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Their $200 million shortstop has grounded into more double plays than he’s hit singles. Their star center fielder is striking out 37% of the time. Their oft-injured third baseman is (sigh) injured again and won’t return until sometime next month, and their top starter left Tuesday night’s game with a hamstring injury. After squandering a playoff berth over the final quarter of last season, then mostly remaining on the sidelines this winter, the Twins opened this year by losing eight of their first 11 games, their worst start since 2016 — a season in which they went 59-103.
These Twins — who did win on Wednesday night to improve to 4-8 — aren’t likely to be that bad. In fact, our preseason Playoff Odds favored the Twins to win the AL Central, albeit with a modest 36.2% chance of winning the division and a forecast for just 84.1 wins, with the Tigers, Royals, and Guardians all packed within five wins of their total. The system estimated Minnesota had a 55.2% chance of making the playoffs, but so far this does not look like a team that belongs in the postseason.
The Twins stumbled out of the gate, dropping three straight to the Cardinals in St. Louis before getting stomped by the White Sox in Chicago, 9-0; through their first four games, they were outscored 28-6. They recovered to win their next two games against the White Sox, but then returned home and lost two out of three to the Astros. Now in Kansas City, the Twins have lost two out of their first three games of their four-game set against the Royals. The dispiriting start feels like a carry-over from last season’s collapse. To refresh your memory:
As of last August 17 — the last time they had a streak of more than two wins in a row, ahem — the Twins were 70-53, second in both the AL Central (two games behind the Guardians) and the AL Wild Card standings (a game and a half behind the Orioles), with a 92.4% chance of making the playoffs. Though their odds rose as high as 95.8% circa September 2, they proceeded to go just 12-27 after August 17, half a game better than the historically futile White Sox. At 82-80, they placed fourth in the division, 10 1/2 games out of first, and fifth in the Wild Card race, four games out. Adding insult to injury, both the Royals and Tigers (whose fortunes mirrored the Twins) earned Wild Card berths.
Injuries, particularly to stars Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, and Royce Lewis, were a major factor in Minnesota’s struggles. Correa was sidelined by plantar fasciitis for the second straight season, missing the first two months of the second half, while Buxton battled right hip inflammation and missed four weeks in August and September. When the pair returned in mid-September, they were far short of full health, but a sense of urgency — both to have them on the field and in the clubhouse — took precedence. Both hit well over the season’s final weeks, with Correa producing a 172 wRC+ and Buxton a 139 mark, but even with their presence over that final stretch, the former played just 11 out of the Twins’ last 39 games, the latter 12. All told, those two and Lewis, who was limited to 82 games by quad and adductor strains and who hit .184/.224/.250 (33 wRC+) over that grim final stretch, played just 22 games together all season.
After the Twins were swept by the Royals in a three-game series from September 6–8, the normally mild-mannered manager Rocco Baldelli called it “an unprofessional series” on his team’s behalf. Correa publicly criticized the urgency level of “some guys” on the team, in contrast to others who were taking extra batting practice “and tried to figure something out.” Yet he opened himself up to criticism when he didn’t run hard to first base on the final play of the Twins’ 13-inning loss to the Marlins on September 26, a costly decision since he was out by a whisker despite a bad throw.
“The last two months was a s— show,” Correa told The Athletic’s Dan Hayes last month regarding the team’s late-season slide. “It went as bad as it could have gone, your best players getting hurt, the timing of it, some guys hit slumps. It was just a complete mess. But the good thing is we learned from it.”
The Twins have tried to turn the page, to use the collapse as a motivating factor for 2025, with Baldelli and his coaches redesigning their spring training program to focus more on team-building, and to repair what Hayes described as a “fractured” clubhouse. But even if the vibes are better, and the team more cohesive, the results haven’t been there.
Here it’s worth pointing out that the Twins did very little to upgrade their roster this past offseason. While letting Carlos Santana, Max Kepler, Kyle Farmer, and Manuel Margot depart, as well as half a dozen pitchers who each produced 0.2 WAR or less, Minnesota signed just three free agents to major league deals, each for one year: outfielder Harrison Bader ($6.25 million), lefty reliever Danny Coulombe ($3 million), and first baseman Ty France ($1 million). Bader and France were both subpar in 2024, with the former managing just an 85 wRC+, the latter — who made my Replacement Level Killers list — 93. It’s not like president of baseball operations Derek Falvey swung blockbuster deals in lieu of signings; of the team’s two offseason trades, one was for Dodgers catching prospect Diego Cartaya, the other for Red Sox utilityman Mickey Gasper, a 29-year-old rookie switch-hitter who used to catch.
Though the Twins’ payroll did increase from $130 million to $147 million, their lack of offseason activity no doubt owed something to the Pohlad family putting the franchise up for sale in October; six months later, no one has met their asking price. The team also ended its relationship with Bally Sports North, and faced a significant cut from its estimated $54 million in rights fees by moving to Major League Baseball’s broadcast package.
The good news is that Correa and Buxton are both healthy, with the former playing in all 12 games thus far; the latter sat for the first time on Wednesday. Correa went 0-for-17 over the first five games, then finally got his first knock in a two-hit day against the White Sox on April 2. He entered Tuesday just 4-for-36 before doubling twice in Minnesota’s 2-1 loss to the Royals. Ahead of Thursday’s series finale in Kansas City, Correa is batting .163/.234/.256 (44 wRC+) with just three singles, four doubles, and five double plays grounded into. He’s been hitting the ball reasonably hard; his 90.5 mph average exit velo is his highest since 2016, albeit not by much and in a small sample size. As if to demonstrate how quickly things can change this early in the season, his 8.3% barrel rate and 41.7% hard-hit rate slipped from above to below his career marks over the course of my writing this piece. His 58.3% groundball rate is about 13 points above his career mark, hence the GIDPs. His .253 xBA and .404 xSLG are much better than his actual numbers, though still nothing to write home about.
Meanwhile, Buxton has struggled to make contact, striking out 16 times in 41 plate appearances (37.2%) while hitting just .171/.209/.293 (44 wRC+). He’s not chasing pitches; in fact, he’s hardly swinging at all. His 24.5% chase rate and 43.5% swing rate are both about seven points shy of his career averages. But when he is swinging, he’s missing too often, whiffing on 47.8% of his cuts at four-seam fastballs (up from 22.4% last year), as well as 59.1% of his swings against all breaking balls and 55% of them against all offspeed pitches.
The lineup certainly misses Lewis. The former no. 1 pick hit just .233/.295/.452 (108 wRC+) in 325 plate appearances last year, well below the 152 wRC+ he produced in 280 PA in 2022–23. Nobody really expected him to maintain that level, they just hoped he’d stay healthy after losing so much time to injuries — including a right quad strain on Opening Day 2024, which cost him two months. Alas, he strained his left hamstring running to first base on March 16, and began this season on the injured list. According to MLB.com’s Matthew Leach, he’s at least a few weeks from playing in rehab games, so he may not return until mid-May. Given that Jose Miranda and Willi Castro have combined to hit .159/.196/.227 (22 wRC+) while playing third, Lewis’ return can’t come soon enough.
As for the rest of the lineup, Bader — who’s played mostly left field, with two starts in right and one in center — is the only Twin with multiple homers (he has three), and one of just four players with a wRC+ above 100 (142, via a lopsided .265/.286/.559 line). Matt Wallner (.289/.386/.526, 165 wRC+), Castro (.216/.326/.405, 118 wRC+), and France (.256/.304/.395, 105 wRC+) have been productive; France raised his wRC+ 29 points with his first homer as a Twin in the eighth inning of Wednesday’s victory. Among the other regulars, including the aforementioned Buxton and Correa, Trevor Larnach leads the way with a 66 wRC+, with Ryan Jeffers (59), Edouard Julien (50), Gaspar (26), Miranda (11), and Christian Vázquez (0) somehow even worse. Nobody has more than 47 plate appearances, so this is all small-sample stuff that may prove fleeting, but the collective slump still adds up to an ugly .203/.269/.327 batting line and a 74 wRC+, the majors’ fifth-lowest mark.
The rotation, which ranked fifth in our preseason Positional Power Rankings, has been similarly abysmal. The unit entered Wednesday with a 6.26 ERA, the worst in the majors, but Joe Ryan’s seven shutout innings against the Royals shaved that down to 5.49, still the second-worst mark, with the sixth-highest FIP (4.84). Ryan, who turned in Minnesota’s second quality start, lowered his own ERA to 2.65, with a 3.48 FIP. He and Pablo López (1.62 ERA, 3.25 FIP) have been the only effective Twins starters thus far, and the only ones to reach the fifth inning multiple times, though to be fair they’ve each taken three starts, while the other three starters (Bailey Ober, Chris Paddack, and Simeon Woods Richardson) have made just two apiece. That trio is just 1-for-6 in lasting five innings, with Woods Richardson’s four-run performance across 5 2/3 innings against the Royals on Monday representing the unimpressive exception.
Making matters worse, it will be at least a couple of weeks before López takes the ball again. On Tuesday night, he was locked into a pitchers duel with Royals lefty Cole Ragans, with Correa the only batter to reach base for either team through the first three and a half innings. With one out in the bottom of the fourth, Bobby Witt Jr. swung at a 95-mph fastball above the zone and ripped a double, then took third on a fielding error by Gasper, the second baseman, and scored as Salvador Perez hit into a forceout. Perez got as far as third base when Michael Massey topped a ball halfway down the line; López chased it down but threw wide of first base before recovering to strike out Mark Canha.
In the bottom of the fifth, after yielding a two-out single to Kyle Isbel and walking Jonathan India, López rubbed the back of his right leg and signaled to the dugout. Head athletic trainer Nick Paparesta joined Baldelli on the trip to the mound and López departed with them. Despite 3 1/3 scoreless innings from the bullpen, and totals of just three hits and three walks allowed, the team lost 2-1 thanks to another unearned earned run. In the eighth inning, Witt hit a soft comebacker to reliever Griffin Jax, who airmailed the ball into foul territory, allowing the speedy shortstop to reach third; he scored the deciding run on Vinnie Pasquantino’s groundout.
López was diagnosed with a Grade 1 hamstring strain and is expected to be placed on the 15-day IL. The 29-year-old righty has been a model of durability since recovering from a 2021 rotator cuff strain, making full complements of 32 starts annually from ’22 (his final year before the Marlins traded him to the Twins) through ’24, plus three so far this year. He’s one of eight pitchers with at least 99 starts in that span, and he ranks seventh in innings (576) and 12th in WAR (11.1) over that period. But for the moment, he’s on the shelf.
As for the rest of this year’s staff, the relievers have at least been better than the starters, with a 2.36 ERA and 3.25 FIP, but most of the work that they’ve done — 69% of the batters they’ve faced — has come in low-leverage situations. The unit’s average leverage index (pLI) of 0.75 is the majors’ fifth lowest, and despite their run prevention numbers, their WPA (-0.24) and Clutch score (-0.29) are both in the red. Two weeks in, closer Jhoan Duran has yet to get a chance at a save, and the team has just one blown save: On Sunday, Jax served up a game-tying two-run homer to Yordan Alvarez, and Minnesota lost in 10.
The Twins had better hope that Wednesday’s win is the start of something positive, as their next two series are against the division-leading Tigers (7-5) and Mets (8-4), both of whom have played substantially better. Without better hitting, better pitching, better fielding, and better health, the Twins won’t be able to shake the ghost of their 2024 collapse.
