The Minnesota Twins slayed some demons last season. They won their 1st playoff game 2 days shy of exactly 19 years ago. They won their first playoff series 2 days shy of exactly 21 years ago & they won their first playoff road game 19 years &… yep 2 days ago.
“We’ve got a sense of what this is like. We’ve got a sense of what’s next. We’ve gotten over a lot of humps this season that we needed to go over. Now we have a new hunger for October baseball.”
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Twins C Ryan Jeffers
So… “2days*” the day we move on to a new season of Minnesota Twins baseball with a mission of winning the World Series!
*See what I did there? 2days because it was… nevermind. I’ll show myself out!
“Who’s with me?”
“The team is hungry in a way that I don’t think we probably even were before. You get a taste of something like this, you show this to people, what this looks like, what it is. We’re not that far from playing in the World Series.”
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Twins manager Rocco Baldelli
“I want this to serve as fuel for the guys for next year, because we’re going to be in this spot once again for a long time. If you look at the group of players we have here, they’re young, they’re going to be here for a while and we can build something special.”
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Twins SS Carlos Correa
Speaking of who’s with me, who’s still with the Twins or who’s out & who’s in? Who’s where? Who’s over there? Who is that in center field?
The Buck Starts Here!
The Minnesota Twins are getting their center fielder back for the 2024 season! Byron Buxton is Back! Well… back in the field as the best defensive center fielder in the game! He was just the Designated Hitter (DH) last season as he was dealing with It’s been 584 days since Byron Buxton last played in center field. He’s had a lot of injuries and always wanted to stay “healthy” but he’s changing his mindset to:
“My goal is to be present and available — not ‘healthy.’ If I’m present and available, that means I’m playing every day. If I’m playing every day, my numbers will be where they’re supposed to be.”
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Minnesota Twins CF Byron Buxton
So many people say he’s “injury prone” which we don’t think is the right statement because he’s playing a game that is prone to injury like pretty much every sport. He’s also playing in center field knowing or thinking he can get to almost any ball hit in his area or area code. Hopefully, he can play 140+ games and us Minnesota Twins fans will get to see how much that helps the 2024 Minnesota Twins. What do you think? Is a 40/40 season possible? 40 Home Runs & 40 Stolen Bases? It’s definitely possible and it’s going to be fun to watch him try to do it.
Old Twins are Gone
Major League Baseball offseasons are different now. They seem to get longer every year. DH/OF J.D Martinez signed with the New York Mets 4 days ago & LHP Jordan Montgomery reportedly signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday & there are still free agents who have yet to sign with any team.
It was a normal beginning of the offseason with all pending free agents electing free agency to see what they could get on the open market. Those pitchers/players were:
Pitchers:
RHPs Sonny Gray, Kenta Maeda, Tyler Mahle & Emilio Pagán and LHP Dallas Keuchel
Position Players:
LF Joey Gallo, CF Michael A. Taylor, 2B Donovan Solano &
CF Gilberto Celestino
That’s a pretty big list that includes 3 pitchers who were big parts of the starting rotation at the beginning of the 2023 season in Sonny Gray, Kenta Maeda & Tyler Mahle.
That’s 9 free agents, 8 if you don’t want to count Celestino since he didn’t play any major league games in 2023, & none of them re-signed with the Twins. Maybe that’s not so strange but it seems strange.
Well then. The Minnesota Twins had some work to do because RHP Sonny Gray signed with the St. Louis Cardinals for 3 years/$75M & RHP Kenta Maeda signed with the Detroit Tigers for 2 years/$24M. Sonny Gray made it pretty well known that he was interested in staying in Minnesota but at 34 years old, were the Twins interested in having him for 3 years &, of course, for that much dough? St. Louis also has a $5M club option for a 4th year & they also gave him a full no-trade clause. RHP Tyler Mahle signed with the Texas Rangers for 2 years/$22M. The Twins acquired RHP Tyler Mahle in 2022 for 3 prospects & all they got from Mahle was 9 starts & 42.0 innings over 2 seasons!
Righty reliever Emilio Pagán signed a 2-year/$16M deal with the Cincinnati Reds. OF Joey Gallo signed with the Washington Nationals for 1-year/$5M & CF Michael A. Taylor signed with Pittsburgh for 1-year/$4M. It sounds like the Twins were interested in bringing Taylor back but he wanted more money. He made $4.5M in each of the last two seasons so he ended up taking a pay cut on a 1-year deal. OF Gilberto Celestino signed a minor-league deal with the Pirates. IF Donovan Solano & LHP Dallas Keuchel are still free agents.
New Twins to Cheer On
“Aww! Did you say you have new twins?
Well… yes but not that kind of twins. Capital T!”
It’s usually out with the old & in with the new but this year, “new” could easily be “young” too. The Minnesota Twins have a lot of players who were just scratching the surface of what they can do whether that is the great hitting from 2B Edouard Julien, the power bat & arm of LF Matt Wallner, the hard-throwing from RHP Louie Varland or the clutch performance of 3B Royce Lewis. That’s four 1st or 2nd-year players that should improve and be the young core of this team for a few years.
2B Edouard Julien made the Twins front office, teammates & fans forget about the loss of Luis Arraez in the 2022-23 offseason because he takes great at-bats, has the plate discipline to earn walks and has some power too. He hit .263/.381/.459 (AVG/OBP/SLG) with 16 doubles, 16 home runs and 60 runs scored while walking 64 times & striking out 128 times. In his second game & his first leading off, he hit a line drive to begin the game then hit again in the first inning and hit his 1st career home run to put the Twins up 9-0 in the 1st inning on the road in Yankee Stadium. That’s a great way to get Twins fans to like you!
SS Royce Lewis has had to endure a lot of injuries in his career but god bless this man because his attitude never wavers. One of the biggest reasons he was taken 1st overall back in the 2017 MLB Draft is his makeup so he makes players around him better by being a great teammate. He has confidence in his abilities & loves big moments. There might not be any better way to show that than what he did on October 3rd in Game 1 of the Minnesota Twins 2023 postseason:
Here are his stats with the bases loaded so far in his 70-game MLB career:
Minnesota’s own LF Matt Wallner forced the Twins to call him up because he showed he was ready with how well he was doing at AAA in St. Paul. He did the same thing when he was at AA in 2022. You have to love prospects that show they’re ready for a promotion during the season and it helps them get a taste of the next level of baseball. Rumor has it the Twins & manager Rocco Baldelli will probably use a right-handed platoon when there’s a lefty pitching.*
*They did this in Game 1 as UTIL Willi Castro got the start in Game 1.
All 3 of the position players are starting & RHP Louie Varland is set to be the 5th starter to begin the season. He was very impressive at the end of the last season when he went to the bullpen out of necessity & in 7 games & 12.0 innings, he had a 1.50 Earned Run Average (ERA), a WHIP (Walks + Hits per Inning Pitched) of 0.583 while walking just 1 batter & striking out 17! He wants to keep starting but it’s nice to know what he might be able to bring as a reliever.
Hey, Don’t Forget About Us?
We haven’t even mentioned C Ryan Jeffers, RHP Jhoan Duran & RHP Bailey Ober. Ryan Jeffers had a great breakout season in 2023 as he set career highs in literally every stat and led American League catchers in On-base Plus Slugging % (OPS).* He felt confident enough in what he did in the offseason to say during TwinsFest that he’d be the starting catcher before the year ended. He worked & willed himself to a breakthrough and now he looks like a bona fide starting catcher.
*Atlanta Braves C Tom Murphy had a .873 OPS but he only played 47 games.
Righty reliever Jhoan Duran is entering his 3rd season & is already one of the best closers in the league because his stuff is nasty with the combination of heat, changing speeds & movement with his arsenal of pitches. The Splinker looks unhittable:
RHP Bailey Ober was left off the 2023 opening day roster but the Minnesota Twins needed him on April 23rd and he made 22 starts then was optioned to AAA on August 28th when the Twins activated Joe Ryan from the 15-Day Injured List (IL) but he was recalled a couple of weeks later to finish the season with the big club. He ended up making 26 starts. He was 8-6 with a 3.43 ERA & a 1.067 WHIP while allowing 22 home runs, walking 29 & striking out 146 batters. Did this season make the Twins more comfortable with Sonny Gray & Kenta Maeda leaving via free agency? It likely helped quite a bit.
Did they sign any Free Agents?
The Minnesota Twins did sign some free agents but they waited until after Christmas & the day after Christmas then, on December 27th, they signed free agent RHP Josh Staumont to a 1-year/$950K deal.
From Twins beat writer Do-Hyoung Park:
Staumont, 30, spent the last five seasons with the Royals and served as a hard-throwing setup man out of the Kansas City bullpen until nagging injuries limited his 2022 and ‘23 seasons, ultimately resulting in a season-ending surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome last July and a non-tender after he posted a 5.40 ERA in 20 innings, with 24 strikeouts and 13 walks.
Though the aftermath of thoracic outlet syndrome can be thorny for pitchers — Twins fans have relatively recent experience in the matter with Chris Archer in ‘22, and, before that, with Phil Hughes — Staumont is currently throwing, and indications are that the Twins feel good about his condition entering the ‘24 season.
He just added a slider to his pitch arsenal in 2023 so it wouldn’t be surprising for that to be a major reason as to why the Twins signed him.
In early February on back-to-back days, the Twins signed 37-year-old 1B/DH Carlos Santana (1yr/$5.25M) & 36-year-old reliever RHP Jay Jackson (1yr/$1.5M) for some more depth at 1st base & in the bullpen. Santana is a solid hitter with dare I say “smooth” defense. Jay Jackson is another pitcher who throws his slider pitch a lot. In fact, it’s the pitch he throws the most.
How ‘about trades? Did they make any trades?
The Minnesota Twins did make some trades, 3 of them to be exact. The first one came at the end of January when they sent 2B Jorge Polanco to the Seattle Mariners for RHP Anthony DeSclafani*, RHP Justin Topa*, OF Gabriel Gonzalez**, RHP Darren Bowen** and $8M in cash. It was sad to see Jorge Polanco leave as he was a key cog in the Twins lineup for several years but he was injured a lot & now was a good time to get something for him. We’ll see how it works out but it will take some time to evaluate from the Twins side.
*RHPs Anthony DeSclafani (forearm strain) & Justin Topa (left patellar tendinitis) are already dealing with injuries. DeSclafani’s sounds like it could be significant (season-ending?) too.
**Gabriel Gonzalez and Darren Bowen are ranked as the Twins’s #4 and #27 prospects, per MLB Pipeline.
13 days after trading 2B/3B Jorge Polanco, the Minnesota Twins traded UTIL Nick Gordon to the Miami Marlins for reliever LHP Steven Okert. The Minnesota Twins 1st-round pick (5th overall) in 2014, Nick Gordon didn’t make his MLB debut until 2021 due to health issues & no MiLB season in 2020 due to the pandemic. He has some skills with the bat but just needs time to develop a little more. Unfortunately, he was out of minor-league options so time wasn’t on his side in Minnesota. He was sent to Miami for a lefty for their bullpen who is also out of options but is someone they can use & he’s had some success & is another pitcher that leans on his slider more often than not. He’ll start the season as the Twins 1st lefty out of the bullpen with LHP Caleb Thielbar starting the season on the Injured List due to a left hamstring strain. The only other lefty they have on their 40-man roster is LHP Kody Funderburk and he’s beginning only his 2nd season as a full-time reliever. LHP Brett Headrick is also on the 40-man roster but he’s still starting in AAA St. Paul.
We mentioned above that Minnesota Twins 2023 CF Michael A. Taylor signed with Pittsburgh so the Twins felt they needed to have a center fielder like Taylor who was capable of playing every day & brought great defense for those days that Byron Buxton won’t be playing in center field. Everyone hopes that will be about 20-25 games. So the Twins made their 3rd trade of the offseason by acquiring CF Manuel Margot from the Los Angeles Dodgers for prospect SS Noah Miller. The Twins were able to get LA to add some cash to the deal too:
2nd Half Max Kepler was HBO Max
HBO Max put on a show after the All-Star Break
Minnesota Twins RF Max Kepler’s 2023 season was a tale of two halves. The first half consisted of him dealing with injuries and batting just .207/.279/.409 (AVG/OBP/SLG) in 64 games in the first half of the 2023 season or up to the All-Star break. After the 4-day break, Max Kepler seemed like a different player.
He said it’s because he was healthy but hitting coach David Popkins said:
He hit .306/.377/.549 in the 2nd half and was a huge part of the Twins winning the division.
So… obviously the big question is which Max Kepler will we see in 2024? Has he learned how to control his environment and, maybe the bigger question, can he stay healthy?
How Do You “Stay Healthy?”
The word “heal” is in the word health but the pronunciation of health is “helTH” as in Hell-th! That seems wrong but for the Minnesota Twins and more than likely, all professional athletes, it’s probably right. It says a lot about how difficult is to stay healthy & it is hell to heal because your not playing the way you know you can &/or not playing at all and have to rehabilitate and watch your teammates play without you!
All athletes want nothing more than to be able to play the game with 100% health all the time but it’s an impossible task.* It becomes very difficult to play hurt because you have to change how you play or not play as hard due to not being 100% & that means you have to re-train or adapt your body & muscles to a new way of playing. That can then result in other injuries because your body hasn’t been used that way before.
*How long has a player gone without having an injury in baseball and all sports? Is that even a stat? “Hey, what’s his/her Health% for this season, for their career & their entire life?… They fell down a lot when they were learning how to walk but no injuries are listed from that time.”
The Minnesota Twins hired a new head trainer in the 2023 offseason hoping he could help solve their injury woes:
That article shows the ups & downs of professional sports because some injuries can’t be prevented due to the physical nature of each sport. They know most of it starts with prevention which includes everything the players are doing before & during the season:
“The prevention side is geared a lot toward the offseason and a lot toward how you get someone ready into the season, because at that point, our sport, unlike any other sport, is the ‘get ready every day,’ And so there’s a maintenance part of that and a daily routine that a guy has to go through in order to keep his body where it needs to be. There’s a recovery thing. There’s how they eat. How they rest. What they do in the weight room, right? All of those things play a role. And then ultimately volume, how they’re playing and responding throughout the course of a season.”
Twins President & CBO (Chief Baseball Officer) Derek Falvey
Let’s hope the Twins don’t need the Heal of Health or feel the Hell of Hell-th much in the 2024 season!
Culture Can Be the Difference
The Minnesota Twins have built a very good culture with Rocco Baldelli, Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, Pablo López and Royce Lewis just to name a few. They look like a confident group that loves each other, learned something from the 2023 postseason and wants to win more than anything else.
The Minnesota Twins have every player & pitcher working hard towards the ultimate goal of winning a championship whether that’s adding or developing a pitch or just working on every aspect of their game. At the end of the season, will the front office look back and hope they did enough to help this team win it all? It’s very hard to say and anyone can criticize anything they do but none of us know the moves they were almost able to make or didn’t make for whatever reason. There’s nothing they can do about that now. They have a good farm system with some prospects ready or very close to it and the trade option is still available.
We think they showed in the 2023 postseason that they have everything they need to win right now. Yes, some changes were made and good to great players left and new players have come it but the culture they’ve built will allow them to bring everyone together to go win it all! Now they just have to go do it!
It’s Time to Get Going!
Our 2024 Depth Chart
Catcher: Ryan Jeffers – Christian Vázquez – they have a potential replacement in Triple-A prospect Jair Camargo, a strong-armed 24-year-old with 20-homer power. Camargo hit .259/.323/.503 in 90 games for St. Paul, including .288/.344/.569 in 74 games after a brutal April.
1st Base: Carlos Santana – Alex Kirilloff – Kyle Farmer – Jose Miranda
2nd Base: Edouard Julien – Kyle Farmer – Willi Castro
3rd Base: Royce Lewis – Kyle Farmer – Willi Castro
Shortstop: Carlos Correa – Kyle Farmer – Royce Lewis – Willi Castro
Left Field: Matt Wallner – Manuel Margot – Willi Castro
Center Field: Byron Buxton – Manuel Margot – Willi Castro
Right Field: Max Kepler – Willi Castro – Matt Wallner – Manuel Margot
Designated Hitter: Alex Kirilloff – Eduoard Julien – Byron Buxton – Carlos Santana
Starting Rotation: RHP Pablo López – RHP Joe Ryan – RHP Bailey Ober – RHP Louie Varland – RHP Chris Paddack – RHP Anthony DeSclafani
Bullpen: Closer RHP Jhoan Duran – Setup Man RHP Brock Stewart – Setup Man RHP Griffin Jax – LHP Caleb Thielbar – RHP Justin Topa – RHP Jay Jackson – LHP Steven Okert – RHP Josh Staumont – RHP Jorge Alcala – LHP Kody Funderburk – RHP Cole Sands – RHP Zack Weiss – RHP Josh Winder (IL)
Prospect Depth:
SS/?? Brooks Lee (Injured), 2B/OF Austin Martin, OF Trevor Larnach…
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