From Pretender to Contender: Lessons the Twins Can Take From Recent AL Central Comebacks

[Cody Christie]

 

The last two seasons in the American League Central have offered up something rarely seen in baseball: historic comebacks. Both the Detroit Tigers in 2024 and the Cleveland Guardians in 2025 demonstrated that a club can transition from being out of contention to playing meaningful baseball deep into September. While those teams made their moves, the Minnesota Twins were left watching from the sidelines, questioning what could have been.

Detroit’s September Surge
Heading into 2024, PECOTA projected Detroit for 75 wins, a middling finish for a roster that seemed stuck between youth and experience. By the end of August, that projection was close to accurate. Sitting at 69-68 and 8.5 games out of the division, the Tigers were barely clinging to postseason hope.

The pitching staff gave Detroit life, including the eventual AL Cy Young winner, Tarik Skubal, regularly silencing opposing lineups. The early-season problem was their own bats, which struggled to produce consistent offense. Still, baseball has a way of flipping narratives in a matter of weeks. Detroit ripped through September with a 17-8 record, securing an 86-76 finish and their first playoff appearance since 2014. In a month, they turned from an afterthought into a dangerous Wild Card club that beat the Astros and moved on to the ALDS. 

Cleveland’s Historic Charge
As remarkable as Detroit’s run was, Cleveland has somehow managed to one-up it in 2025. In early July, the Guardians trailed the division by 15.5 games. By every historical marker, their season should have been over. Instead, they’ve charged all the way back, now standing one game ahead of Detroit with only four left to play. No team since division play began in 1969 has erased a deficit that large to take sole possession of first place this late in the year.

For added context, the Guardians trailed the Twins by half a game at the All-Star Break. Now, they’re poised to complete one of the most improbable division comebacks the league has ever seen.

The Twins’ “What If?”
Watching divisional rivals mount incredible turnarounds only twists the knife for Twins fans. Minnesota chose a different path in 2025, moving nearly 40% of its active roster at the trade deadline and signaling a retreat from contention. Derek Falvey and Jeremy Zoll opted to sell, betting on the future rather than letting the roster they’d built continue to fight for a postseason push.

If the Tigers and Guardians have proven anything, it’s that the AL Central provides a rare environment where no team is truly out of it until the very end. The division produced three playoff teams in 2024 and looks to have multiple teams again in 2025. To reach the postseason, both clubs relied on internal belief and late-season momentum to completely alter the course of their seasons.

What Comes Next
Two years, two historic comebacks. The message is clear: the AL Central doesn’t demand perfection, but it does reward resilience. If the Twins want to be on the right side of history in 2026, they’ll need to craft a roster capable of weathering the storm and catching fire when the calendar flips to September.

That means addressing more than just roster depth. Detroit and Cleveland both showed the value of pitching staffs that could stabilize the club when the offense lagged behind. The Twins will need to add rotation insurance behind Joe Ryan and Pablo López while also rethinking how their bullpen is constructed. On the offensive side, Minnesota must prioritize consistency, including lineups that don’t vanish for weeks at a time.

Just as important will be the mindset in the front office. The Tigers and Guardians believed in what they had, even when the standings suggested otherwise. Minnesota, on the other hand, pivoted toward the future. If Derek Falvey and Jeremy Zoll want the Twins to return to the postseason, they’ll have to balance building long-term sustainability with keeping the door open for a late-season charge.

The AL Central has proven to be wide open, and the margin between selling and celebrating can be as slim as a strong September run. Detroit and Cleveland have taken their turns rewriting the script. The 2026 season will tell if Minnesota finally gets the chance to write its own comeback story.

For now, the question lingers: what could have happened if Minnesota had stayed the course instead of waving the white flag?

Should the Twins have tried to mount their own comeback in 2025? Leave a comment and start the discussion. 

 

Image courtesy of © Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

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[Permanent Twins Fan]

So you're saying if you don't sell off half the team, your team might be good every once in a while?????

[mikelink45]

Two years ago this might have been accurate, but the additions and subtractions did nothing to improve our status.  Instead KC holds third and the Twins threaten the White Sox.  

[Dman]

I don't know. You might want to give a bit more context than that when it comes to Detroit and Cleveland.  Detroit sold everything they could in 2024 and still made the playoffs and in 2023 Cleveland traded Civale for Manzardo when they weren't really out of the race.  I think teams have to pick there spots and personally I think the Twins chose correctly this year.  

The other thing that needed to happen to make history is the Tigers pretty much collapsed after the deadline as their starting pitchers kept getting hurt and the replacements they picked up didn't pan out.  One from the Twins who would have been kept if they didn't sell was so bad they moved him to the pen.

Other things to consider.  Ryan didn't have a great second half. Pablo never really made it back.  Ober regressed and is struggling to reinvent his pitch mix.  SWR was out for a while.  Even if they kept everybody including Paddack the rotation didn't really have the horses to compete IMO.

Other players we got rid of like Castro has been horrible for the Cubs.  Coulombe hasn't been as good though not terrible.  Varland hasn't been as good with his new team though he seems to be coming around of late.  Stewart was injured for a while for the Dodgers.  So those players wouldn't have helped the Twins much.  They are likely better than some of their replacements but enough to do what the Guard's did?  Unlikely IMO.

Granted having Bader, Duran and likely Jax would have helped seal some games, but with the starting pitching so damaged it feels like the Twins would have played more like the Tigers in the second half than the Guards IMO.

In the end I just don't see that the Twins had the young talent to step up and make a difference for a playoff run. Festa was injured and we've seen good Metthews and bad Matthews and then no one behind him with Morris hurt, Raya and Prielipp not ready you are looking at Ohl or Adams as a 5th starter some days or a retread AAA starter.  They needed to sell.  Maybe not as much as they sold but selling to create more depth for next year and beyond made the most sense to me.

[old nurse]

The comeback for Cleveland is that the Tigers are having an epic collapse. The collapse allowed Cleveland back into it.  

[Doctor Gast]

Both the '24 DET team & the '25 CLE team have relied heavily on the young players that they developed & stayed with. MN have trouble developing & usually don't stay with young promising players & let them improve, they like to go with temporary outside veteran players. 

For MN to stay steadfast until the end, they have to see their fragile areas & bolster them so they don't falter & collapse. When they lack support, there can not be any comeback. The last 2 years, we looked good on paper. Our rotation depth of Lopez, Ryan, Ober, Paddack, SWR, Zebby, Festa & MiLB prospects we looked analytically, pretty good. But if you looked under the hood to begin the season, one by one, you could see cracks. IMO, the only one that I really trusted was Lopez, and he was the 1st real casualty. Once he went down, our rotation unraveled. The last 2 years, I've advocated for at least 1 veteran inning-eater.

Just to throw out there, today I listened to a STL podcast with Kyle Gibson. He advocates the same as I that he'd like to break in young pitchers into MLB in the BP., They get their feet wet, conserve their arms, help save the rotation & not waste their bullets in AAA. That's how Johan Santana got started.

Another fragile area the last 2 years was INF, Correa, Lewis & Lee always hurt, plus healthy Julien, a liability at 2B. Julien should have been sent down & Martin should have been established at 2B. IMO, these 2 minor differences could have kept the Twins from collapsing & should have been in the postseason both years, But the way it stood there was no rebounding, only continued collapsing. Even w/o the devastating sell-off.

[tony&rodney]

The Twins are a firm #5 in the ALC in talent as this moment in time. Falvey gave an interview suggesting the roster looks good and improvement is expected. If the Twins roll with their current roster, expect a fifth place finish in 2026. A few changes and the Twins could compete for third or fourth place.

[weitz41]

Maybe we can take a step back from our Twins love and say...IDK...In this era of MLB you may need multiple high price players to sustain a winning? Who's a star player or high dollar player on the Tigers (None right now) or Guardians (Jose Rameriez, actually he's on a cheap contract) Just doing a little fishing a here, but in the last few seasons only the Diamond backs and the Guardians have bucked that statement...Are the league average payroll teams getting edged out of the playoffs? Seems like the last few seasons they have. but that is IMO

[tony&rodney]

15 hours ago, weitz41 said:

Maybe we can take a step back from our Twins love and say...IDK...In this era of MLB you may need multiple high price players to sustain a winning? Who's a star player or high dollar player on the Tigers (None right now) or Guardians (Jose Rameriez, actually he's on a cheap contract) Just doing a little fishing a here, but in the last few seasons only the Diamond backs and the Guardians have bucked that statement...Are the league average payroll teams getting edged out of the playoffs? Seems like the last few seasons they have. but that is IMO

Money is always a factor to some extent, but it seems much less so in baseball than in general life. Looking over the playoff teams on the last day of the season, we can identify Detroit, Cleveland, Seattle, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati as teams with league average payrolls. While it is not reasonable to disregard the importance of money, identifying talent via international signings, trades, and other acquisitions remain important as does the development of the minor leagues. The Twins could benefit from improved development among other means available towards improving their roster.

[bean5302]

#1 lesson the Twins can take from recent turnarounds. This front office and leadership group is incompetent. With more opening day resources than anybody else in the division, this front office continues to fail to deliver results.

[D.C Twins]

[Trov]

In both Detroit in 2024 and Cleveland this year, it took collapses of the leading team for them to come back.  Additionally, it was hot pitching for the most part. For the Cleveland this year, outside of 2 players their offense is average.  Only Ramerize and Kwan had higher than a 2 bWAR. They had 1 good starting pitcher overall, Gavin Williams, but their pen was above average, and they won a lot of low scoring close games. 

The Twins starting pitching started to erode away, with having injuries, eventual ineffective starters and pens.  Our offense was boom or bust normally and could not find way to get runs in when needed. Cleveland did better hitting in high leverage situations, than the Twins who were about the same.  Twins offense was slightly better than Cleveland overall. 

If the Twins did not sell could they have made a push, maybe.  Would the players that came in to replace those traded done better or worse, who knows, different situations.  There is not much to clean from hot runs and huge collapses other than there is a reason they play 162.