Twins 2025 preview

Baseball opening day is one of my favorite days of the year. It means the long winter is mostly over (although, hey, we had another pretty easy ride this time), and 6 months of ballgames await. 

But I'm a Minnesota Twins fan, so opening day now also means the dawn of a new season of constant aggravation that most likely will end with zero postseason payoff.

The annoyance is all the greater after a 2024 season that saw the Twins piss away all the franchise momentum they had gained after breaking the playoff win drought the year before. For the 2nd time in 3 years, they managed to turn a near certain playoff appearance into a complete collapse. 

Same thing as always with this moribund franchise. Injuries and incompetence. 

And the hatred of the Pohlads reached its zenith when they both cut payroll, and then it came out they were trying to sell the team, which is obviously why they cut it. They will never escape the Cheap Pohlads label. And then, in the offseason, we thought maybe we had a new owner on the way, only for that to fall through. 

There are also the overall issues with MLB and its utterly broken payroll disparities. They finally got their Yankees-Dodgers world series last year, but nobody outside those 2 markets cared. Because the big market spending has gotten absurdly out of hand. The Mets gave Juan Soto an over $700 million contract. That's literally insane. 

Many teams, including the Twins, have had turmoil with their TV rights, and can never hope to compete with the top spending teams. The sport may be heading for a work stoppage again soon. 

So amidst all this, it's a lot harder to get that excited about the Twins. 

Sure, the roster again would seem to be solid enough to compete in what will probably again be a very winnable division. Cleveland always seems to outperform expectations, and both the Royals and Tigers made runs to the playoffs last year, but none of those teams are juggernauts. And the historically bad WHITE Sox should again be good for some easy wins (of course everybody gets the same # of games against them).

The Twins rotation could be good, led by Pablo Lopez, Joe Ryan, and Bailey Ober. That's a good top 3, and perhaps Simeon Woods-Richardson will be better suited for a full season workload this time. Chris Paddack is a whatever. I don't buy the hype. 

Bullpen? Again, the pieces are there to be good. Jhoan Duran needs to bounce back after a shaky 2024. 

Lineup? I mean, Royce Lewis is already hurt. Again. But Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa at least begin the season healthy. 

The offseason additions of Ty France and Harrison Bader do nothing for me. Essentially, they directly replace Carlos Santana and Max Kepler. So you probably lose some power there. 

We need Edouard Julien to bounce back, we need Jose Miranda to be consistent, we need Matt Wallner to be solid as a leadoff hitter.

We nabbed the Orioles hitting coach, so maybe that helps reverse the collective implosion from late 2024. We still just haven't seemed to adapt to the reality that 2019 and the juiced balls are gone. Maybe that will change this year.

It just feels like more of the same. The division should keep the Twins in contention throughout the summer, but in the post-pandemic era, this team has really only impressed in small bursts. Snd their propensity for collapses makes it hard to trust them even if they are in a good spot by the all-star break.

I don't think they make the playoffs. I think the Royals win the division. I think Cleveland is next, and then the Twins in 3rd. Is what it is. 

World series pick: I'm half going chalk, with the Dodgers repeating. But even though I don't think the Yankees are going away (they'll buy whoever they need as always), but I'm picking the Orioles to break through and win their 1st AL title since the early 80s.