The Minnesota Twins missed the playoffs for the fifth time in the past six seasons this season, but it didn’t stop them from handing out some hardware on Wednesday afternoon. The Twins’ annual Diamond Awards were revealed and as part of the announcement, utilityman Kody Clemens was named the winner of the Most Valuable Twin Award.
The Diamond Awards, which will be celebrated at an event in January during Twins Fest, are for a great cause as the proceeds from the event will benefit research, education and patient care for brain, nerve and muscle disorders at the University of Minnesota Medical School and M Health Fairview hospitals and clinics. Clemens is also deserving of the award, hitting .239/.298/.460 with 27 homers, 81 RBI and 10 stolen bases in 12 attempts.
But having a 30-year-old utilityman claim the award tells you just how many Twins fell short of expectations last year and how Minnesota went through another lost season in 2026.
Kody Clemens’ Twins MVP award says more about the team than the player
When discussing the most valuable Twin from last season, Clemens has a strong case. A midseason waiver claim by the Twins one year ago, Clemens enjoyed the most consistent playing time of his career, appearing in a career-high 145 major league games. A lot of that was also due to his versatility which saw him spend time at first base, second base and all three outfield positions as Minnesota shuffled their infield and navigated injuries.
But lost in Clemens’s performance is how many players needed to have disappointing seasons to allow him to win this award.
Byron Buxton won the award last season and was off to a great start, hitting .271/.328/.575 with 25 homers, 45 RBI and seven stolen bases in eight attempts in the first half. While that performance helped him earn his second straight All-Star selection and third overall, a hip injury wrecked his second half, leaving him with just 93 games left in the season.
Joe Ryan was a potential candidate who took over the ace role after Pablo Lopez was injured during Spring Training. Like Buxton, Ryan also pitched well in the first half, going 6-5 with a 2.85 ERA in 20 starts to earn an All-Star selection. But glute and lower back injuries kept him on the shelf for a month while Minnesota was fading out of the playoff race and there’s a real possibility he’s made his last start as a Twin.
The disappointments ramp up when you look at the younger players. Brooks Lee was the one player who broke through the malaise to win the Most Improved Twin Award, but most of the other pieces of Minnesota’s core didn’t come through.
Royce Lewis’s miserable start had him playing for the St. Paul Saints by the end of May. While he played well initially after being recalled in June, Lewis’s numbers featured a career-low batter’s line of .227/.287/.380 and a career-high strikeout rate of 25.5 percent. A move to first base also turned out better than expected, but it feels like his struggles at the plate could send Lewis out of town.
In the case of Matt Wallner, he never made it back to the majors. Wallner opened the season hitting .167/.259/.292 with four homers and 10 RBI in 34 games with the Twins and while he rebounded in St. Paul, the same issues with his swing-and-miss and declining athleticism saw him passed over in favor of top prospects including Walker Jenkins and Emmanuel Rodriguez. Even Gabriel Gonzalez and Aaron Sabato got major league playing time over Wallner and it feels like we’ve seen the last of him in a Twins uniform.
Ryan Jeffers and Josh Bell had solid seasons for the Twins but both appear to be headed out in free agency next month. And outside of Taj Bradley, who won the Joseph W. Haynes Award as the Twins’ Pitcher of the Year, the rest of the staff either didn’t perform well or ran out of gas in the second half of the season, which sent Minnesota to a 21-27 tailspin after the trade deadline that helped them miss the playoffs.
The Twins’ most valuable player is a reminder of what went wrong
Clemens’s play made sure the Twins’ season didn’t end up much worse than their final 77-85 record. But the fact the Twins didn’t make the playoffs in the pillow fight that was the American League was because of all of the players who failed to step up.
It’s why seeing Clemens win the award is good after he was cast aside by the Philadelphia Phillies and Detroit Tigers at the beginning of his career, but also brings some disappointment to a team that may have fumbled an opportunity.
The Twins likely wouldn’t have made noise if they had gotten to the playoffs. But for a team that has alienated its fan base, even a couple of playoff games would have been a positive development. Also, that would have resulted in a matchup with the Houston Astros who ducked out of the way in a two-game sweep at the hands of the Chicago White Sox.
It also would have given fans a chance to wonder who could start Game 3 of a playoff series, but they're instead picking apart the team like an autopsy. Of course, some fans would point higher up to pinpoint the problem, but seeing Clemens take home his well-deserved award still feels like a letdown, knowing how much the Twins’ building blocks have fallen apart.
Add us as a preferred source on Google