Without further ado, on to the 2026-2027 Offseason Primer!
Payroll
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the elephant in the room. Since 2023, the Twins have cut over $47MM in payroll from their books, from $167.8MM in 2023 to just under $111.3MM in 2026 (per Fangraphs). In that time, much has been made of Joe Pohlad's comments about "right-sizing" the Twins spending and the debt the Pohlad family supposedly took on from baseball operations. The purpose of this article isn't to re-litigate that debacle, as it already led to Joe Pohlad's ouster as controlling owner. Instead, I bring up past payroll cuts as context for the new messaging coming out of the owners suite. Since taking over for his brother, Tom Pohlad has continually noted the frustration the fans feel towards the current level of spending and has noted that it is the ownership team's job to win back those fans that have lost confidence in the team. He has even gone so far as to call past payroll cuts a mistake and has noted that "a $100MM payroll isn't going to get us where we want to go". This all hints at a willingness to spend more on the on-field product. However, Tom Pohlad has refused to give any specific numbers or a range for where the final payroll may fall in 2027. In lieu of a clearer picture, I am going to lay out my plans in 3 main spending buckets: $110MM, $135MM, and $160MM. The idea is that the lower tier keeps the Twins at roughly were in 2026, the middle tier gets them back to where they were in 2024 and 2025, while the upper tier has the approaching 2023 levels of spending. Hopefully, between the three plans, we will have a better idea of what the Twins roster could look like based on the degree to which the Pohlad pocketbook opens.
Non-Tender Decisions:
The Twins went into the offseason with five real decisions to make in arbitration. They already made the first of these decisions by choosing to DFA Anthony Banda, rather than paying him his projected $2.3MM salary via arbitration. This was not surprising given his current recovery from lat surgery and the expectation that he will not be ready to pitch until some time in July. That leaves decisions on the following four players: Royce Lewis, Bailey Ober, Trevor Larnach, and Cole Sands.
Cole Sands (RHP) for $1.2MM - The decision on Sands is fairly straightforward - if you think he's going to be healthy in 2026, then you should give him a contract. Sands has regressed significantly from a breakout 2024, but still looks the part of a solid middle-inning reliever or secondary setup man when health. However, health was a major limiting factor for Sands last season, when he threw a total of only 12 innings and spent most of the season out with an elbow injury. If the Twins believe he is going to be healthy enough to throw significant innings in 2027, he is will worth the slightly over league average salary he is projected for. However, with only two more years of control left, the Twins might feel he is not worth holding on the 40-man roster if he is expected to miss time or otherwise be limited next season.
Bailey Ober (RHP) for $6.9MM - For Ober, it all comes down to velocity. In the last two seasons he has shed over 3 mph on his average fastball and seen a corresponding dropoff in strikeout rate and uptick in hard-hit%. Among pitchers with at least 100 innings in 2026, Ober ranked 122nd of 141 in K% and 80th of that same 141 in hard-hit%. He simply does not miss enough bats or induce weak enough contact to warrant a spot in a playoff hopeful's rotation. I am sure he will latch on as a veteran innings eater for a rebuilding team, but the Twins can do better in the 5th starter spot and should allocated that $6.9MM elsewhere.
Trevor Larnach (LF) for $6.3MM - Larnach had a breakout 2026 and could be the only member of this group to hold actual trade value. However, while he did post a career-high 123 wRC+ this season, almost all of that damage came against RHP and Larnach remains a poor defender in left field. I could absolutely see a team in need of a left handed bat or starting option in LF being interested in Larnach, but I think the return in trade would be minimal. For a Twins team that already employs Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez, Alan Roden, and has Hendry Mendez waiting in AAA as other LHH COF, there is not room for Larnach on this roster. My approach would be to shop him around before the non-tender deadline to see what you can get. If not deal emerges, then the Twins should non-tender him in favor of playing the younger options and allocating his projected $6.3MM salary towards other needs.
Royce Lewis (1B) for $5.1MM - Oh boy! I saved the most controversial one for last. Many fans continue to dream on the version of Lewis they saw in 2023 - the flashy, homer-hitting phenom that powered the Twins offense to their first playoff series win in 21 years. Unfortunately, that version of Lewis disappeared shortly after the 2023 postseason and has not been heard from since. Since the start of 2024, Lewis has a .232/.288/.401 slash line, including .234/.283/.377 in his last 296 plate appearances in 2026. Add in that Lewis is now a full-time 1B and the offensive output is unplayable. For three straight seasons, Lewis has not been able to muster even league average offense, despite largely being healthy and asked to play a less demanding position. It is time for the Twins to cut bait on Lewis and recognize him for the player he has shown himself to be over his last 1,000 PAs, rather than the one we saw in stretches during his first few seasons.
For the purposes of the exercise, I am going to assume that the Twins move on from all four of the guys listed above via either non-tenders or minor trades. I do not believe any of them would receive significant compensation in trade and therefore will not speculate on the players they could get back. As harsh as it sounds, the win in these cases for the team would simply be to have the cash and the roster spot back.
Ryan Jeffers:
While I would like nothing more than for Jeffers to be in a Twins uniform in 2027, I find it exceptionally unlike that the Twins would give him a long-term contract. Just this July, the Twins selected Vahn Lackey 3rd overall to be their catcher of the future and Jeffers will turn 30 during the upcoming season. While he has the bat to survive a drop in productivity (or a potential move from catcher), I doubt the Twins are too keen on giving a significant chunk of their payroll to an aging catcher. That leaves the Qualifying Offer as the only means through which the Twins could retain Jeffers. However, given the interest the Twins received in Jeffers at the deadline and has stature as one of the best hitting catchers in baseball, I expect he will receive and promptly turn down the Qualifying Offer in favor of a multi-year deal in free agency. As a result, my plans laid out below all exclude Jeffers. If he does happen to accept the qualifying offer, it would be a welcome surprise that bolsters the team for 2027.
Trades:
Similar to my reasoning above with the arbitration guys, I will not be speculating on trades the Twins could make or the returns they could get for individual players. The Twins are overwhelmingly likely to make at least one trade this offseason and it may be a core part of their roster building, it is exceptionally hard to predict. While, I do love gazing into crystal balls, I unfortunately left mine at home and do not want to lead you (dear readers) astray. Instead, my plans below will be focused specifically on free agent targets that match the Twins needs. What needs are those? Well, I'm glad you asked...
Catcher: With Jeffers soon to depart via free agency, Victor Caratini is the only catcher remaining on the Twins 40-man roster. That was likely the Twins plan all along when they signed him to a 2-year deal last offseason, but Year 1 could hardly have gone worse. Caratini stumbled to a 79 wRC+ at the plate and allowed base runner to steal frequently against his below average arm. The Twins could hope for a bounce-back, but that seems risky when we're talking about a 33 year-old catcher on a team with playoff aspirations. The Twins could also look to re-add Alex Jackson to the 40-man roster, award him an estimated $1.5MM in arbitration, and give him the backup catcher job. However, Jackson brings his own question marks at the plate and seldom played for the Twins in 2026. If they are serious about contending in 2027, this is a group that will need some external reinforcements.
Bullpen: To the surprise of nobody paying attention, the Twins bullpen was terrible in 2026. For the first several months of the season, they were near unwatchable and routinely let winnable games slip away. They did have some positive developments as the year progressed. Andrew Morris seemed to emerge as a late-inning option for several months, before struggling down the stretch. The same could be said of waiver pickup, Yoendrys Gomez, before his command and control turned back into a pumpkin in August and September. The Twins also bought relievers at the deadline, bringing in AJ Minter, Jeff Hoffman, and Tommy Nance. All three were very effective in their new uniforms and both Hoffman and Nance will return in 2027. However, the Twins will need to acquire a primary lefty to replace AJ Minter, as leaving Kody Funderburk in that role would be ill-advised. Overall, this group projects to be much better than the one that started 2026. Hoffman is legitimate high-end option and Morris, Nance, and Gomez all provide a decent enough floor and ceiling for the middle innings through the 7th inning. Ideally, the Twins would supplement this group with a good left-handed setup man and another high-end reliever of either handedness. That should be enough to get this bullpen back to average or better and provide more overall length.
Right-Handed Bat / 1B or 2B: Stop me if you've heard this before, the Twins struggled against left-handed pitching last year. Shocking, right? Joking aside, the Twins have consistently failed to knock around left-handed arms since the Bomba Squad in 2019. Even with these repeated issues, they front office has not seemed willing to meaningfully invest in RHH bench bats to platoon with their many LHH options. This led to the Twins ranking 22nd among 30 teams in wRC+ against LHP. That comes while employing Ryan Jeffers, who smashed LHP to the tune of a 128 wRC+ in 2026 and has lifetime 136 wRC+ against opposite-handed foes. Needless to say, a typically punchless offense against southpaws now stands to lose their main sources of firepower. That makes adding a capably lefty-masher an even larger priority this offseason.
Why is this need grouped in with 1B/2B? Well, as noted earlier, the Twins are typically reluctant to invest in a bench bat whose sole purpose is to play against lefties. So why not acquire an everyday player that happens to also succeed against lefties? If that is the goal, the two areas that could stand to be improved are either 1B or 2nd (depending on your preferred positioning of Kody Clemens). This would both lengthen the everyday lineup against RHP, but also address a key weakness against left-handers.
Whew! That was a lot of background work, laying the floor for the offseason. Now let's get to the fun part!
For each of my offseason plans, I will be using the new Dealin The Cards GM Simulator (https://www.dealinthecards.com/gm?team=min). If you are looking to play around with what the Twins (or any team) could look like at the end of the offseason, I recommend checking it out. They have pretty accurate salary figures built into the simulator and display easy to read graphics that show the moves you made. One note: They currently have Joe Ryan's salary at $13MM to match his mutual option, rather than the $9.6MM he is projected for in arbitration. So our actual payroll will be about $3.5MM below what displays on the graphic.
The $110MM Plan:
This plan does just the bare minimum for all of our needs and it's hard to make the case that this roster is better than the one we saw at the end of 2026. For each need, we are really shopping getting the Kmart versions of the players this roster truly requires. Behind the plate, Austin Hedges would be a right handed compliment to Caratini that should offer much better defense and keep would-be base-stealers in check. However, a Caratini/Hedges combo at catcher would likely be the worst offensive position of any team in baseball. Not ideal.
Caleb Ferguson technically addresses the need for LHP in the bullpen, but is not the caliber of arm Twins fans should be hoping for. Early in his career, Ferguson was a plenty capable setup man for the Dodgers, combining above average strikeouts with a groundball prowess. However, in recent years, the velocity, strikeout rate, and walk rate have all trended in the wrong direction. The groundball numbers remain strong, but he now profiles as more of a middle reliever than anything approaching a high-leverage option. He is still 30 years old, so there is some hope of a turnaround, but this is roughly the equivalent to the Twins signing of Taylor Rogers last year. With lots of needs still in the bullpen and no high-leverage right-hander acquired, I am also moving Zebby Matthews to the bullpen. He is at roughly the same stage in his career as Louis Varland was when he was moved to the bullpen and the hope here would be for a similar jump into a setup caliber arm by the 2nd half.
Ryan Mountcastle is a cheap bounce-back option at 1B that offers a 108 career wRC+ and a 124 wRC+ against LHP. However, he is coming off of back to back injury plagued and unproductive years, including 2026 where he suffered both a fractured foot and an oblique strain. If he gets back to his career norms, he is a capable everyday 1B or, at worst, short-side platoon partner for Clemens.
The $135MM Plan:
This is where things start to get more interesting. Off the bat, Carson Kelly is much more capably running mate to Caratini than Hedges. Kelly is not quite the level of defender Hedges is, but he is coming off the best two years of his career with wRC+ of 115 and 103 in 2025 and 2026. He also has a career 123 wRC+ against LHP, making him an ideal platoon partner for Caratini. I could see this tandem splitting catching duties 50/50, with Kelly getting nearly all of the starts against LHP. The contract structure should look familiar, as it is essentially just a richer version of the deal Caratini signed last year. The hope would be that Kelly remains more productive and could operate as the bridge option to Vahn Lackey this year and next.
Gleyber Torres certainly fits the bill of a right-handed everyday masher on the right side of the diamond. He brings a career 113 wRC+ overall and and 135 wRC+ against LHP, along with roughly average 2nd base defense to the team. He is a remarkably consistent hitter year-over-year and would be a stabilizing veteran presence in the middle of the lineup. It's quite possible he gets a larger deal than this (even possibly for multiple years), but my hope is that a year where he only appeared in 96 games keeps his earning power in check and he is willing to retest the market next year. This would also allow Kody Clemens to move over to 1B, where he has graded out as a better defender. Overall, this would do a lot to lengthen the lineup, improve against LHP, and clean up the infield defense.
AJ Puk and Pete Fairbanks both represent shots at upside in an otherwise fairly lackluster bullpen. Fairbanks has been a good closer for years, but battled uncharacteristic home run and walk issues in 2026. However, he continues to miss bats and the underlying stuff looks about the same as years past. This would be a bet on 2026 being an outlier and hoping that he rounds back into form as a late inning option. AJ Puk is similar in that he has a long track record of success in big league bullpens. In every season we have seen Puk appear, he has been one of the better left-handed strikout artists in baseball with ERAs in the low to mid-3s. However, durability has always been a concern for Puk and he is coming off both an internal brace procedure and a capsule strain in his shoulder. For however many innings he is healthy for, he should be a weapon, but the availability overall is a question mark. If everything clicks for these two, the Twins could have a dominant late inning trio with Hoffman, but it is very high risk / high reward.
The $160MM Plan:
Is it just me or is it getting hot in here? At $160MM, the possibilities really open up for the Twins to not just address immediate needs, but also upgrade parts of the roster. You will see some parts of the plan stay the same between $135MM and $160MM. Gleyber Torres would still be brought in to be the everyday 2B and Carson Kelly remains the running-mate to Victor Caratini behind the plate. Where things change would be the quality and types of players brought in after them.
Rather than betting on bounce-back candidates in the bullpen, the increased spending room allows the Twins to go after one of the premier left-handed setup men in baseball, Alex Vesia. Coming off a 5-year stretch where he produced 5.6 fWAR out of the Dodger bullpen, Vesia would immediately be the Twins top southpaw and the 1b to Hoffman in the bullpen pecking order. That's not to say he's without warts. Vesia has a lower fastball velocity than you would expect of a reliever with his track record, and even that modest velocity has diminished recently. The good new is: it has not held him back from continuing to miss bats and be effective. Vesia also walks a few too many guys and relies heavily on flyballs, but the overall package is very strong. 3/$36MM would more than double the Twins record guarantee for a RP (Addison Reed - 2/$16.75MM), but it is a risk worth taking to bring in a badly needed arm in the backend.
Additionally, in this plan the Twins bring in Raisel Iglesias to supplement the back end of the bullpen. Despite losing some velocity and strikeout rate over the past few years, Iglesias remains one of the most consistent and effective relievers in baseball. As a 37 year old reliever, he will certainly be available for a one-year deal in the low 8-figure range and would fit in well as the Twins new closer. His experience in the 9th inning would allow Vesia and Hoffman to act in more of a fireman role, putting out fires as they arise, rather than waiting to use them until the 9th.
And that's not even where the pitching additions stop! In this scenario, the Twins could also take a shot at adding Nick Pivetta to the middle of their rotation. Pivetta is available to the Twins solely because of some elbow issues that bothered him throughout the 2026 season. However, the 2023-2026 seasons have been the strongest of Pivetta's career and he looks the part of a playoff starter when available. He brings to the Twins high strikeout rates, low walk rates, and only a bit worse than average home run suppression. Pivetta is a particularly good fit for a deep, but banged up Twins team, giving them some additional upside and also acting as a hedge against other rotation candidates getting injured. In the case of all the Twins starting pitchers making it through the spring healthy, they have several options capable of being stashed at AAA (Prielipp, Festa, Matthews, Rojas, Abel, etc). Otherwise, if the Twins think members of that group are too good to waste away in AAA, one or two could be added to the big league bullpen to make an immediate impact, while still retaining sufficient depth in the minors. That is the case we have projected here with Matthews and Rojas moving to the bullpen, as those two are the pair I think most likely to be relievers long-term.
With the few million dollars we had left over, I chose to upgrade our bench RHH OF from Austin Martin to Randal Grichuk. With a 124 career wRC+ against LHP (including a preposterous 181 in 2026) Grichuk would provide considerable thump to the middle of the order and be a much greater threat in the box than Martin. He is also an imposing enough hitter against lefties that it would be tempting to pinch hit him against tough lefty relievers in place of a guy like Kody Clemens or Brooks Lee. Twins manager, Derek Shelton, could then reshuffle the defensive alignment with Ryan Kreidler or Victor Caratini to make it work. Overall, that spot on the roster is meant for one thing - hitting left handed pitching. Grichuk does that much better than Martin and he would be a sensible upgrade if they have the money to spare.
What do you think of these plans? Is there anything you would do differently?
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