Early 2027 40-Man Roster Prediction

[MeleMouth]

Currently, the Twins have 42 players on their 40-man roster, plus a team option for Josh Bell, and without including Ryan Jeffers, whom they should make a qualifying offer to. How are they going to get down to 40 or even below it so they have openings for new players?

1. Do they need to add anyone to the 40-Man to protect him from the Rule V Draft?  

Amazingly, for the first time in memory, the Twins have no must-add players in their minor league organization. Whether that's due to the call-ups they made this year or just a system-wide paucity of talent is a question for another day. They do have players who may be considered candidates to be added and the position of back-up catcher must be filled, but right now there are no must-adds. They do have maybe-adds. These include the following:

• Alex Jackson, Ricardo Olivar, or Noah Cardenas as back-up catcher. None of these scream "pick me." Jackson is in the decline phase of a disappointing career, Olivar might not really be a catcher anymore, and Cardenas might be below-average on both sides of the plate. The Twins may decide not to promote any for now and take their chances on the waiver or free agent markets.
• Other hitters eligible for Rule V include Kala'i Rosario, Tanner Schobel, Danny De Andrade, Jose Salas, and Jake Rucker. All except Rosario had weak offensive years in 2026 and for many those results followed previous years of disappointment. The questions about Rosario therefore are (1) is he likely to be taken in the Rule V, and (2) would the Twins want to give him a spot on the 40-man to protect that from happening? The answer to both questions is "No." Rosario had good results this year in AAA, but it appears that much of that was due to batted ball luck plus perhaps a fun ball that was used in AAA, and many of his underlying stats, such as a strike-out rate above 30%, are kryptonite to the Twins.
• Other pitchers available for Rule V include Matt Canterino, C.J. Culpepper, Alejandro Hidalgo, Paulshawn Pasqualotto, Sam Armstrong, Cory Lewis, and Kyle Bischoff. Pasqualotto might be the only worth protecting. In 70 minor league innings from A+ to AAA in 2026, he struck out more than 12 per 9 and walked less than 3.5/9. In a small sample of 10.2 innings in AAA, he struck out 17 and walked 5. His contact rates are low. Pasqualotto has had arm trouble over the years, delaying his development, but his statistics are interesting enough, including a 2.5 MPH increase in his fastball between 2024 and 2026, that someone could take a flyer on him. Among the others, people have been talking about Culpepper for years, probably because he fit some kind of late-round/big kid/small school profile that Falvey was getting a lot of credit for drafting and developing, but which actually produced almost nobody of lasting value, and Canterino once was putting up good numbers, but if another team wants to roster either of them for the full year, then good luck to them.

So that means one possible addition to the 40-man, raising it to 43. If you read twinsdaily.com or even if you don't but have a basic understanding of math, you probably know that the 40-man roster is limited to 40 players, so at least three players will need to be removed. Here are leading candidates.

• Trevor Larnach
• Royce Lewis
• Aaron Sabato
• Tristan Gray
• Ben Ross
• Gabriel Gonzalez
• Matt Wallner
• Ryan Kreidler
• Mike Paredes
• Tommy Nance
• Jack Anderson
• David Festa
• Anthony Banda
• Eric Orze
• Cole Sands
• Garrett Acton
• Any of four veteran starters (Ryan, Ober, Kremer, Lopez)

 Bucketing these by likelihood, I get:

• Very likely position players: Sabato, Wallner, at least one of Gray/Kreidler/Ross
• Change of scenery candidates: Ober, Larnach, Lewis
• Reasonably likely pitchers: Orze, Paredes, Festa
• 50-50 pitchers: Ryan, Sands, Anderson, Kremer, Banda, Nance, Acton
• Less likely but why not: Gonzalez, a second player of the Gray/Kreidler/Ross trio
• Less likely, full stop: Lopez, a third member of the Utility Trio

Removing Sabato, Wallner, and at least one of Gray/Kreidler/Ross will get the Twins down to 40 players on the 40-man if they add Pasqualotto, which they should do just so people have to type his name a lot more often, and 39 if they don't add Pasqualotto (proper writing would have been OK with just saying "him" instead of writing his name a second time in the same sentence, but I needed to reinforce my own recommendation).

I think they will go lower than that, such as by dropping Paredes and Festa with little concern that another team would take either of them, and possibly looking for new homes for Ober and Larnach, but not Lewis. Orze was unpopular this year, and some of his underlying numbers were not inspiring, but I think the Twins saw something in him and, recognizing that relievers are unpredictable, will give him another shot in 2027. If they remove Paredes, Festa, Ober, and Larnach, that gets them down to 36 or 35, depending on what they decide to do with Pasqualotto.

Then, their final total will depend on what they do with the 50-50 pitchers. To begin the off-season, each is likely to remain members of the Twins, but a case could also be made why each should not be on the 2027 team, although that case might vary significantly between each pitcher. Because prediction on a mass level is easier than on an individual level, perhaps two of the seven will not be on the 2027 Twins, even if we can't say today who those two will be. If two are removed before the off-season starts, therefore, the Twins will have reduced their 40-man roster to 34 players, if they add Pasqualotto.

So that's the summary prediction: the Twins will enter the off-season with 34 players on their 40-man, after removing Sabato, Wallner, Paredes, Festa, Ober, Larnach, one of Gray/Kreider/Ross, and two of Ryan/Sands/Anderson/Kremer/Banda/Nance/Acton; and adding Pasqualotto(!).