After turbulent offseason, Twins hit ‘reset button’ for 2026 season

The last time we saw the Twins playing games, they were limping through an ugly final two months of the 2025 season after a massive trade deadline teardown.

The Twins’ bullpen was depleted. Their lineup lacked punch. Their defense was one of the worst in the majors.

Fast-forward through a turbulent five months and the Twins are still struggling to find their footing as spring training begins this week. The Twins fired manager Rocco Baldelli following their 70-92 season, and they replaced him with Derek Shelton, Baldelli’s bench coach in 2019.

Shelton, 55, managed the Pittsburgh Pirates for five-plus years and never won more than 76 games in a season. He was fired last May when Pittsburgh opened with a 12-26 record. The Twins believed a low payroll and difficult roster situation were the primary factors in Shelton’s career .410 winning percentage, but the Twins are giving him a low payroll and a different set of roster challenges.

Two of the key people who signed off on Shelton’s hire, owner Joe Pohlad and team President Derek Falvey, are no longer in their leadership roles. Pohlad was replaced in December by his older brother, Tom, when the team finalized the addition of limited minority ownership partners. Falvey said he agreed to mutually part ways with the organization Jan. 30.

Now Twins General Manager Jeremy Zoll, the youngest head of baseball operations for any major league team at 35, is the architect for a roster that still has flaws present from last season.

The bullpen is largely the same with one free-agent addition (lefthander Taylor Rogers). The Twins added free-agent first baseman Josh Bell and catcher Victor Caratini to their offense, but those moves feel more geared toward raising the floor for the team’s potential than raising the ceiling.

“I’d love to get off this payroll thing for a second,” Tom Pohlad said during a recent news conference. “Let’s get halfway through the year to the end of the year, and let’s judge the success of this year on wins and losses and whether we’re playing meaningful baseball in September.”

Pohlad’s quote will likely hang over the season, either a prescient or foolish outlook from the new principal owner.

The Twins opted to keep All-Star players Byron Buxton, Joe Ryan and Pablo López on their roster despite heavy trade interest. Those choices give the team a chance to compete in a weak American League Central Division, but the Twins didn’t make any major offseason moves to build around them.

There is the juxtaposition of keeping top players and a low payroll. To the Twins’ credit, they’re entering camp with reasonable depth at every position except shortstop. The problem is they lack star power. Royce Lewis must rebound from the worst offensive season of his career. They desperately need Matt Wallner to provide consistency in the middle of the lineup. They’re hoping Luke Keaschall will avoid a sophomore slump.

The Twins are entering the spring with arguably their deepest starting rotation in more than a decade, boasting eight legitimate starters with major league experience. There were weeks last season when the Twins needed to throw out a bullpen game every fourth or fifth day because they lacked starters.

“Our young players still have to continue to develop, that’s the biggest thing,” Shelton said at the MLB winter meetings. “The other thing is we have to build out our bullpen because there’s so many games won or lost in a bullpen, especially during the regular season.”

Many sportsbooks have the Twins’ over/under at 74½ games, which has moved upward by a few games since earlier in the offseason. FanGraphs projects the Twins to win 80 games.

When Twins leaders met with fans during the team’s annual FanFest in January, it was as much about assuaging concerns about the direction of the organization as it was about building excitement around the current club.

“Yeah, you sense the frustration and understand that,” Shelton said. “We embrace that. There is some ability to win trust back. ... If we had apathy from our fans, that would concern me.”

Part of Tom Pohlad’s outreach since he became the principal owner is calling season-ticket holders who didn’t renew their accounts for the 2026 season. Most calls went to voicemails. One person, Pohlad said, hung up on him three times thinking it was a prank.

“I’m trying to hear people out and trying to offer a perspective and take accountability on what has happened and hopefully paint a picture for what we’re trying to build long term here,” Pohlad said. “Get them believing again in what we are trying to accomplish.”

There were arguments to keep tearing down the roster. The Twins dealt 10 players off their major league roster at last year’s trade deadline, and they could have committed to a full-blown rebuild and youth movement this year.

Instead, the Twins are opting for a half-measure approach. They’re keeping their top stars — and trade chips — but not choosing to invest more heavily into their player payroll. If the starting pitching lives up to the hype and a few offensive players have breakout seasons, there is a path to staying afloat in the AL Central race where there is no runaway dominant team.

Pohlad, in his phone calls with season-ticket holders before TwinsFest, wasn’t sure whether any of those initial calls led to any ticket renewals.

“I think we had a positive email, like, ‘I can’t believe I got a call,’” Pohlad said.