Through One-Third of the Season, the Minnesota Twins Have Shown Impressive Resilience

The Minnesota Twins entered this season with the deck stacked against them. They were a 70-win team that made few meaningful upgrades during the offseason. Minnesota's new manager brought with him the worst career winning percentages in history; their new ownership chair had no baseball experience.

The Twins' long-tenured and highly-respected baseball ops leader resigned just before spring training, leaving untested Jeremy Zoll in charge of the front office. 

The infrastructure was already quite questionable. Then, on the first official day of spring training, the Twins lost Pablo López, their highest paid and arguably most important player, for the season. None of their big bullpen gambles in camp (e.g. Liam Hendriks and Andrew Chafin) paid off. 

The team started the season 3-6. Everything was seemingly moving along as one would expect. But from there, the Twins won eight of nine, vaulting above the .500 mark. This was followed by a prolonged "back to reality" slump, with a 9-19 record over the next 28 games putting Minnesota back underwater by six games. But now they've pulled together another hot streak, winning seven of their last nine to get back within a game of .500 and into the thick of the AL Wild Card picture.

Through these first 55 games, in addition to being without López entirely, the Twins have:

• Gotten zero appearances from David Festa, and just four from Mick Abel.
• Received sub-replacement level performance from their two biggest offseason signings, Josh Bell and Victor Caratini. 
• Seen hopeful lineup cornerstone Luke Keaschall go from promising #3 hitter on opponent day to floundering #8 hitter two months later.
• Sent down key players Royce Lewis and Matt Wallner after several weeks of immense and relentless struggle.
• Demoted Simeon Woods Richardson to the bullpen after he posted a league-worst 7.71 ERA through nine starts.

You look at this series of developments all together, and you'd assume the Twins were 10 games below .500. At times, they've been trending in that direction. But so far they've been able to pull out of their tailspins with winning bursts, and as we pass the one-third milestone in the schedule, they are on pace for 80 wins. That's on the higher end of general expectations and well within range of Tom Pohlad's "We will be competitive in 2026" edict. 

I don't want to heap too much praise on a losing team that's hanging around in a very underwhelming American League, but, it's impressive! How have the Twins managed to overcome their shortcomings and tribulations to reach this point? 

What's Gone Right?
For all that has gone amiss in the past few months, there are a number of important things that have gone swimmingly. And while it's fair to debate the sustainability in some cases, there's no denying the impact up until now. (The following stats were entering play on Tuesday.)

The starting rotation has been (mostly) fantastic. Twins starters are on pace for 14.1 fWAR, which would be the highest in the last decade aside from their division-winning campaigns in 2019 and '23. The collective 3.82 ERA from Minnesota's rotation is dragged down by Woods Richardson; if you remove his contributions from the mix that figure drops to 3.15, which would rank third in the AL behind the Rays and Yankees, owners of the two best records in the league. 

Byron Buxton is as good as ever. He's on pace for 48 home runs and 6.0 fWAR, which would both represent new career highs. Having such an offensive force at the top of the your lineup who can also play a solid center field is just such a big competitive advantage. 

Ryan Jeffers was building toward a career year. He was neck-and-neck with Buxton in WAR before going down with a hamate fracture last week, and that probably understates the impact of his prolific ABS-challenging success. Jeffers will be out until around the All-Star break, which is one major factor standing in the way of sustained success for the Twins, but he's been integral to getting them here.

Austin Martin and Trevor Larnach are taking big steps forward. They rank third and fourth Twins among position players in WAR after Buxton and Jeffers. Not long ago, it was unclear whether either of them would even be in the team's plans for this season. They're excelling with a similar formula: good plate approaches yielding low-power, high-OBP production that nets out at roughly 25% of above league average. 

The bullpen has been shockingly effective. At least lately, anyway. Through 39 games, Twins relievers had the second-worst ERA in baseball (5.81). Since then, in their past 15 games, they have the fourth-best ERA (2.05), and they lead the majors in WPA, helping them go 9-6 over this stretch. It's been a stunning turnaround and while I struggle to convince myself it's going to stay this way, they did just part ways with their two worst bullpen arms (Justin Topa and Luis García) in the past week.

Derek Shelton seems to be resonating. I don't want to blow this out of proportion — especially because, this time last year, the Twins were five games over .500 and fresh off a 13-game winning streak under Rocco Baldelli. That's easy to forget now because of how the rest of the season went, and there's plenty of season left this year. We've seen this Twins team play some bad ball under Shelton. But we've also seen them generally respond well to his presence, and they're now on their second run of scrappy winning baseball in two months.

There's a lot that's gone wrong with this team, and a lot that still could go wrong. But to be within spitting distance of a winning record as the summer gets going in earnest is about all I could have realistically ask for, so I'm going to savor it while I can. 

What are you biggest impressions of the 2026 Twins through one-third of the season? Is it a bad team that's riding a temporary hot streak? A mediocre team that matches its record? Or a potentially good team with more in the tank? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.