Minnesota Twins players who won't be back in 2025
It seems likely that these guys have played their last game with the Twins.
A lot will be made about what happened to the Minnesota Twins over the course of the team's final month. A near-90 percent chance to make the playoffs was compltely fumbled away thanks to a myriad of things going wrong, and it leaves the team with a ton of questions to answer this winter.
Whether or not the front office gets proper resources to do its job is the biggest question, one that Joe Pohlad has already gotten crabby about answering. That's going to determine a lot of what the Twins are able to get done, but the task of sifting through the rubble of the season has already begun.
Before any additions can be made, there will undoubtedly be subtractions to the roster. Like last winter, the Twins best bet to add meaningfully to the roster will likely come via trade as ownership has gone on record as saying it's uninterested in building a winning roster by spending on free agents.
Freeing up roster space will happen naturally, though, as a handful of players have probably played their last game in Minnesota as an important winter for the Twins approaches.
Minnesota Twins players who probably won't be back in 2025
Max Kepler, OF
This one hurts, as all signs point toward Max Kepler playing elsewhere next season. He's one of the longest tenured Twins players, having joined the team back in 2009 as a 16-year old before working his way up to debuting in 2015. He's been a staple on the roster ever since, becoming Opening Day starter in 2016 and breaking out in 2019 in ways that suggested he'd be a big part of the future.
Kepler struggled to replicate the offensive success he had that year, but he remained a central figure in the lineup and developed into a fan favorite over the years. This season he showed flashes once again, hitting .320/.374/.387 in July just two months after he posted a .819 OPS.
He hit the IL a few times this year, most recently in September which ended his season prematurely. He now enters free agency at 31 years old, and is unlikely to get a qualifying offer from the Twins. There's a chance he comes back, but questions about the payroll need to be answered first and there's a chance a team like the Braves or Yankees swoop in and get him before Minnesota can make a move.
He deserves a Minnesota Farewell for all that he did and meant to the team, but it seems like this is the end of the road and the closing of a pretty significant chapter for the Twins.
Carlos Santana, 1B
After getting criticized all winter for not making any meaningful moves, the Twins went out and signed Carlos Santana. He was a classic late-career veteran flier that the team loves to take, seemingly on an annual basis, but he paid off.
It took a minute for Santana to settle in, but took a Michael A. Taylor style role as a new guy who fell into being an everyday player. Injuries plagued Alex Kirilloff all season and Jose Miranda was busy filling in at third base for Royce Lewis, which meant Santana saw work almost every game for the Twins.
His .238/.328/.420 slashline isn't going to light anyone on fire, but he's likely going to win a Gold Glove for his defense. Santanta made just over $5 million this season which is probably going to be too rich for a frugal franchise like the Twins to run back, and he's going to be 39-years-old when the season starts next year.
Santana's one-hit wonder year with the Twins feels a lot like Taylor or Donovan Solano last season, where they were good enough to keep around but the team ends up moving on. With no clear answer for what happens at first base, the possibility exists for Santana to return but he also feels like someone who will get pushed out of the picture as Minnesota shuffles the roster to fit it in the right payroll bracket.
Kyle Farmer, INF
While the Twins didn't spend big money last offseason, Kyle Farmer was the team's most expensive addition. He agreed to a $6 million arbitration settlement over the winter which was more than the team spent on any other player it added.
The idea was that Farmer essentially served as the big free agent signing fans wanted the Twins to make, but he failed to live up to that billing. Farmer was abysmal this season, hitting .187/.291/.260 between April and June before being taken out of the regular rotation of the lineup in July.
Farmer's struggles were amplified by how badly the Twins needed him to step up. Royce Lewis missed the first two months of the season and Farmer failed to fill the gap. Willi Castro ended up being a revelation for Minnesota in large part because he became the versatile player it needed Farmer to be.
He's well respected in the clubhouse, which is one of the main reasons he avoided being DFA'd during the season. Farmer is due to make another $6.3 million in 2025, but the Twins are unlikely to exercise their part of that mutual option.
Calen Thielbar, P
It was a brutal year for Caleb Thielbar, who went from someone who looked like a potential knight in shining armor returning from the IL to being a total liability in the bullpen.
Minnesota's bullpen was hailed as one of the best in baseball on Opening Day, and while Thielbar started the year on the injured list he was viewed as someone who would come back and cancel out the need to have added someone in free agency. This classic Twins strategy unsurprisingly backfired, although the collapse Caleb had was a total bummer to watch.
Right off the bat in his first apperance of the season, Thielbar was lit up by the Tigers for three runs on three hits in just 1/3 innings of work. That ended up being a theme that was established throughout the season with Thielbar, who bottomed out in June when he went back-to-back apperances without recording a single out.
He ends the year with a -0.6 WAR and 5.32 ERA, something the Twins are likely going to stay away from when it comes to deciding whether or not to bring him back.
Manuel Margot, OF
Next to Carlos Santana, the other big external addition the Twins made was trading for Manuel Margot. He was acquired as an insurance plan for Byron Buxton, and some clever finagling allowed Minnesota to free itself from the bulk of Margot's $11 million contract.
The idea was that Margot would fill the Michael A. Taylor role but provide higher upside as an offensive option. That absolutely didn't happen, and while he did hit lefties well nothing else went right. He became a liability on defense, he posted a -0.7 WAR, went 0-for-29 as a pinch hitter, and finished the season with the second-worst batting average of his entire career.
During the Twins' second series of the season, Margot decided to bunt with the bases loaded and two outs. That set the tone for what fans came to expect out of him at the plate and there's absolutely no world in which he's back in Minnesota next season.
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