The Minnesota Twins have three players included in MLB Network’s annual rankings of the top 100 players in the league, which they’ve been slowly rolling out this month.
No. 82: Royce Lewis (up 13 spots from 2024)
Lewis making the list twice in a row, despite playing just 140 total games over the last two seasons, tells you a lot about the prodigious offensive upside he’s flashed during his young MLB career.
The 25-year-old has struggled mightily to stay healthy and finished last season in a deep slump, but he also has 37 home runs and 109 RBI in 158 career games between the regular season and playoffs.
If he can just keep his body from breaking down, Lewis has a chance to make a big jump in the 2026 edition of these rankings.
No. 68: Byron Buxton (unranked in 2024)
Buxton is another player with incredible ability that he hasn’t been able to consistently put on display due to injury woes. Now 31 years old, he’s played in more than 100 games just twice in nine full seasons, including 102 last year. Since 2019, Buxton has been an outstanding hitter when healthy.
He also returned to center field last season after being limited to DH duties in 2023. Like Lewis, the key for Buxton this year is just to stay on the field. He had a 137 OPS+ in 2024, generating 3.6 WAR despite only playing about 63 percent of a full 162-game season.
No. 42: Carlos Correa (up 26 spots from 2024)
The Twins’ best player is … another star who was hampered by injuries last season. Correa, who landed with Minnesota in 2022 because the Giants and Mets had concerns about his health, was limited to 86 games, mostly due to plantar fasciitis in his foot.
He was brilliant in those 86 games, with a 152 OPS+ and 3.7 WAR, and his two-month absence from mid-July to mid-September was devastating for the Twins.
Prior to last year, Correa had played in at least 135 games in three consecutive seasons, so the three-time All-Star has much more of a track record of being healthy than Buxton and Lewis. He was 22nd in these rankings back in 2023.
Yes, it remains unlikely that the Twins’ three star position players will all play at least 120 games this season, simply because we haven’t seen it before.
But can you imagine a world where that happens? The ceiling of Minnesota’s offense would be remarkably high. One can dream…
Snubs?
It’s hard to be too upset over any other Twins players missing the cut. Pablo Lopez, who was 56th last year, struggled a bit with a 4.08 ERA and 26 home runs allowed.
You could certainly argue that he still belongs, and I’m pretty bullish on his ability to bounce back and earn a spot on next year’s list, but it’s not an egregious snub.
Fellow starters Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober also have paths to making it in 2026.
Griffin Jax was one of the Twins’ MVPs last season, but very few relievers make the cut each year, and the ones that do are almost always full-time closers.
Speaking of closers, Jhoan Duran is coming off a down year. In terms of other position players, you could squint and imagine a 30-homer season from Matt Wallner giving him a chance to sneak onto the list next year.
