In 2023, the Minnesota Twins won their 100th game, beating the Chicago White Sox 3-2 to advance to 52-48 on the season. Former top prospect Jordan Balazovic picked up his only career win, and the Twins won the next game in 12 innings to sweep the Pale Hose.
However, there was trouble still to come.
The 56-win Kansas City Royals swept the Twins a week later at Kaufman Stadium. A week after that, the 78-win Detroit Tigers halted Minnesota’s five-game winning streak by taking three of four in Motown.
Two years ago, Minnesota entered the All-Star Break with a 45-46 record. The first Twins team to win a playoff series since 2002 won 87 games and hovered around .500 until the final month of the season.
Minnesota collapsed in 2022 and 2024. Perhaps they’re heading that direction this season. Despite going on a 13-game win streak, this year’s team may not reach the heights the 2022 and 2024 versions did in order to collapse. Instead, they may just fade away.
Losing two of three to the Colorado Rockies, who own the league’s worst record, might indicate the Twins are sellers. They left Denver with a 48-51 record, and four teams separate Minnesota from a wild card spot.
The question with the Twins may not be whether they are buyers or sellers. It may be whether they should blow up the core or reboot before new ownership takes over next season.
Still, think about where the Twins were two years ago. They swept the White Sox and beat the Seattle Mariners in the first game of the next series to extend their winning streak to five. However, the 56-win Royals swept them in KC immediately before the trade deadline.
After their ill-fated trades for Tyler Mahle and Jorge López in 2022, the Twins stood pat at the deadline. Trading for Mahle and López looked like the kind of aggressive additions Minnesota needed as a 50-44 team at the All-Star Break. Still, good trades can turn out poorly, and at 45-46 entering the All-Star Break, the Twins were hardly a playoff shoo-in two years ago.
Ownership always influences team decisions, and it seemed unlikely that they would agree to adding payroll by the 2023 deadline. That influence makes it challenging to evaluate Falvey properly.
The Twins reached the AL Wild Card in 2017, Derek Falvey’s first season as general manager. He hired Rocco Baldelli in 2019, and that team won 101 games and the AL Central. They defended their AL Central title in the 60-game COVID-shortened season.
However, Alex Colomé’s early-season meltdowns ended the 2021 season before it started, and 2022 was the first collapse.
If the Twins miss the playoffs this year, they will have failed to qualify for the postseason in four of the past five years. Still, they won a playoff series for the first time since beating the Moneyball A’s in the 2002 ALDS in 2023.
The Twins ran out of depth in 2022 and nearly overcorrected in 2023. They added Donovan Solano when he seemed redundant, and Bailey Ober had to start in the minors because of Minnesota’s pitching depth. The result? A janky but successful season.
Minnesota’s front office also benefited from increasing payroll. The Twins had a $121 million payroll in 2021, $150 million in 2022, and $156 million in 2023. Ownership supported buying at the 2022 deadline and adding to the roster depth a year later. They were operating like a mid-market team.
However, in response to an uncertain TV contract situation and mounting team debt, Twins ownership slashed payroll to $131 million following their playoff series win. Immediately, the 2024 season felt like 2022 again. Gone was the depth they relied on to survive the 2023 regular season and reach the playoffs, and the team collapsed again.
Ownership always has the ultimate influence on a team’s outcome. The Twins can’t play on the field or execute productive trades. Still, they provide the capital necessary to build a winning team. The Pohlads’ decision to cut payroll after Minnesota’s playoff success in 2023 undoubtedly affected Falvey’s ability to build off that win.
The Twins have a $145 million payroll this year, 17th in the majors. It’s meaningfully more than last year, but still more than $10 million less than in 2023. They’ve dealt with injuries to crucial players like Royce Lewis, Pablo López, and Bailey Ober, and they’ve had trouble replacing them.
Falvey’s pitching pipeline has yielded results, but Minnesota’s young pitchers aren’t ready to replace players like López and Ober. Zebby Matthews, David Festa, and Simeon Woods Richardson have reached the majors, but they aren’t reliable starters yet.
Minnesota has also had to scrounge the waiver wire for depth players. Some players, like Kody Clemens, have been productive. Others, like Jonah Bride and Joey Wentz, didn’t stick in Minneapolis. There isn’t much a front office can do to change injury luck, but deep teams tend to survive it.
The Twins have also had mixed luck with their core players. Byron Buxton was an All-Star this year because he’s healthy, but Carlos Correa has had a down year. Lewis and Brooks Lee have been inconsistent. The pitching staff was good at the beginning of the year, but struggled aside from Joe Ryan since then.
Losing two of three in Denver feels like a death knell for this team. Still, the sweep in Kansas City felt the same way two years ago, and that Twins team survived. They’ll probably be sellers this year. However, Falvey may want to stand pat and see if this team can sneak into the playoffs again.
It worked two years ago. Maybe it will work again. Regardless, it’s not a sustainable way to build a contender.
