Minnesota Twins : 2025 Team Profile
A preview of the 2025 Minnesota Twins
2024 Record: 82 - 80
2025 Projected Record: 83 - 79
Notable Offseason Moves
Signed OF Harrison Bader for 1 year - $6.25 million
Signed RP Danny Coulombe for 1 year - $3 million
Signed 1B Ty France for 1 year - $1 million
What to Watch For in Spring Training
I’ll say, I’d have loved to see this team do more this offseason. They do have the benefit of playing in a weak(er) division, but they’re going to need improvements from just about every player on the team to contend with the Royals and Tigers.
They’re certainly capable of putting together a very good season, but we’ll need to see consistent improvements up and down the order. So needless to say, I’m keeping an eye on the offense this spring. I want to see guys get comfortable, and into a rhythm before the season starts.
Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton need to stay healthy, and be the productive, veteran bats they know they can be. The biggest hurdle for those two is staying on the field. Between the two of them over the last 3 seasons, they’ve played in a total of 636 out of a possible 972 games (that’s 65.4%). That’s just not going to cut it.
Correa was looking like he had returned to his old self a year ago, hitting .308 with 13 and 47 RBI before getting hurt early in July. Plantar Fasciitis in his right foot forced him to miss 70 games, which ultimately cost him the entire second half of the season. The Twins will need a healthy Correa for 145+ to compete this year.
Buxton, as well. His injury history is even worse. He’s shown the ability to put together All-Star caliber seasons that have earned him MVP votes in the past. However, he played in just 102 games last year, which is actually the most he’s played in since 2017. They were productive games, sure, but not enough to help the Twins get back to the playoffs after winning the division in 2023.
I want to see what Matt Wallner can do this year. He’s dealt with the injury bug as well, with a hand injury in 2023 and an obligue issue last season, causing him to play in just 75 and 76 games respectively over the last two seasons. A full 150-game season from him could propel this offense to a new height.
He doesn’t qualify due to the lack of at-bats, but the metrics are there for him to be a great player. He just needs to stay healthy.. and get the strikeouts down. A 36.4% strikeout rate is a problem that needs to be fixed.
Position Battles to Monitor
The pitching staff also has its fair share of questions. Pablo Lopez is a stud, and we’ll get into that more in depth later. But, beyond him, it gets a bit dicey. Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober are good. We’ll leave them in the 2-3 holes.
After those three, we have three guys that will be clamoring for the final two spots in the rotation. I’ll just go in order of projected innings pitched. Simeon Woods Richardson is slotted in at #4 on Fangraphs, and he may have earned it with a very solid 2024 campaign. In 28 starts a year ago, he pitched to a 4.17 ERA in 133.2 innings, with 117 strikeouts. It looks very average in writing, it looks very average in metrics too, resulting in a 99 ERA+.
Next, we have Chris Paddack. Paddack was once a highly ranked prospect in the Padres organization. Since his terrific debut season in 2019 that saw him post a 126 ERA+, he has yet to crack the 100 (average) mark in a season. Over the course of his career, he’s been a .500 pitcher with virtually a strikeout per inning.
Lastly, there’s David Festa. A tall, lanky kid who uses a good mix of three pitches. He dominated A and A+ ball, and fizzled a bit as he progressed through the system. In the last two seasons, between AA and AAA, he had about a 4.00 ERA, with a lot of strikeouts and a lot of walks.
Festa’s taste of Major League Baseball last year was more of the same. He made 14 appearances (13 starts), pitching to a 4.90 ERA, with 77 strikeouts and 23 walks in 64.1 innings. We have a type here.
It seems as though you have 3 pitchers that do the same thing, fighting for two spots. Generally speaking, injuries and hot stretches have a way of working these things out for us, but it’ll be interesting to keep an eye on this throughout the spring.
Player Focus
There is one pitcher, however, who stands out among the rest. Pablo Lopez has been a rock for this Minnesota Twins pitching staff. He has made 32 starts in three straight seasons, and has been a model of consistency when a lot of the rest of the team has been in and out of injury stints.
The numbers aren’t dazzling. He’s an upper 3 ERA guy, but strikes out a ton of batters and walks very few. He has three very good pitches, and mixes in a curveball and sinker combo occasionally. He’s also still only 28 years old, so if history serves, he could be just now entering his “prime”.
As noted by his strikeout rate, he’s one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball in getting batters to expand the strike zone. He has a 33.0% chase rate, which puts him in the top 10% of the league.
With a team that has as much negative injury history as the Twins, it’s nice to know you got an ace that takes the ball every five days all season long. In his last four years, he has a WAR of 2.8, 3.0, 3.3, 2.5. Consistency. They say availability is the best ability; when you couple that with consistency, you have a very valuable asset.
2025 Outlook
This seems to be a popular pick among “experts” to win the division. I just don’t see it. Too many question marks, too many injury worries for me to say they will win the AL Central and get back into the playoffs. There’s obviously a pathway for it, but they need a lot more to go right than some of their division-mates.
I can see them being very competitive with KC and DET for much of the season, but have a 20-25 game injury-forced slump that ultimately costs them in the end.