After sleepwalking through the first three months of the offseason without making a single major-league move, the Minnesota Twins finally woke up to sign free agents Harrison Bader, Danny Coulombe and Ty France just in time for the start of spring training.
With camp fully underway in Fort Myers, Fla., and the first spring game set for Saturday, it’s a good time to open the mailbag and see what’s on your minds about a team that’s embracing the clean slate of a new season.
Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and length.
Dan Hayes of The Athletic reported last week that “Derek Falvey stressed the need for roster depth to Twins chairman Joe Pohlad” and that led to the late payroll increase to add Bader, Coulombe and France for a total of $10.25 million. While the payroll is still roughly $20 million below where it was two seasons ago, it’s about $10 million above last year at least.
Maybe the Pohlads wanted to create some goodwill on the way out the door or maybe they don’t expect to be the owners paying those salaries for much longer. Whatever the reasoning, the roster is better with the extra depth, although perhaps the front office could have made a larger impact with the $10 million if they knew it was available for certain all offseason.
If what Rocco Baldelli said about France last week is any indication, the 30-year-old first baseman will make the team and play a lot. Of course, it’s still early, and despite the manager’s stated faith in France bouncing back after a rough 2024, the front office waiting until February to give him a non-guaranteed $1 million deal doesn’t exactly scream offseason priority.
Any positive contribution would make him worth $1 million, which is barely higher than the $760,000 minimum salary. However, the “opportunity cost” to the Twins also includes other first base options they could have acquired instead of France and playing time that will go to France instead of younger in-house options like Jose Miranda or Edouard Julien.
Last season, the average MLB first baseman posted a 107 OPS+ and Carlos Santana had a 109 OPS+ for the Twins. Anything in that range would make France a good signing, assuming his glove is passable. France slumped to a 92 OPS+ last year while playing through a fractured right heel, but he was carrying a 115 OPS+ at the time of the June 7 injury.
France is similar to signing Donovan Solano for $2 million in 2023, with the Twins wanting cheap, veteran competence at a spot with question marks. (They got a 110 OPS+ from Solano.) And while France may block Miranda from being the primary first baseman, there’s still abundant playing time available to Miranda there, as well as at designated hitter and third base.
Ty France hit an oppo-double in live BP off Chris Padddck, whose fastball is sitting 94-95 mph and touched 96. #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/11MHiCue2f
— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) February 18, 2025
I think the Twins would love it if Lee won the second base job with an impressive spring training, but he won’t be handed the starting role or even necessarily a roster spot after mostly struggling as a rookie last season.
Lee missed a total of three months last season with back and shoulder injuries, and hit just .221/.265/.320 in 50 games with the Twins, including .182 after a strong first week. He needs to show he’s healthy and able to consistently drive the ball after his excellent bat-to-ball skills produced a lot of weak contact.
If he does that for the next six weeks, he’ll probably be in the Opening Day lineup. If he doesn’t, he might have to show those things at Triple-A St. Paul for a while before getting another call-up. The Twins want Lee to go take the job, but they also have other options in Willi Castro and Julien.
Castro or Lee would be the backup shortstop, just like last season.
Castro started 51 games at shortstop last year and has played almost 1,200 career innings at the position. Lee made 23 of his 40 starts for the Twins at shortstop and was almost exclusively a shortstop in the minors. Castro and Lee combined to start almost as many games at shortstop (74) last season as Carlos Correa (84).
There will be a fielding dropoff when Correa is out of the lineup, but lots of teams would be thrilled with Castro and Lee as backup shortstop options. And based on the Twins’ expressed interest in low-cost free-agent shortstops prior to camp opening, they basically chose France’s bat over the additional glove to complete their position player group.
I’ve spent the past five years suggesting the Twins should acquire a right-handed-hitting corner outfielder with a history of crushing lefties to platoon with their various left-handed hitters. That player type would pair well with Matt Wallner and Trevor Larnach now, and would have complemented Max Kepler, Alex Kirilloff, Jake Cave, Nick Gordon and others in past seasons.
But after five years of watching the front office fail to invest in outfielders with that skill set, I’ve concluded they just don’t see it as important. I think that’s a mistake for a team that often has lefty bats as their starting corner outfielders and platoons frequently, but it can no longer be a surprise when the Twins don’t sign someone such as Randal Grichuk or Austin Hays.
Instead, they’re planning to fill that platoon role with backup center fielder Harrison Bader, a right-handed hitter with a modest .705 OPS versus lefties since 2022. And the other options to get corner outfield starts against lefties are Castro (.659 OPS facing lefties since 2022) and Austin Martin (.658 OPS facing lefties as a rookie). Not ideal, but that’s nothing new.
Two things:
1. He’s apparently going by Louis Varland now.
2. Varland will likely be transitioning to the bullpen this season, as Baldelli hinted and Hayes wrote about last week.
No role change has been made official because the Twins need to make sure their starters get through camp healthy first. Similar to Lee at second base, I think the Twins would like Varland to win a bullpen spot with a good spring, but they could also send him back to the minors if needed.
Louie Varland was electric coming on in relief for the @StPaulSaints in the win⚡️
5 IP / 1 H / 0 R / 2 BB / 9 K
His nine strikeouts were a season high and were the most he’s had in a game since April 2023 ⚔️#MNTwins pic.twitter.com/659R1d5QxJ
— Twins Player Development (@TwinsPlayerDev) August 29, 2024
My guess at the midseason top five in terms of leverage:
1. Griffin Jax
2. Jhoan Duran
3. Brock Stewart
4. Cole Sands
5. Louis Varland
Duran’s velocity and Stewart’s health are major question marks, and Sands needs to prove last year’s breakthrough was for real, but that’s a potentially great front four and Varland has the raw stuff to be a fifth standout reliever.
No. Totally different situations.
For one thing, Paddack already averaged 5 2/3 innings per start in 2024 to match the league-wide mark. There were very few instances of the Twins handling Paddack more cautiously because he was returning from a second Tommy John surgery. If anything, they were surprisingly willing to let him stay in games to eat innings.
Paddack had a 100-pitch start for just the second time in his career and half of the top 10 pitch counts of his career came last season. And that’s despite not pitching well (4.99 ERA) and not pitching at all after the All-Star break. Based on that, perhaps the Twins should have limited Paddack’s workload more, but they didn’t and now he’s another year removed from surgery.
Archer was pitching through what proved to be a career-ending hip injury in 2022, so him averaging just 4 1/3 innings per start was the Twins attempting to squeeze whatever they could out of a player whose health was obviously compromised. Archer struggled just to take the mound every five days and often had trouble keeping his balance. That’s what drove his limited usage.
Definitely. Lewis ranked No. 10 on my Twins top 40 prospects list and ended last season at Triple-A St. Paul, so reaching the majors is possible as soon as this summer.
Lewis, who was the Twins’ minor league pitcher of the year in 2023, throws a mid-80s knuckleball as part of an otherwise traditional five-pitch mix that includes a low-90s fastball. He missed the first three months of last season due to a shoulder injury and initially struggled upon returning, but posted a 1.68 ERA in his final 10 outings. Lewis has mid-rotation upside.
Cory Lewis filthy knuckleball 🤮 pic.twitter.com/twfD30gzUl
— TFTwins (@TFTwins) July 21, 2024
Walker Jenkins can absolutely reach the majors this year and I’d be pretty surprised if he doesn’t spend a big chunk of the season at Triple-A St. Paul.
On a related note: Jenkins turned 20 years on Wednesday.
So now that we’ve reached the end of this mailbag column and have some time on our hands, let’s join together and sing happy birthday to the Twins’ top prospect. Ready? OK. You start.
(Photo of Jose Miranda: Brace Hemmelgarn / Minnesota Twins / Getty Images)
