Jorge Alcala
This is a tough one because from 2019-2022, Jorge Alcala was a very solid contributor out of the Twins' bullpen. Over that span, he put up a cumulative 3.39 ERA in 79 appearances with 91 strikeouts in 87.2 innings of work. Unfortunately, some elbow trouble in 2022 forced him to miss most of that season and that may have been the beginning of the end.
The primary problem here is that bullpen arms are very often the guys that end up getting moved off of 40-man rosters. Teams usually carry a million of them on the 40-man in the likely event that arms need to be rotated out or replaced due to injury. They are also the kinds of guys that are the most likely to make it all the way through the waiver wire and their team can still keep them around in the minor leagues. It is that bucket where Alcala currently resides.
After being diagnosed with a stress fracture in his forearm in May, Alcala again missed a lot of time in 2023 and when he was on the mound, the results were downright bad. In 11 appearances, he only managed a 6.23 ERA with his walk rate of 5.2 BB/9 being pretty brutal. It is possible that his issues were injury related and he probably shouldn't be the next man off the 40-man given that. However, he will need to look good this spring to avoid potentially being on the chopping block.
Bubba Thompson
It is admittedly a little weird to put a guy who was just acquired by Minnesota on the 40-man watch list. Bubba Thompson used to be a prospect held in high regard before some struggles in the big leagues with his hit tool has led to him bouncing around the league. Most recently, the Twins went ahead and claimed Thompson off waivers from the Yankees. In a vacuum, this is a low-risk, high reward move especially if it weakens the Yankees at all...but his tenure with the Twins could be short-lived.
The issue Minnesota currently has is that they have an abnormally high amount of outfielders on their 40-man roster. The idea behind claiming Thompson is that the move costs very little and gives the team some depth in the event that someone falters/gets hurt in spring training or if Alex Kirilloff is out for an extended period of time again. Given the number of quality outfielders Minnesota has on the roster currently, Thompson is probably going to be the odd man out unless he really shows out this spring.