This isn’t particularly surprising (or even unwarranted), as it seems that for the better part of this century, the winner of the AL Central isn’t taken as seriously as other division winners. Many view the AL Central as the weakest division in baseball
The talent is here for the team to be one of the elite teams in the majors, but that’s not the prevailing view of most baseball observers, inside or beyond Twins Territory.
With multiple players already on the injured list and Austin Martin (who some expected to be a contributor for the big-league club) relegated to Triple-A St. Paul, what needs to happen this season for the Twins to improve from “competitive” to true title contender?
No. 1: 15+ fWAR from Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, and Royce Lewis
Bottom line: the Twins need Buxton, Correa, and Lewis to be productive and healthy to have any shot at a World Series in 2025.
Not only are Buxton and Correa two of the team’s most experienced and expensive players, but they’re MVP candidates when at their best.
For Lewis, he’s flashed the same potential but hasn’t been healthy or consistent enough to be in the same tier as the other two. Oh, and he’s already starting the year on the injured list with a hamstring strain.
While we don’t put a ton of stock into spring training numbers, all reports suggest that Buxton is feeling better than ever.
He enjoyed a great warmup to the regular season, with a .950 OPS, two home runs, and an excellent walk rate across 36 spring training at-bats.
On the other hand, Correa is carrying a .337 OPS with zero extra-base hits and an extreme ground ball rate.
It’s not what you want to see out of your $36-million shortstop but, like we (should) take Buxton’s spring training success with a grain of salt, I’m not going to really start worrying about Correa until the calendar hits June 1st.
550+ Innings Pitched from Pablo López, Joe Ryan, and Bailey Ober
For multiple reasons, the Twins need the top of their rotation to be workhorses this season.
First, if the three of them can combine for 550 innings, that likely means they’re staying healthy and pitching well enough to go deeper into games.
If there is one thing you need in playoff baseball, it’s a formidable top three starters, and the Twins might have the best trio in all of baseball.
Second, and maybe more importantly, this would save the bullpen for the back end of the rotation, who have significant question marks.
Can Chris Paddack stay healthy (I’m sensing a theme here)? If he can stay healthy, how deep can he go into games, and how long into the season can he keep taking the ball?
It’s been three full seasons since Paddack eclipsed 100 innings pitched, and in that season (2021), he averaged under five innings per start.
Even if he can give the Twins 25 starts or more, they’ll be lucky if he hits the 150-inning mark in 2025. Similarly, Simeon Woods Richardson seemingly ran out of gas after about 100 (very good) innings last season.
While I think Zebby Matthews and/or David Festa eventually take his spot, any candidate to anchor the starting rotation will reach a career high in innings once we hit September.
In short, the bullpen will consistently need to cover the last four-plus innings of ball games started by whoever is taking the ball in the fourth and fifth spots of the rotation.
A 3.5+ fWAR season from one pre-arbitration hitter (sans Lewis), plus
Harrison Bader or Ty France
The Twins are going to need one of their many promising pre-arbitration players (excluding Lewis) to step up.
Pick one (or more, if you’re greedy): Matt Wallner, Trevor Larnach, Edouard Julien, Brooks Lee, Jose Miranda, DaShawn Keirsey Jr., Austin Martin, Emmanuel Rodriguez, or Luke Keaschall. Whoever you choose, the Twins need their player development to come through in the form of a very good year from one of these players.
The two players with the clearest path to this threshold would be Wallner and Larnach, who are projected to be regulars, but Julien and Miranda should also get enough at-bats to become qualified hitters.
Just how high of a bar is 3.5 fWAR? It would put this player somewhere around the top 50 in all of baseball.
(I did ask which unlikely things need to happen for the Twins to become a contender, and I really think this is one of them.)
They need another bat in the middle third of the order—someone who puts real stress on opposing pitchers.
When it comes to Bader and France, the two veterans need to make their presences known.
Even with a healthy season from Buxton, Bader likely sees a decent amount of time in center field, in addition to relieving Wallner and Larnach as needed.
He could very well end the season with 500-plus plate appearances, despite not being a traditional starter, given Buxton’s maintenance plan and the need for a corner outfielder who can handle left-handed pitching.
France, immediately anointed the primary first baseman, will look to bounce back after an abysmal 2024 campaign.
For what it’s worth, he accrued 3.2 fWAR in 2021, so a 3.5 fWAR season isn’t completely out of the question, but it is certainly unlikely.
While health was a recurring theme throughout this article, that alone won’t propel the Twins to “contender” status, if we define that term as “genuinely capable of winning it all”.
They also need players to be productive while healthy, which is far from a guarantee for all of the hitters mentioned above.
That was the motivation in using fWAR as a barometer—rather than innings, as was the case with the top of the rotation.
Pundits aren’t off-base when excluding the Twins from World Series discussions. It will take a considerable lift from multiple players to force the club into that conversation.
