lol)? He played the whole season as a 27 year old in AAA with a .795  which was 10th on the St. Paul team with players with more than 128 at bats. (lower than Gasper,  Julien, Bride, GG (who is 21),  Erod (who is 22) , Fitzgerald, Fedko, Martin and Cardenas) and a whole .24 higher than Keirsey, and less than Roden had in AAA for Toronto (.918)

I wish him the best of luck but I sure as heck hope it isn't in a Twins uniform. Same with Outman and Roden. 

Any at bat they would get would be taking at bats away from a REAL prospect that needs those at bats. 

The Twins generally keep 5 outfielders on the active roster and the locks seem to be Martin, Buxton, Wallner or Larnach, which leaves 2 spots, one should go to a rookie and the other should go to a defender/speed player. 

 

Austin Martin is the speed guy and Rhodes or Outman with McCusker as option 3 for the last spot.  Or if Larnarch or Wallner get moved to DH or 1B then 2 of those 3 start the season.  I think. Walker and ERod and Gonzales are up pretty quickly and Martin could get moved to backup…..

[gman]

13 hours ago, beckmt said:

Saw tonight that Festa should be ready for spring training.  Do not know if this makes a difference, but if healthy would give him a good chance of being on the roster.  

Does Fitz play SS, that may be the short term solution.  Don't see the Twins spending any major money this winter.  Expect Ryan to be traded, since he does not seem to want to be here.  Rest will sort itself out next season, as we need to get most of these hitters to 1000 mlb plate appearances and  see what we have. Outside of a reclamation project or two, don't see signing any bullpen help.  They will just see what they have.  

Fitzgerald has been primarily a shortstop in his career with over 380 games played, He has also played over 100 games at third and second base plus some outfield time. I think he would be a good utility player for the team. The word from ownership that has come out about what they are doing this winter or next year seems too be non existent. No body on the team knows what they doing, the front office does know, and ownership hasn't committed to anything. Heck maybe they are going to sell washers and dryers.

[mnfireman]

The article is Opening Day roster - there will be no Culpepper, Jenkins, Emma or Gonzales for at least a few weeks to manage team control. Keaschall did not get brought up until April 18 and that took an injury to Castro to make it happen. I also do not see any FA signings on the horizon based on the looming lockout in '27, though some 1 year contracts for lower-level MLB players could happen.

I would like to see the team keep all 3 of Lopez, Ryan, and Ober because it's too early to tell what the team's coaches/system can get out of Abel and Bradley and because it doesn't look like Matthews or Festa are MLB SP, time to move them to the BP like the team did with Jax, Duran. and Varland, amongst others.

Rotation (5): Lopez, Ryan & Ober. 2 of SWR, Abel, Bradley, Matthews and Festa. 

Bullpen (8): 3 of SWR, Abel, Bradley, Matthews and Festa. 5 of Fundeburk, Topa, Sands, Tonkin, Lawyerson, Ohl, Raya, Prielipp, Morris and any other MiLB pitcher I may have missed.

 

Catchers (2): Jeffers & Pereda

Infielders (6): Keaschall, Lewis, Lee, Clemens, Julien, Fitzgerald

Outfielders (5): Buxton, Martin, Wallner, Roden, Larnach 

Pereda over Gasper for back up C, I can't imagine any metric would suggest Gasper is better, and he missed too many sweepers and pitches in the dirt.

Wallner should be given a 1B glove the minute he starts his off-season rehab work - it's the only way he sticks with the club given the mass importation of OF coming over the next 2 seasons.

Larnach - see Wallner, but about 2 weeks earlier as he is not currently injured.

McCusker - see Wallner & Larnach. The team needs a RH bat with power potential.

Julien is making a push to be a part of this team next year, but his skill set is redundant and very replaceable with internal options, though it looks like I had a hard time finding one.

The position players pool does not inspire a lot confidence, but promotions of the top prospects sometime around 2 or 3 weeks into the season should pay off going forward.

[RpR]

Projection: ALL these projections are Wrong!