chpettit19’s 2026 Payroll Blueprint: Never Going to Happen Dream Offseason

[chpettit19]

*I used The Athletic's contract estimates on the bigger free agents. Bo for 8/212 and Naylor for 4/92.

I don't buy into the idea that you can't sign big free agents until the rest of your roster is ready to win. Signing Bo and Josh give the Twins 3 legitimate top of the order bats for the next 3 years (until Buxton's deal runs out). That leaves Keaschall, Lewis, Martin, Emma, Jenkins, GG, Wallner, Lee, Mendez, Culpepper, etc. to fill the gaps and hopefully take the offense to a place where it's legitimate. Bo can move to 2B if/when Culpepper, Houston, or hopefully Roch are ready and better defenders at SS. The Twins are no longer relying on youth to fill 4 of 5 spots at the top of the order, but instead they need to fill 2. If Lewis and Wallner bounce back and Keaschall maintains, there's your 4th, 5th, and 6th bats (not lineup order, just quality bats) for those 3 years and you have a legitimate, playoff quality offense before you even have to start thinking about the guys still in the minors.

I traded Ryan or Lopez (whoever they want) to Boston for Abreu and a prospect or 2. The other pitcher went for whatever the highest upside prospect or 2 I could get was. Not predicting who, just the player or 2 with the highest ceiling. Needed to free money for my bats. I would utilize a lot more multi-inning arms out of the pen. Festa, Prielipp, Raya, Morris types who can do that 3 or 4 innings every 4 days strategy. That leaves 4 other spots in the pen for 1 inning guys.

The pitching is very likely a problem in 2026, but the hope is to get enough of the young(ish) arms experience and be better in the 2nd half than the first with some real signs of a pitching staff emerging. 

This is obviously a completely unrealistic idea as the Twins aren't going to sign either Bo or Josh, and certainly not both. But it's what I sure wish they'd do. It would essentially be expecting a reset of the payroll to this 110 mark with increases moving forward. Not huge jumps, but enough to cover the arb deals of the players that show they're worth it with Naylor and Buxton's deals coming off in 3 and 4 years to help cover even more. The obvious flaw in this dream is the pitching is now almost entirely reliant on developing arms. I'd trade Ober after the season, too.

• C: Victor Caratini ($7M)
• 1B: Josh Naylor ($23M)
• 2B: Luke Keaschall ($0.80M)
• 3B: Royce Lewis ($3.00M)
• SS: Bo Bichette ($26.5M)
• LF: Austin Martin ($0.80M)
• CF: Byron Buxton ($15.00M)
• RF: Wilyer Abreu ($0.80M)
• DH: Matt Wallner ($.8M)
• 4th OF: Emmanuel Rodriguez ($0.80M)
• Utility: Brooks Lee ($0.80M)
• Utility: Ryan Fitzgerald ($0.80M)
• Backup C: Jhonny Pereda ($.8M)
• POS: Add Dead Money Here ($0.00M)
• SP1: Bailey Ober ($4.6M)
• SP2: Simeon Woods Richardson ($.8M)
• SP3: Zebby Matthews ($.8M)
• SP4: Mick Abel ($0.80M)
• SP5: Taj Bradley ($0.80M)
• RP: David Festa ($.8M)
• RP: Connor Preilipp ($0.80M)
• RP: Marco Raya ($1.30M)
• RP: Andrew Morris ($0.80M)
• RP: Kody Funderburk ($0.80M)
• RP: Cole Sands ($0.80M)
• RP: Pierson Ohl ($0.80M)
• RP: Travis Adams ($0.80M)
• POS: Add Dead Money Here ($0.00M)

Payroll is 13.09% under budget

[SF Twins Fan]

I don’t understand signing two veteran position players but then trading away your two best pitchers and signing no bullpen help.  Are you hoping to win games 10 - 9?

[chpettit19]

28 minutes ago, SF Twins Fan said:

I don’t understand signing two veteran position players but then trading away your two best pitchers and signing no bullpen help.  Are you hoping to win games 10 - 9?

As opposed to keeping the 2 best pitchers and having 1 legit hitter and winning games 1-0?

I'm not trying to compete for the playoffs in 2026. This is my hopes for their rebuild. Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez are gone after 2027. Letting them leave for 2 comp picks total would be one of the worst decisions this team has ever made so they need to trade them before 2027. I'd prefer to trade them now and bring in guys that I will have in 2+ years when the rebuild should be much closer to completed. Replacing them with Bo and Josh gives this team their best chance of having 1 side of the ball not have to have real work done over the next 4 years. The position player side of the roster shouldn't need any real work for 3 or 4 years while Buxton, Bo, and Naylor are locking down the top of the lineup.

Or you can keep the 2 pitchers, still have no real chance at the playoffs in 2026, trade them after 2026 and be in the same place, but without Bo Bichette and Josh Naylor in your lineup.

[Mike Sixel]

39 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

As opposed to keeping the 2 best pitchers and having 1 legit hitter and winning games 1-0?

I'm not trying to compete for the playoffs in 2026. This is my hopes for their rebuild. Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez are gone after 2027. Letting them leave for 2 comp picks total would be one of the worst decisions this team has ever made so they need to trade them before 2027. I'd prefer to trade them now and bring in guys that I will have in 2+ years when the rebuild should be much closer to completed. Replacing them with Bo and Josh gives this team their best chance of having 1 side of the ball not have to have real work done over the next 4 years. The position player side of the roster shouldn't need any real work for 3 or 4 years while Buxton, Bo, and Naylor are locking down the top of the lineup.

Or you can keep the 2 pitchers, still have no real chance at the playoffs in 2026, trade them after 2026 and be in the same place, but without Bo Bichette and Josh Naylor in your lineup.

This is a really fascinating idea! Like you say, a dream to be sure.....but there is a bit of logic here that makes sense. 

[chpettit19]

14 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

This is a really fascinating idea! Like you say, a dream to be sure.....but there is a bit of logic here that makes sense. 

My 1 semi-logical post for the month! Enjoy!

[tony&rodney]

Naylor is my top addition. Money might sway him if there are bones on the team. You suggest that Bo Bichette is unrealistic and while I commend your thought process it looks a little like my suggestion to add Aaron Judge a few years back, although more realistic. I don't think the money is doable despite plenty of room in the yearly budget. I think the Twins struggle to look long term making a potentially solid signing like Bichette scary because they will focus on the total package. Additionally, Bichette is pretty done as a shortstop long term. Still I can get behind that signing and price.

The talent on the roster must be upgraded and with it seeming highly unlikely that the Twins will contend in 2026 or 2027 hard decisions need to be made on Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez.

Thanks for the proposals. I'm hoping there is more energy on this than there was last season despite the general uncertainty of the paths the team will actually take for 2026.

 

[chpettit19]

44 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Naylor is my top addition. Money might sway him if there are bones on the team. You suggest that Bo Bichette is unrealistic and While i commend your thought process it looks a little like my suggestion to add Aaron Judge a few years back, although more realistic. I don't think the money is doable despite plenty of room in the yearly budget. I think the Twins struggle to look long term making a potentialyl solid signing like Bichette scary because they will focus on the total package. Additionally, Bichette is pretty done as a shortstop long term. Still I can get behind that signing and price.

The talent on the roster must be upgraded and with it seeming highly unlikely that the Twins will contend in 2026 or 2027 hard decisions need to be made on Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez.

Thanks for the proposals. I'm hoping there is more energy on this than there was last season despite the general uncertainty of the paths the team will actually take for 2026.

 

It'll be interesting to see where Bo signs this offseason and what that team's infield looks like as far as where he plays. He certainly wouldn't be my long-term plan at SS, but he'd start there in 2026 and I'd move him as I get a better feel for my infield options during the season and into the future. Sliding him to 2B now, and even DH for the last few years of his deal would be just fine with me. That bat would be huge in this lineup, though.

Unfortunately, I don't think the Twins even call his agent this offseason. Or Naylor's probably. I just think that when you have a roster you know is going to have a ton of minimum contract dudes on it now and in the near future that's the time to make a splash by spending big on proven guys. Having so many minimum salaried guys on the roster makes it so I can get Naylor, Bichette, and Buxton all on the same team without even hitting 110 mil in payroll. Imagine if they could/would just go to 130ish. Another 20 mil lets you keep Pablo or sign a similar pitcher to a longer deal. The key is still development, but there's so much room for big time players when you're filling so many slots with cheap guys. Just need to have those cheap guys be good.

[TheLeviathan]

This is what a pitching pipeline is supposed to allow:

Keep calling up and filling your rotation with young arms while you allocate resources to offense.

I think this is totally realistic other than the Pohlads will pocket about 50M in this scenario and those positions will be filled by scrubs.

[Cory Engelhardt]

For the record, this would be a really fun offseason

[DocBauer]

Wildly aggressive and fun for sure.

Just one small thing, I'm not seeing the $10M dead cap money to be paid Houston as part of the Correa trade. Or am I just not seeing it?

[chpettit19]

40 minutes ago, DocBauer said:

Wildly aggressive and fun for sure.

Just one small thing, I'm not seeing the $10M dead cap money to be paid Houston as part of the Correa trade. Or am I just not seeing it?

It's accounted for in the blueprint but it doesn't show here for whatever reason. But it's on the worksheet when you build the blueprint. The above salaries total 95.6 million.

[Mike Sixel]

6 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

This is what a pitching pipeline is supposed to allow:

Keep calling up and filling your rotation with young arms while you allocate resources to offense.

I think this is totally realistic other than the Pohlads will pocket about 50M in this scenario and those positions will be filled by scrubs.

This. 

[dxpavelka]

6 hours ago, Cory Engelhardt said:

For the record, this would be a really fun offseason

Winning the off season is far less fun than winning the season.  See:  Vikings, Minnesota, 2025