Big question for Twins: What will the payroll be for the 2026 season?

LAS VEGAS – Three months after the Pohlad family announced they will remain owners of the Twins, there is still a cloud of uncertainty on how that decision will affect the team’s offseason plans.

Several members of the Twins front office are here for the annual General Managers Meetings, a week to kickstart the offseason and lay the groundwork for the months ahead.

The message from the Twins to agents and rival executives is essentially: Ask again later.

Payroll will certainly decline from last season, which featured a massive 11-player trade deadline fire sale and continues to leave front-office staffers from other teams stunned. The question looming over team President Derek Falvey is how much it will drop with two still-unidentified minority investment groups joining to pay down parts of the club’s near-$500 million debt.

The Twins entered the 2025 season with a $142.8 million payroll, the highest among the five teams in the American League Central, according to the Associated Press. They ended the year at about $130 million, following all their trades, and they open this winter with about $90 million committed to next year’s roster.

“I do hope and anticipate that as we get into December, we’ll have a lot more clarity on the voices and who is around the process,” Falvey said Tuesday.

Falvey reiterated his desire to add to the roster this winter. The Twins need to rebuild their bullpen. They need a reliable backup catcher. First base is a big hole on the roster with Kody Clemens as the top incumbent. Shortstop is another concern because Brooks Lee hasn’t proven he can consistently hit at the big-league level.

“We know there are some spots on our roster we’d like to try and fill in. Our bullpen is an area we can look to add. We know there’s other pockets on our roster without getting into specific players where we can find complements to guys already on the roster.”

Until the Twins have more clarity on their payroll, trade chatter will only grow louder. Opposing teams have already been asking about starting pitchers Joe Ryan and Pablo López, though Falvey downplayed the urgency of those trade talks.

“I don’t feel it’s any different really than it’s been in different years,” Falvey said. “We’ve had asks on some of those players for each of the last three or four off seasons.”

Ryan is one of the most valuable players on the trade market because he’s under team control for the next two years on a below-market salary (about $6 million next year as an arbitration-eligible player). López, who has proved he can pitch well in the postseason, is owed $43 million over the next two years.

Excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 season, the Twins haven’t carried an Opening Day payroll below $119 million since 2017. If it remains in that range, the Twins can keep their best starting pitchers and fill some roster holes this winter to compete in a low-payroll division.

If payroll shrinks to where it sits now, in the $90 million range, the teardown will continue, and there will be more trade speculation on All-Star center fielder Byron Buxton, despite his full no-trade clause, and catcher Ryan Jeffers, who is a free agent after the 2026 season. Falvey has spoken with Buxton multiple times since the season ended for input on the managerial search.

“I want to put a team out there that we can continue to believe in, be proud of, watch it grow and develop together,” Falvey said. “Some of the best Twins teams historically are teams that grew together, ones that I’ve been a part of and ones that came before me. I hope that we can look at our team and feel that way about this group, too.”

The Twins have a surplus of lefthanded-hitting outfielders, and they’re open to trading from the group.

Trevor Larnach, who is projected to make about $5 million as an arbitration-eligible player, could be a candidate to be released if he’s not traded.

“I still think really highly of Trevor and his abilities,” Falvey said. “We’re trying to balance how do they all fit and what does it look like? Maybe that is an area of depth, so to speak, that we could move from to maybe get another area of need.”

Assistant pitching coach Luis Ramírez will return next season in the same role on new manager Derek Shelton’s staff, Falvey confirmed Wednesday.