2025 ZiPS Projections: Minnesota Twins

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Minnesota Twins.

Batters

The Twins entered last September as a second-place team with a 92% chance to make the playoffs, according to ZiPS. But then, after going 9-18 that month, they finished fourth in the AL Central and fell short of the postseason. When you look at it that way, their 2024 campaign was certainly a disappointment. However, for as bad things ended, the Twins still posted a winning record (82-80) for the second consecutive year, and none of their problems down the stretch last year suggest there’s anything fundamentally broken with the organization. I mean, sure, Twins fans surely would want them to spend more aggressively, but that’s a gripe they share with the fans of the other AL Central teams.

As it turned out, Carlos Correa shockingly didn’t suddenly forget how to play baseball in 2023; he had terrific 2024 season that hopefully wiped some memories clean. One potential concern is his plantar fascitis – which he’s had in both heels at times over the last 18 months – but with a normal offseason of rest, he should begin this season on fairly strong footing, and ZiPS projects him to have a fairly typical Correa campaign.

Byron Buxton had a similarly solid comeback season. He posted a 142 wRC+, and after the Twins used him exclusively at DH in 2023 in an unsuccessful attempt to keep him healthy, he returned to center field and played above-average defense. I’d be shocked if Buxton made the 567 plate appearances that Depth Charts is projecting for him right now – he’s never done that in the majors – but when he’s playing, he remains a tantalizing talent. Given his history, I would assume the Twins are expecting to have him for about 90-100 games.

The rest of the offense is a great deal less exciting. Royce Lewis still has some upside, but he has a long injury history of his own, and his offense was fairly ordinary last year after his stunning 2023 output. Although he’s probably nearing his ceiling, right fielder Matt Wallner projects to be solidly above average over the next few years, and the catching tandem of Ryan Jeffers and Christian Vázquez is a good one. Elsewhere, though, this lineup feels more patchwork; it’s not really a giant mess, but you kind of wish it had a bit more thump.

There are some lesser projections of interest here. ZiPS isn’t high on Brooks Lee, but it does think that Edouard Julien deserves a chance to avenge his weak 2024, and there’s a real case for promoting Luke Keaschall quickly if he continues to hit in the high minors. It would be nice to see the team get one more bat in free agency, either as an upgrade over Trevor Larnach or to beef up its projected production at DH.

ZiPS expects that it’ll take a few years for Walker Jenkins to really develop his power, but it likes the aforementioned Keaschall and center field prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez.

Pitchers

Pitching-wise, the Twins had an odd season. They had a massive difference between their ERA (4.26) and FIP (3.84), finishing 21st in the former but a much more respectable seventh in the latter stat. And they did that with a rather average defense, so you can’t blame the glove work for that. The good thing is that by and large, the current pitchers on the roster don’t have a lengthy history of falling short of their FIP, which suggests that some of the weaker-than-expected performances were more blips than true concerns.

One thing that hurt the rotation wasn’t so much the primary members but some really terrible performances from the Plan B gang. Chris Paddack and David Festa drastically underperformed their peripheral numbers, and fill-ins like Louie Varland and Zebby Matthews were downright dreadful. ZiPS expects a lot more from all four pitchers, especially Matthews, and overall, it projects the rotation to be somewhere between sixth and 10th in baseball in WAR. The 2.63 HR/9 that Matthews allowed last year may look especially bad, but as I warn people, don’t go nuts over crazy short-term home run stats. A shocking number of people yelled at me in 2019 about a positive Corbin Burnes projection because of the 17 homers he allowed over 49 innings in 2019. ZiPS has little to complain about at the top of the rotation, with Pablo López, Joe Ryan, and Bailey Ober, though López is the only one of the trio that ZiPS projects to have a high long-term ceiling. If ZiPS is right, the Twins are about set here, with a strong starting five and good depth behind them.

The Twins had the second-best bullpen in the American League last year by WAR (5.9), and the good news for Minnesota fans is that the bullpen should remain terrific in 2025. In fact, though it’s certainly not an official projection yet, ZiPS believes at this moment that the Twins have the best bullpen in baseball. Jhoan Duran ought to have a better season in 2025, and now that the Twins have announced that Griffin Jax won’t be moved back to the rotation in 2025, the two of them will form a deadly one-two late-inning punch. Brock Stewart is also projected to have a better season – though his sore shoulder will need to cooperate – and aside from Jorge Alcala and Michael Tonkin, ZiPS projects every significant Minnesota reliever to have an ERA under 4.00. The Twins don’t really need to make any additions here, either. If they are going to make more moves, they should target offensive upgrades.

This is a solidly built team that is deep enough to have a pretty high floor. That said, the Twins have enough weaknesses that ZiPS puts them in the 85-88 win range right now. The AL Central projects to be one of the closer divisions in baseball, and the Twins likely will still be playing meaningful games in September.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2025 due to injury, and players who were released in 2024. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Ukulele Dixieland Jazz band that only covers songs by The Smiths, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.11.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on BlueSky.