A Look at the Twins 40-Man Roster Heading into a Key Offseason

[Trov]

With the rule 5 draft going to be on hold until after lockout, it calls into question, when will need to "protect" anyone.  There may not be a rule 5 draft this year, so why put anyone on to protect them.  I would have to imagine, that with the lockout, part of any agreement to have a rule 5 draft this year will give teams a chance to put who they want to protect on it.  

It does not look like they have much risk of filling up the 40 too quickly.  The big risk if there is a shorter season, is if the rule 5 is done, and you have less games, it could lead to some teams taking a waiver on a young guy that can ride end of bench more. You can stash pitchers at end of pen to eat up innings in non-high leverage situations, but it is harder to do that with hitters.  Sure, you can do put the 13th guy as a come off the bench late in games to run and defense, if they can offer that, but you really lose out on possible hitting development, so really want to have them play.

Most teams will not take a position player unless they are either very young, and the team will be bad and you just plan play through the ups and downs, hoping it will not affect long term growth, or older guys that it is now or never for them and you are willing to risk the cash. 

[MapleGroveTwinsFan]

52 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Go with the statcast data then, which is bright red except for exit velocity. He puts the bat on the ball, gets on base, but doesn’t have much power. He looks like a slightly below average player which is great for someone on the bench and outstanding for the 27th player on the roster stashed in AAA. He’s Trevor Larnach but $5M cheaper.

So you agree not an active roster player. But he isn't Larnach, Larnach is a legit major league players against right handed pitching, and Roden is a huge question mark. Larnach is an excellent option for a team looking for a platoon in a corner out fielder and DH (not something the Twins need right now), Roden is organizational depth. 

He is closer to Martin than Larnach.

[Danchat]

4 minutes ago, MapleGroveTwinsFan said:

So you agree not an active roster player. But he isn't Larnach, Larnach is a legit major league players against right handed pitching, and Roden is a huge question mark. Larnach is an excellent option for a team looking for a platoon in a corner out fielder and DH (not something the Twins need right now), Roden is organizational depth. 

He is closer to Martin than Larnach.

Roden is organizational depth because they choose to view him that way, they could have given him more chances to prove he's more than that, but with only 92 PAs there's only so much he can do.

[DJL44]

30 minutes ago, MapleGroveTwinsFan said:

So you agree not an active roster player. 

He is closer to Martin than Larnach.

No, I said he’s a good player to have on the bench. He may be closer to Martin than Larnach but I think they’re all below average MLB outfielders. Larnach has a little more bat, which makes him more useful in a DH role than Roden, but a platoon DH is very much a part-time or “bench” player.

[darin617]

12 hours ago, mrguy said:

I've had the opinion for a while that I imagine Larnach and one of the bubble/IL pitchers like Paredes or Festa or whoever will probably be packaged as a trade somewhere. I feel like the package deal could attract a decent enough return to justify. I don't feel like I'd want to 100% move on from those players, but if there's a worthwhile return you could get, either MLB or MiLB, I wouldn't say no.

Pretty sure they only kept Larnach last season was to try to trade him and they failed. Even if they package a minor league player with him or Ober the return isn't worth the risk of being stuck with them at 6m+ when there are players in organization to replace them. Then they could use that money for a legit closer.

[MapleGroveTwinsFan]

43 minutes ago, Danchat said:

Roden is organizational depth because they choose to view him that way, they could have given him more chances to prove he's more than that, but with only 92 PAs there's only so much he can do.

Since the trade he has played 48 games at St. Paul with OPS of .853 (not all that impressive for a 26 year old and lower than Jenkins, Erod, Rosario, Fedko, Kreidler, Wallner, Sabato, Morissette and barely above Culpepper) and 44 with for the Twins.

In 2025 he played 55 games in the majors with an OPS of .556, 

His first 39 at bats this year, .494 OPS, then went on to go 2 for 13. Sure his last 9 games of the year were good (but see my previous post on that two games that really helped that) 

And this is the type of player they should have given more of a chance? 

People love to talk about the Twins injuries, but he played a total of 87 games last year and 85 this year. The Twins have sucked the last three years and people are saying guys like him need more of a chance, it is guys like him playing that contribute to suck!

 

[Mike Sixel]

4 hours ago, MapleGroveTwinsFan said:

He played in 32 games last year with 94 PA, I think it is pretty hard to say look how well the 26 year old played when going into the his last 5 games (against LAA, SFG, Tex) his slash line was .254/.333./.313/.647, and had zero stolen bases and 1 homer for the year) and his homer was off Peralta who pitched 1 2/3 innings gave up 5 runs and had an ERA of 6.20 last year. Two of his five doubles came off of Cam Sanders (who?, a guy traded for cash considerations from a team that finished over .500)

You take away those two games and his slash line moves to .239/.333/.281/.615. Now I realize you can't take those away, but it I am not sure how you look at those numbers and say hey look how well he played. last year. I am not saying cut him with options remaining, but a serious team doesn't have plan for him on their active roster to start the season, 

Too many players have a good or better end to the season doing it against terrible teams and their minor league players, and people say looks how good this guy is. Alcalata and Wallner to some extent are examples of this. They get exposed when they actually play against major league talent. 

 

And yet, people are ready to DFA him because? We don't know..... That's kind of the point. 

[Mike Sixel]

1 hour ago, darin617 said:

Pretty sure they only kept Larnach last season was to try to trade him and they failed. Even if they package a minor league player with him or Ober the return isn't worth the risk of being stuck with them at 6m+ when there are players in organization to replace them. Then they could use that money for a legit closer.

A million times, this. 

[Danchat]

1 hour ago, MapleGroveTwinsFan said:

People love to talk about the Twins injuries, but he played a total of 87 games last year

How many games did he spend on the bench while not being injured? I don't have the time to go through BBref right now, but I imagine he was healthy enough to play in around 100 games this year.

1 hour ago, MapleGroveTwinsFan said:

His first 39 at bats this year, .494 OPS, then went on to go 2 for 13. Sure his last 9 games of the year were good (but see my previous post on that two games that really helped that) 

The fact that he got hot at the end is precisely why he should have gotten more chances. Yes, he was bad to start out, but maybe with more experience vs MLB pitching he might improve over time. He didn't look hopeless at the plate like Fedko/Ross/Sabato did.

1 hour ago, MapleGroveTwinsFan said:

And this is the type of player they should have given more of a chance? 

Yes! He's at the exact same age and almost the same amount of PAs in the majors as Brent Rooker did when he was traded away. Yep, only 13 PAs apart at this point. Both had rough careers to this point but turned it around, I'd be willing to gamble some 2027 PAs on him in the majors. I don't think he'll do that much damage to the roster, given he was a slightly above replacement level player last year.

[Woof Bronzer]

22 hours ago, Linus said:

A huge factor in all these decisions is are the Twins really trying to win?  Several roster decisions will be different if you are going to try and make the playoffs next year compared to build for 27/28. 

Tom has publicly said that not only is it the goal, but the "expectation" that the Twins make the playoffs in 27.  

[Linus]

1 hour ago, Woof Bronzer said:

Tom has publicly said that not only is it the goal, but the "expectation" that the Twins make the playoffs in 27.  

yep, I know what he says to the fans. Don’t necessarily believe it’s what he is telling Zoll. 

[D.C Twins]

2 hours ago, Woof Bronzer said:

Tom has publicly said that not only is it the goal, but the "expectation" that the Twins make the playoffs in 27.  

It is season ticket sales season!