One Year From Now: Predicting the 2025 Twins Lineup

DH - Miranda 

Not much to argue or dispute what you guys have laid out here.  One of the more interesting 2025 roster decisions will be how Julien fits into everything with Brooks Lee fully on board.  There is no doubt in my mind that Julien will be back up sometime this season and will produce at a desired level.  That will lay the groundwork for how things will stack up in 2025.

We have young talent emerging offensively.  That often entails some ups and downs as that young talent further matures.  The timeline is different for everyone.  Lewis showed that when he's healthy, he's an impact bat.  He just has to stay healthy.  Julien and Wallner were pretty darn good last year but endured terrible starts to their 2024 season.  Brooks Lee had a nice debut last night and he will continue to show promise while probably struggling a bit at times.  Jeffers was an All Star who suddenly hit a wall.  Can he regain his swing??  I like what I've seen from Larnach this season.  I hope he can keep building on it.  Miranda has bounced back emphatically.  

The biggest disappointment for me is Alex Kirilloff.  He has such a nice swing, but he's running out of runway.  Especially when you see the improvement from Miranda and Larnach.  And there is still Emmanuel Rodriguez on the way and a rebounding Wallner.  And as always Walker Jenkins lurks for the possibly not too distant future.  When he's ready, he will shove almost anyone else to the side.

What we certainly have right now though is a rotation that is one SP short.  Lopez is looking much better lately as the staff Ace.  Ryan is showing is first half last year was not a fluke.  He's showing Ace potential.  Ober and SWR look like viable pieces of a rotation.  But that final spot is a black hole and with the struggles of Festa and Varland and the next best options just getting their feet wet in AA there is no immediate or even next year candidate available in our farm system.

Something needs to be done to patch that hole this season and for the near future until Festa or Matthews or anyone else in AA has a little more polish than they do right now.  A trade?  A free agent signing?  A trade or FA signing that brings a heavy expense to the payroll just isn't going to happen with a Pohlad owned team.  That much is a certainty.  Can this front office come up with a miraculous move to put the Twins in a better position??    

Hopefully they can find a trade partner for Kepler and get some kind of return for him, rather than just losing him for nothing. We can replace him well enough this year with Martin, Wallner or even Keirsey who can play all three OF positions.

This would be a very fun offense to watch.   I personally would like them sign a more proven right fielder in the offseason.  Back up catcher is the only other area I think they need to address but won't with Vazquez contract and at least he provides some D.

I would not bet on who is playing 1B.  The rest seems pretty likely but 1B could go a lot of ways.  I don't think Julien is the most likely.  Miranda or Kirilloff would be my guess.  The dark horse could be Yunior Severino who has been crushing it the last 6 weeks.  His stat line for the last 27 games is .412 / .521 / .701 for a 1.222. OPS.

Now try to figure out how the bench works out.  There are a lot of possible scenarios.

I might be one of few, but, I haven’t given up on Kiriloff. He’s just too good of a hitter to overlook. Like Buxton and Lewis, Kiriloff needs one season of good health to show what he can do. The big question is,  is that possible?

It's obviously too early to say, but I will not be surprised if Lee turns out to be clearly a better defensive 3rd baseman than Lewis. I'm expecting it. Lewis also has not shown he can be relied upon. If Lee performs and stays up in the bigs this is what I would do. 

1st. Miranda everyday starter.

2nd. Lewis everyday starter (if available) Julien if not. 

SS. Carlos everyday. 

3rd. Lee everyday.

Catcher. Jeffers starter.

Left. Larnach mostly against rightys but some leftys.

Center. Buxton (if available) Martin if not.

Right. Wallner mostly against rightys.

DH in rotation.

Castro backs up left, center, 3rd, 2nd and SS.

Martin backs up the outfield. If Buxton is down Keirsey backs up center.

If Lewis is healthy, Julien gets at bats backing up 1st, 2nd and DHing.

Backup catcher Vazquez or Carmago if they can somehow unload Vazquez.

The 13th man? Kirilloff has a chance, but is limited defensively for this kind of role.

Lee and Castro are the primary SS backups.

There will be additions.

1 hour ago, TopGunn#22 said:

Something needs to be done to patch that hole this season and for the near future until Festa or Matthews or anyone else in AA has a little more polish than they do right now.  A trade?  A free agent signing?

Don't see a trade or free agent signing with the projected payroll for next year. That 5th starter has to come from this group - Festa, Varland, Paddack, Matthews, Morris, Lewis, Raya. That's a lot of possibilities which is another reason they won't bring any starting pitcher in from the outside.

17 minutes ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

#5 SP most likely will be a scrap heap guy as always.  A Montas, Manaea type maybe?

I think it's Paddack until Festa or Matthews take his spot.

1 minute ago, IndianaTwin said:

I was having the same thought while listening to last night. If Lewis is back by even Aug. 1, that's a 20-25 game audition. These things have a way of working themselves out, so I don't get too anxious about this, and it's a good problem to have, but it does create an interesting situation with Lewis and Lee if Lee shows himself better defensively. The assumption has been that one of them will transition to 2B, but Lee didn't play there a ton and Lewis played none (or virtually none). Teams tend to give the incumbent his job back when returning from injury, but I'm not sure it's that clear cut.  

Yeah I think the only argument against putting Lewis at second is injury risk. With the new rules this is minimized. Lee's arm will prove to be more reliable and accurate than Lewis'.

" If he DOES, he has a role playing 3 days a week.."

With his injury history the seeds are already being planted for lewis to move to first base where his defense will be great and lee will stick at third and as for second base austin martin with miranda dhing and giving rest at 1st and 3rd.  Julien is a ?mark right now and wallner might be traded

I pretty much agree with you on the starters except Larnach. He's a good player but not a starter (Castro will get the nodd before him) & will get plenty of playing time in the cOF but he is not a steady starter. I still put Kiriloff as a better hitter than Larnach. In the beginning of the season, Kiriloff was hitting great. If we didn't sign Santana & kept Kiriloff at 1B & DH to keep him healthy. Kiriloff wouldn't have gotten hurt & slumped, he'd have had a great season. Plus Miranda would have more playing time.

We have a great roster of young players in '24. It was a waste to have signed Santana & Margot that took precious playing time from our superior younger players to cement themselves in their starting positions so we could have an even better '25 roster. I would have like to see what Keirsey can do earlier this season & get his feet wet (he's not getting any younger).

Emma & Severino are great players but it'll be hard to squeeze them in because of the players ahead of them at cOF & 1B. There is talk about trading Kiriloff, I'd absolutely not do that because his stock is almost worthless & he's still a pretty good hitter, If they don't want to play Julien at 1B then trade him. Can we pick up a good SP deal with MIA? Here's something else for you to think about.  Jeffers's contract will be up soon, will they extend him? With Boras as his agent, I doubt it. So the best time to trade Jeffers is next offseason so we have Vazquez to mentor in a new young elite (LHH) catcher.

Miranda is staking a claim to 1B.  The two big questions are will Lewis or Lee end up at 2B and when will Rodriguez claim a spot.