The 7 Biggest Decisions for the Twins' Offseason: Should They Try to Bring Ryan Jeffers Back?

[tony&rodney]

Ryan Jeffers had a sweet little run with the Twins. His bat was clearly better than most catchers. If the bat is your main criteria in a catcher, then the Twins should offer the QO and even discuss a contract. For many people that is the main criteria and it seems like past Twins front office peeps agree with that sentiment. This exactly why Jeffers was the catcher, Bell and Caratini were at first base, Keaschall was at second base, Lewis at third base, Lee was at shortstop, Larnach was in left field, and Matt Wallner was in left field in the beginning of the 2026 season. If they all mashed the Twins .....

Ryan Jeffers is really not a very good defensive catcher. While it is true he cannot throw, the biggest issue is with his blocking or more correctly his inability to block balls in the dirt. The solution was to not have pitchers throw those pitches. If a pitcher cannot bury an offspeed pitch, the lineups become more difficult. With all due respect to the best efforts  from Jeffers, the Twins need to find a catcher that the pitchers can get excited about. The Giants were not going anywhere and the Guardians never give up .... next thing you know Patrick Bailey is leading the Cleveland staff deep into the playoffs. 

I understand the desire for a big bat that plays catcher but I want someone who can excell behind the plate and throw out a runner now and then.

[Andy MacPhail]

6 hours ago, laloesch said:

Jeffers is going to explore free agency, I think that's a given.  The Twins SHOULD make him a qualifying offer (so they can at least get the draft pick as compensation), but I doubt he accepts it and instead goes for free agency.  The Yankees are gonna pay him big money so he's likely played his last game as a Twin already.  They made a big mistake not trading him last season before the deadline.  Could have gotten multiple good prospects for him.  They are making the same mistake with Joe Ryan, who's likely gone after 2027.  He too should have been traded by now.  All that said, we know the Twins are not likely to give Jeffers a 4 or 5 year deal in excess of 100 million (20+ million a year), which the Yankees will.   

I'm with you. Still, Caratini isn't a primary catcher, & we need an upgrade, somewhere.

[DataNerd]

6 hours ago, soyouresayingtheresachance said:

Yes, resign him. Caratini can not be our starting C heading into next season. 

Sure we have some nice looking prospects, but they are not guaranteed to develop and be successful. 

If we whiff on Jeffers, Tyler Stephenson is the only other acceptable option. 

Carson Kelly will likely decline his mutual option, and he would be solid option as well.

[DataNerd]

10 hours ago, Linus said:

I love the concept of a failure penalty. We might need Pythagoras to calculate the actual number if we go back to Mauer. 

This is Mitch Garver erasure

[darin617]

12 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

I would certainly offer Jeffers the QO. To me, I think it's highly unlikely that he accepts it, but even if he does, the Twins could definitely work with that (presuming that Tom Pohlad is serious about payroll increasing; always a nervous bet with a Pohlad!). We have exciting catching prospects in the minors, but Caratini is less exciting as a bridge option to carry the bulk of the load than he might have seemed when the deal was done.

But I would go 1 step further and look to sign Jeffers to a longer deal. I suspect he'll get priced out of contention for what the Twins and the front office are willing to consider, but Jeffers RH bat is precisely what this lineup needs. Him holding up at catcher for the full 4 seasons he's almost certainly going to get is unlikely...but also not something the Twins need to fear at the same level as other teams might. His skill set translates well to transitioning out of "full-time" catching, whether that's more time at DH or playing some 1B and any concerns you might have over Jeffers being unhappy at playing less at catcher should be alleviated just fine by the big numbers in his paycheck. Much easier for him to accept a time-share when he's not playing for the biggest contract of his life.

I'd do 4 years and $60M in a heartbeat. Frankly, I'd go up to 4 years and $80M. (I think it's almost impossible to sign him for less than 4 years) Another real question is what if he wants 5 years? I highly doubt the Twins will do 5 for $100...and that's probably too rich for my blood too. But what if he'd do 5 for $80? I'd jump on that and worry about year 5 down the road.

My fear is he's going to get 5 for $100M+ from the Yankees. But I'd definitely make a run at keeping Jeffers and not just as a "wanna take a hometown discount"? Make the goddamn Yankees pay, and pay through the nose if they want him.

Why would you want to give him 4 years or 5 years with Vahn Lackey and the other catching prospects a couple of years away?

 

[darin617]

12 hours ago, Nashvilletwin said:

Re-signing Jeffers is the #1 priority this off season and it’s not even close.

There is plenty of money this year and over the next several years to easily get this accomplished.

4 years/$70MM should get it done,

Jeffers is C1 for the next two years and then slides to primary 1B and/or DH for the last two years.

With Jeffers as our C until the other young receivers arrive, we should be highly competitive behind the dish for the foreseeable future. Jeffers sliding to 1B and DH is a natural transition for a catcher of his ability and age.  His veteran presence will also be a huge addition to our young squad during the tenure of his contract.

It’s a no brainer. And just about the only move JZ and TTT can make to both atone for screwing up not trading him and Ryan while also being the smartest move to keep building toward a true wide open window in ‘28-‘30.  

His bat isn't good enough in a couple of years as a DH and who's to say he could play first?

[darin617]

12 hours ago, MeleMouth said:

You have to discuss these topics long before a Boras client gets close to free agency. Signing Jeffers now will cost tens of millions more than it would have a year or two ago.

Boras doesn't sign his clients to extensions prior to free agency. That would be costing him money. Unless it was a ludicrous amount of money 95 times out of 100 Boras will wait for free agency to cash in.

[darin617]

11 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Agreed, I did say "insanely" signed :)

On his career.....Jeffers would be like 25-30th best hitting first basesman......that's not good enough for that much money. 

If anyone thought he could could hit 11-20% better than league average at catcher for the next four years, that would be worth the money, but I have doubts. 

Vahn Lackey just entered the chat and asked what about him? I could see Lackey being ready sometime in 2028 and some might want him sooner.

[JADBP]

14 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Agreed, I did say "insanely" signed :)

On his career.....Jeffers would be like 25-30th best hitting first basesman......that's not good enough for that much money. 

If anyone thought he could could hit 11-20% better than league average at catcher for the next four years, that would be worth the money, but I have doubts. 

exactly, Mike

He's the best C available this off-season, no doubt.  And NYY will probably outbid everyone else.  Give him the QO (because Zoll screwed up and didn't flip him at the trade deadline) and then let him go to the Yanks.  Fine.

But here is the main point...we have Vahn Lackey waiting in the wings...and I believe he could be accelerated up to the Twins (like, say, Keaschall).  We could see Lackey get a cup of coffee in 27 and be up in early to mid 28.  Lackey has the Mauer-level skills, maybe trading AVG for HRs.

We don't need four years of Jeffers...we need maybe 1-2 years to bridge to Lackey/Diaw/Tait/Tinney.  That's the big picture, the future, which seems to escape so many in the Twins shop.  We just have to make it through that gap.  So, Jeffer's accepting the QO would be ideal, actually.  If not, a 2-3 year contract, but that seems unlikely. 

There is just no reason to keep him beyond 2 years because then we are doing the same thing we did this year...block out top prospects!  Like we did to Jenkins, Cullpepper, and Emma.  If we keep Jeffers, no matter how good he is, we are blocking the next wave of top C talent!  And the move to 1B...if we haven't solved 1B by 2028, then we have far bigger problems in the front office!  

Its time to come up with a smart plan for every position over the next few years, instead of this flailing around trying to fit players where they don't fit.  I expect to see Marek Houston next year...and he can be a lights out SS.  We WILL have to move Culpepper...so MOVE him.  Don't block out Marek because Kaelen will never be as good at SS as Marek.  Twins have to fix this crazy roster!  

I agree that we need to clean up the roster, and guys like Kreidler, Sabato, Wallner, Gray, Ross, Bell, Ober and plenty of others need to be moved on to their next team.  But, I doubt that the Twins will do so.  Therefore, I strongly believe that they also need to move Zoll to his next team also.  This roster is crazy.  

[Riverbrian]

I'm a big fan of Ryan Jeffers. Let him go. Uff Da People

Spending 30 million on the catcher position would be horrible use of limited resources. If you offer the QO... you will all have to prepared of his accepting it and subsequently draining the entire budget. 

At catcher. JT Realmuto led the league with 122 starts. Matt Olson led the league in starts at 1B with 162.

Ryan Jeffers started a career high of 81 games in 2024 and we want to make Jeffers the highest paid player on the Twins roster in 2027. 

If Tom has 23 million to burn. You might be able to land Teruaki Soto with 23 million. 17 Million got Murakami.

Does anyone think Jeffers will get a 23 million AAV when he signs with another club. I don't... Yet we want to just close our eyes in desperation and pay it anyway. 

For 81 Starts at catcher?

Hopefully we can push him to 100 starts for that kind of money. Maybe even 120. That way we will have spent 7 million for 42 starts... 62 starts. 

The willingness to ignore these things and plunge forward is astounding. 

 

 

[Woof Bronzer]

2 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

I'm a big fan of Ryan Jeffers. Let him go. Uff Da People

Spending 30 million on the catcher position would be horrible use of limited resources. If you offer the QO... you will all have to prepared of his accepting it and subsequently draining the entire budget. 

At catcher. JT Realmuto led the league with 122 starts. Matt Olson led the league in starts at 1B with 162.

Ryan Jeffers started a career high of 81 games in 2024 and we want to make Jeffers the highest paid player on the Twins roster in 2027. 

If Tom has 23 million to burn. You might be able to land Teruaki Soto with 23 million. 17 Million got Murakami.

Does anyone think Jeffers will get a 23 million AAV when he signs with another club. I don't... Yet we want to just close our eyes in desperation and pay it anyway. 

For 81 Starts at catcher?

Hopefully we can push him to 100 starts for that kind of money. Maybe even 120. That way we will have spent 7 million for 42 starts... 62 starts. 

The willingness to ignore these things and plunge forward is astounding. 

 

 

The amount of fans who want to flat out cut Buxton because he's a half time player, and yet want to massively overpay for another, worse half time player in Jeffers, is shocking.  

Jeffers has topped 3 WAR once, several years ago.  If you strip out his dWAR he's got about 9 career WAR,  and his defense is average on a good day.  As a hitter he is average at best, and certainly does not hit well enough to play 1B or DH.  

Catcher is likely the deepest position in the minors, and the club's best catching prospect since Joe Mauer is waiting in the wings.  Resigning Jeffers is going to restart the cycle of having old, expensive vets blocking younger, better players. 

For me 27 should be a developmental year.  I don't really care who catches, though I'd love to see Lackey get a look in September.  Spending $30m on average catchers in 27 is a terrible idea. 

I hope fans were happy with those scintillating 2 months we got out of him rather than trading him at the deadline though...he led us to the promised land....of 78 wins.  Can you imagine what would have happened if we had traded him?  We might have only won 77 games.  The horrors!  

[Riverbrian]

I'm perfectly content punting the catching position and just getting a defensive catcher to join Caratini. That way we can take any money we have to spend and add an actual needle mover to shore up 1 through 8 in the batting order. 

Pohlad has already announced we are going for it again. Jeffers and Caratini would mean Goldschmidt for 5 million on a one year deal at 1B. Or rolling out Lewis again and living or dying with whatever he does. None of this would move the needle. 

 

[jmlease1]

7 hours ago, darin617 said:

Why would you want to give him 4 years or 5 years with Vahn Lackey and the other catching prospects a couple of years away?

 

Because Lackey is still a couple of years away, and we'll still need a second catcher even if Lackey rocks it out the gate? (betting on multiple catching prospects who have never played above A-ball being ready and not busting/having a set-back by 2028 is...risky.) 4 years would work out reasonably well. 

• 2027 Jeffers is the primary, with Caratini as the backup
• 2028 Jeffers and Lackey together, with Jeffers getting more starts early in the season, Lackey maybe getting more late
• 2029 Jeffers as the second catcher to Lackey's starter, while getting more 1B/DH time to keep his RH bat in the lineup
• 2030 Jeffers is playing mostly 1B/DH, but still catching once a week to keep Lackey fresh.

The contract might not pay out by 2030, but the value is definitely there on the front end.

The real question is what kind of hitter you think Jeffers really is. If he's a RH slugger who can be trusted to put up an OPS+ of 120 or better, then he's probably worth the deal. If you think he's more of a 100-110 OPS+ hitter, then you let someone else pay the freight.

And frankly, I'd rather make a bet on Jeffers as a place to spend money on the position side over most of the 1B options, and roll with the prospect depth in the OF and middle infield.

[nicksaviking]

22 hours ago, MeleMouth said:

$20 million per year for an above-average, but not great, hitter to play 1B in a potentially salary-capped league seems like a risky way to spend. Further, the Twins are likely to be closer to the floor than the ceiling, so Jeffers could be well more than 10% of the payroll. Yandy Diaz is now more than 10% of Tampa's payroll, but he's a better hitter than Jeffers, and his current contract was 4 years/$36 million. 

I think you overestimate the quality of player you are going to get for 20M these days. 

[Mike Sixel]

19 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I think you overestimate the quality of player you are going to get for 20M these days. 

Not to mention availability. 

[MeleMouth]

39 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I think you overestimate the quality of player you are going to get for 20M these days. 

Last winter, the following players signed for less than $20M/year:

Murakami, Iglesias, Robert Suarez, Nick Martinez, Dustin May, Tyler Rogers, Arraez, Luke Weaver, Mahle, Soto. The Twins would have been happy to have any of these 10 players for the amounts they were paid.

The following players signed for $20M/year or more: 

Merrill Kelly, Polanco, Ha-Seong Kim, Gallen, Woodruff, Edwin Diaz, Framber Valdez, Bichette, Kyle Tucker. The Twins would be grateful not to have had any of these 9 contracts on their books.

Maybe you read the value and availability of players making more or less than $20M differently than I do.

If a salary cap happens, there will be downward pressure on wages, making $20M a potentially big problem for a team like the Twins. Even without a salary cap, the Twins should not spend $20M (more than 10% of payroll) on someone who has only had one half-season of excellent offense in his career (Jeffers had good results in 2023, but much of it was caused by unsustainable BABIP) under a plan that he would play 1B in 2028-30.

[MeleMouth]

20 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

Ryan Jeffers had a sweet little run with the Twins. His bat was clearly better than most catchers. If the bat is your main criteria in a catcher, then the Twins should offer the QO and even discuss a contract. For many people that is the main criteria and it seems like past Twins front office peeps agree with that sentiment. This exactly why Jeffers was the catcher, Bell and Caratini were at first base, Keaschall was at second base, Lewis at third base, Lee was at shortstop, Larnach was in left field, and Matt Wallner was in left field in the beginning of the 2026 season. If they all mashed the Twins .....

Ryan Jeffers is really not a very good defensive catcher. While it is true he cannot throw, the biggest issue is with his blocking or more correctly his inability to block balls in the dirt. The solution was to not have pitchers throw those pitches. If a pitcher cannot bury an offspeed pitch, the lineups become more difficult. With all due respect to the best efforts  from Jeffers, the Twins need to find a catcher that the pitchers can get excited about. The Giants were not going anywhere and the Guardians never give up .... next thing you know Patrick Bailey is leading the Cleveland staff deep into the playoffs. 

I understand the desire for a big bat that plays catcher but I want someone who can excell behind the plate and throw out a runner now and then.

This is exactly right. These catcher skills aren't noticed nearly as much as offense, but they are more correlated with winning and they often cost less.

[nicksaviking]

Just now, MeleMouth said:

Last winter, the following players signed for less than $20M/year:

Murakami, Iglesias, Robert Suarez, Nick Martinez, Dustin May, Tyler Rogers, Arraez, Luke Weaver, Mahle, Soto. The Twins would have been happy to have any of these 10 players for the amounts they were paid.

The following players signed for $20M/year or more: 

Merrill Kelly, Polanco, Ha-Seong Kim, Gallen, Woodruff, Edwin Diaz, Framber Valdez, Bichette, Kyle Tucker. The Twins would be grateful not to have had any of these 9 contracts on their books.

Maybe you read the value and availability of players making more or less than $20M differently than I do.

If a salary cap happens, there will be downward pressure on wages, making $20M a potentially big problem for a team like the Twins. Even without a salary cap, the Twins should not spend $20M (more than 10% of payroll) on someone who has only had one half-season of excellent offense in his career (Jeffers had good results in 2023, but much of it was caused by unsustainable BABIP) under a plan that he would play 1B in 2028-30.

I don't want any of those players listed. Jeffers is better than all of them.

If the Twins had a 200M payroll (they won't) they absolutely HAVE to spend more than 20M on a player. 10% of the payroll is nothing when 75% of your roster is still on their rookie contracts. 

This team has no business trying to shop for bargain free agents any longer. They have way too many affordable internal options with exponentially higher ceilings they can use instead of the bottom tier free agents they tend to acquire. One or two big free signings only. Going quantity over quality again next year would be an utter waste of next year.

[Vanimal46]

8 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

I'm a big fan of Ryan Jeffers. Let him go. Uff Da People

Spending 30 million on the catcher position would be horrible use of limited resources. If you offer the QO... you will all have to prepared of his accepting it and subsequently draining the entire budget. 

At catcher. JT Realmuto led the league with 122 starts. Matt Olson led the league in starts at 1B with 162.

Ryan Jeffers started a career high of 81 games in 2024 and we want to make Jeffers the highest paid player on the Twins roster in 2027. 

If Tom has 23 million to burn. You might be able to land Teruaki Soto with 23 million. 17 Million got Murakami.

Does anyone think Jeffers will get a 23 million AAV when he signs with another club. I don't... Yet we want to just close our eyes in desperation and pay it anyway. 

For 81 Starts at catcher?

Hopefully we can push him to 100 starts for that kind of money. Maybe even 120. That way we will have spent 7 million for 42 starts... 62 starts. 

The willingness to ignore these things and plunge forward is astounding. 

I couldn't agree more RB. Now that you mentioned Teruaki Soto, that's a target I would love to see signed by the Twins. Use the savings from Jeffers and Larnach to lock that in. 

I'd rather spend the prospect capital to acquire Hunter Goodman and his 3 arb seasons than extend Jeffers for 4, likely 5 years until his mid 30s. How many examples do we need to see of signing FA catchers in their 30s and watching their performance crater? Caratini, Vazquez, Jason Castro, Kurt Suzuki...

[MeleMouth]

3 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I don't want any of those players listed. Jeffers is better than all of them.

Some of what you said is reasonable, but you lost me when you say that Jeffers at $20M is better than the players listed were at under $20M.

Also, you said 75% of the roster will be on rookie contracts, but this is almost certainly wrong, unless you define "rookie contracts" as including players in their Arb 3 and Arb 4 years or the Twins get rid of nearly everyone eligible for arbitration (Larnach, Ober, Kremer, Sands, Banda, Nance, Clemens, Bradley, and Lewis). At least five players (Lopez, Ryan, Buxton, Hoffman, and Caratini) will be on post-arbitration contracts, for approximately $65 million, and nine players on the current 40-man who made more than $23 million in 2026 will be eligible for and due for raises in arbitration, for a total of 14 (more than 50%) of the players currently on the MLB roster not to be on rookie contracts.

Although some of the players in arbitration may not be back, others (Kremer, Clemens, Bradley, even Lewis) might get decent raises. Assuming four of the players in arbitration are not back, that still leaves 10 players not under rookie contracts, meaning that about 60% of the current roster will be on rookie contracts. However, this 60% estimate of players on rookie contracts will be true only if the Twins don't, as requested by many on twinsdaily.com, either (a) sign long-term contracts with any of the pre-arb players (such as Lee, Keaschall, Culpepper, Abel, Jenkins, and Prielipp), or (b) acquire a few other players through trade or free agency.

[MeleMouth]

5 hours ago, Woof Bronzer said:

For me 27 should be a developmental year.  I don't really care who catches, though I'd love to see Lackey get a look in September.  Spending $30m on average catchers in 27 is a terrible idea. 

I hope fans were happy with those scintillating 2 months we got out of him rather than trading him at the deadline though...he led us to the promised land....of 78 wins.  Can you imagine what would have happened if we had traded him?  We might have only won 77 games.  The horrors!  

Your whole comment was excellent. I excerpted these two paragraphs because I agree with 100% with the first and 99% with the second, except that the 2026 Twins actually did win only 77 games.

[nicksaviking]

58 minutes ago, MeleMouth said:

Some of what you said is reasonable, but you lost me when you say that Jeffers at $20M is better than the players listed were at under $20M.

Also, you said 75% of the roster will be on rookie contracts, but this is almost certainly wrong, unless you define "rookie contracts" as including players in their Arb 3 and Arb 4 years or the Twins get rid of nearly everyone eligible for arbitration (Larnach, Ober, Kremer, Sands, Banda, Nance, Clemens, Bradley, and Lewis). At least five players (Lopez, Ryan, Buxton, Hoffman, and Caratini) will be on post-arbitration contracts, for approximately $65 million, and nine players on the current 40-man who made more than $23 million in 2026 will be eligible for and due for raises in arbitration, for a total of 14 (more than 50%) of the players currently on the MLB roster not to be on rookie contracts.

Although some of the players in arbitration may not be back, others (Kremer, Clemens, Bradley, even Lewis) might get decent raises. Assuming four of the players in arbitration are not back, that still leaves 10 players not under rookie contracts, meaning that about 60% of the current roster will be on rookie contracts. However, this 60% estimate of players on rookie contracts will be true only if the Twins don't, as requested by many on twinsdaily.com, either (a) sign long-term contracts with any of the pre-arb players (such as Lee, Keaschall, Culpepper, Abel, Jenkins, and Prielipp), or (b) acquire a few other players through trade or free agency.

Jeffers is better than the players you listed under 20M. And he's a top five, at worst a top ten free agent this year. And there are NOT ten free agents I want on this team. The Twins have too much money to spend, and not enough good players to spend it on. They should be spending big on as few players as they can otherwise they are just going to clog up the roster with low end free agents who aren't materially better (and might be much worse) than the arbitration and non-arbitration players.

The goal has to be to add to the top of the roster, not the bottom. Better players, not more players.

[MeleMouth]

2 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Jeffers is better than the players you listed under 20M. And he's a top five, at worst a top ten free agent this year. And there are NOT ten free agents I want on this team. The Twins have too much money to spend, and not enough good players to spend it on. They should be spending big on as few players as they can otherwise they are just going to clog up the roster with low end free agents who aren't materially better (and might be much worse) than the arbitration and non-arbitration players.

The goal has to be to add to the top of the roster, not the bottom. Better players, not more players.

Hey, if you'd rather have Jeffers than, say, the 2026 performances by Arraez and Murakami, you can have that opinion, or if you think that the relievers I listed at under $20M would not have been at least as helpful to the 2026 Twins as Jeffers, you can have that opinion, too.

It would be a big mistake for the Twins to give $20M to a half-time catcher whose fielding is in the bottom quartile or a 1B whose hitting is median or below, especially if his performance is likely to decline over the four years of the contract. You can come up with all the short-term reasons to do it, but long-term it would be a mistake.

[Woof Bronzer]

5 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

The goal has to be to add to the top of the roster, not the bottom. Better players, not more players.

But resigning Jeffers doesn't accomplish this.  He has averaged 1.8 WAR/yr in his 6 "full" years with the Twins.  Resigning him doesn't improve the catcher position, and doesn't add top to the top of the roster.  And it would almost certainly makes us worse for every other year it would take to sign him.  Unless you believe a catcher on the wrong side of 30 is going to start trending upward...

Lackey's ceiling is going to be higher than a 2 WAR player.  I think he's the "better player" you are looking for.  

[nicksaviking]

33 minutes ago, Woof Bronzer said:

But resigning Jeffers doesn't accomplish this.  He has averaged 1.8 WAR/yr in his 6 "full" years with the Twins.  Resigning him doesn't improve the catcher position, and doesn't add top to the top of the roster.  And it would almost certainly makes us worse for every other year it would take to sign him.  Unless you believe a catcher on the wrong side of 30 is going to start trending upward...

Lackey's ceiling is going to be higher than a 2 WAR player.  I think he's the "better player" you are looking for.  

Lackey is putting the cart before the horse, and I don't care about WAR in the least. Jeffers is going to give you a .750 OPS at the catcher position on a down year and .800+ in a good year, and this team needs to focus on putting the best offense on the field as they can, including behind the plate.

That will NOT happen if they go spend their 50M+ on mulitple players who shouldn't bat anywhere higher than 6th in the lineup on a contending team. 

So yeah, a big part of me wanting to pay Jeffers, is to keep the Twins from spending that amount of money foolishly on multiple players. I don't want the Twins to celebrate their new-found riches and think it's time to go Christmas shopping but then come March realize they just bought a bunch of stocking stuffers and it's too early to toss them out. 

[Woof Bronzer]

1 hour ago, nicksaviking said:

Lackey is putting the cart before the horse, and I don't care about WAR in the least. Jeffers is going to give you a .750 OPS at the catcher position on a down year and .800+ in a good year, and this team needs to focus on putting the best offense on the field as they can, including behind the plate.

So,..it's not actually about getting better players, but rather keeping the same players and maintaining the status quo because we can't possibly do better than the 15th best catcher by OPS over the past 5 years?  I am confused.  

We can't count on Lackey, but  we can count on Jeffers continuing to put up a .750 OPS in his age 30-33 seasons?  

If Jeffers moves to 1B or DH, his awe inspiring OPS would put him around the 30-40th best in the league.  Comparable to Josh Bell.  I assume you are spending $20m/year on Josh Bell too?  

[MeleMouth]

3 hours ago, Woof Bronzer said:

So,..it's not actually about getting better players, but rather keeping the same players and maintaining the status quo because we can't possibly do better than the 15th best catcher by OPS over the past 5 years?  I am confused.  

We can't count on Lackey, but  we can count on Jeffers continuing to put up a .750 OPS in his age 30-33 seasons?  

If Jeffers moves to 1B or DH, his awe inspiring OPS would put him around the 30-40th best in the league.  Comparable to Josh Bell.  I assume you are spending $20m/year on Josh Bell too?  

This year, 15 1Bs with at least 400 PAs had an OPS of at least .800. Eleven of the 15 were paid a lot less than $20M, although Contreras (.901 @ $18M) and Murakami (.825 @ $16.5M) were close. The four who made more were probably whom you would guess: Alonso, Harper, Devers, Olson.

24 had at least a .750 OPS, including Kody Clemens. Only one other - Freeman (.792 @ $27M) - made more than $20M.

Jeffers is a nice player, but he's no Alonso, Harper, Devers, Olson, nor Freeman with the stick, nor even a Contreras or Murakami.

It would have been great for the Twins to have serious conversations with Jeffers a year or two ago, before his price became so much higher. They could have maybe gotten him on a Yandy Diaz deal - 4 years/$36M. But they chose to wait and now he's above the price where it's reasonable for the Twins.

[Riverbrian]

16 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

I couldn't agree more RB. Now that you mentioned Teruaki Soto, that's a target I would love to see signed by the Twins. Use the savings from Jeffers and Larnach to lock that in. 

I'd rather spend the prospect capital to acquire Hunter Goodman and his 3 arb seasons than extend Jeffers for 4, likely 5 years until his mid 30s. How many examples do we need to see of signing FA catchers in their 30s and watching their performance crater? Caratini, Vazquez, Jason Castro, Kurt Suzuki...

At the post season presser. Tom Pohlad has basically told us all that we are going for it. 

If he is going for it... This time... I'd like to see them actually go for it.

Caratini and Bell with a bullpen torn down to the studs was not an impressive attempt. 

We had Jeffers and Caratini on the roster last season for 10 million total.

I'm not sure that Jeffers and Caratini for 2027 at 29.75 is an improvement. 

 

 

[jmlease1]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

At the post season presser. Tom Pohlad has basically told us all that we are going for it. 

If he is going for it... This time... I'd like to see them actually go for it.

Caratini and Bell with a bullpen torn down to the studs was not an impressive attempt. 

We had Jeffers and Caratini on the roster last season for 10 million total.

I'm not sure that Jeffers and Caratini for 2027 at 29.75 is an improvement. 

The problem is, that's not the real question. It's not about whether bringing back Jeffers and spending $30M on catching in 2027 makes the team "better" than 2026, it's about whether that's better than Caratini and Jackson as your catching combo or praying that Lackey is ready by midseason to be a starting MLB catcher. It's about there not being much else on the FA market for catchers that is going to raise the level much past the uninspiring Caratini/Jackson combo.

No, running it back at catcher next season isn't likely to improve the team...but how much worse do we get with Caratini/Jackson as our catchers next season and not having Jeffers' RH bat in the lineup?

The best opportunities to improve the team from 2026 is in player development with prospects like Jenkins, Culpepper, Rodriguez, Roden, etc. Keaschall not having a terrible start to the season. Lee taking another step forward. Investing in the bullpen (there's actual options on the FA market there).

Would I be happier with Jeffers/Jackson as the catching pairing and not be carrying Caratini's contract for another season? Sure. But we made a bet (and a not unreasonable one) that Caratini would be good enough to bridge us at catcher until prospects like Tait might be read. We probably lost that bet because Caratini has been so bad at the plate. But we're not actually stuck with that decision if we're willing to spend the money, and in this FA market, trying to run Jeffers back on a 3-4 year deal is actually an impact signing.

Probably won't happen anyways; Yankees might offer him $100M+ on a 4-5 year deal and he'd be crazy not to take it. But I'd rather spend money on Jeffers and 2 high leverage relievers than 1B/2B/DH (plus relief) in this market.

[farmerguychris]

On 10/20/2026 at 1:31 AM, darin617 said:

Why would you want to give him 4 years or 5 years with Vahn Lackey and the other catching prospects a couple of years away?

 

Agreed - we don't NEED him for 4-5 years..... One more to see if Lackey can be ready by then.  Plus - I think we've learned that signing 30 year old catchers for more than a year isn't a great plan.  Example of Caratini and Vazquez,,,,,,