Minnesota Twins hope to perform better in ‘25 after ‘24 collapse

The best time of year is upon us; Opening Day is just a few weeks away and the Twins are coming off an underwhelming year, to say the least. The Twins were a team looking to make a deep postseason run yet tapered off in September. They saw three different teams from their own division make the playoffs last year and responded by making minimal moves in free agency, signing outfielder Harrison Bader, first baseman Ty France and relief pitcher Danny Coloumbe. In my opinion, the Twins will need their stars to remain healthy and perform, their young starting pitching to come through and the fringe relief pitchers to perform adequately to make the postseason.

Health has been a struggle for the likes of Byron Buxton, Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa the past few seasons. When healthy, the three of them are among the most dangerous hitters in all of baseball. Buxton and Correa are great defensively as well. 100 games out of each of these guys is a reasonable ask, and if they all perform to their offensive potential, they will be one of the top teams in the American League Central if not the American League without factoring in their pitching. With younger players like outfielder Matt Wallner and catcher Ryan Jeffers also hoping to improve and provide offensively, the Twins’ lineup has the potential to be terrifying to opposing pitchers.

The Twins’ rotation was interesting last year. Their ace, Pablo Lopez, didn’t pitch very well for much of the year. Bailey Ober and Joe Ryan carried the load with arguably the best seasons of their young careers. They were pitching like All-Stars down the stretch before Ryan got hurt late in the year. Hopefully, those guys sustain their success this season, but even if they don’t, the young pitching will need to step up at the back end of the rotation. Pitchers such as Zebby Matthews, Simeon Woods-Richardson and David Festa will all have starts at some point in the summer, and they will need to develop and pitch to a certain standard to enable the Twins to win games.

If you asked any fan of the Twins to talk about the bullpen, they would almost certainly talk about the high-end bullpen talent the Twins currently possess. Jhoan Duran is a flamethrower and hopefully will be back to shut down form this year after a down year in 2024. Griffin Jax is one of the best relievers in baseball and he possesses one of the nastiest sweepers in baseball. Those two will likely pitch the eighth and ninth innings for the Twins most days. Outside of those two, the Twins will look to the likes of Coulombe, Brock Stewart, Cole Sands, Justin Topa and Jorge Alcala to eat the rest of the relief innings. All these pitchers have had stretches of good performance; the primary concern will once again be health as well as age. Coulombe, Stewart and Topa are well over the age of thirty with Sands and Alcala coming in at just under that number. Staying healthy and being able to strike guys out will be crucial for all these relievers.

If I had to pick one who will be most critical to the Twins’ success this season, it would be Coulombe. He is currently the only left-handed reliever projected to be in the Twins’ opening day bullpen, and if he can keep up his numbers from last year with the Orioles (eighty strikeouts in ninety innings pitched), the Twins’ bullpen will be in a much better spot, especially against left-handed hitters.

Overall, I am excited for baseball to be back. I know that this team will frustrate me at many points during the season. They have shown their ability to do that numerous times during my lifetime. However, this team has the hitting as well as the pitching to be good in the regular season and make a deep run into the playoffs, especially with how weak the American League is overall. On paper, I would say the Twins can win their division easily and are better than the Guardians, the Tigers and the Royals, but only in October will we know if they performed up to expectations.