As the 2024-25 MLB offseason rolls on, the Minnesota Twins find themselves in a tight spot. The club just finished going 82-80 and finishing fourth in an AL Central division that seems to be getting tougher by the day. The organization clearly has its work cut out for them if they want to continue to contend.
Keeping this in mind, it becomes confusing when you take into consideration that Minnesota is looking to cut payroll. The Twins have never been considered a "large-market" club, but shedding payroll while simultaneously looking to field a winner is a tight line that few organizations can successfully walk.
Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa and Pablo Lopez are the Twins' most tradeable assets but each one of them brings a tremendous amount of value to the team. Trading even one of them away instantly makes it much more difficult to keep up with the other heavyweights in the American League.
Twins walking a fine line between contending and freeing up money
Making matters more interesting is that the Twins are not the only team in the division taking cost-cutting measures. The Cleveland Guardians, who just won the division after a 92-win showing in 2024, just dumped Andres Gimenez's contract in a trade with the Blue Jays and are also loud and proud about their attempts to trade Josh Naylor and Lane Thomas before they become too expensive.
Ultimately, all this does for both the Twins and Guardians is allow the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals to make up ground. Seeing as how just six-and-a-half games separated the Guardians, Tigers and Royals this past season, it's not going to be difficult for the latter two to begin to close the gap.
Teams that allow themselves to carry the "small-market" label are doing nothing more than disrespecting their fans. Per Forbes, the MLB team with the lowest worth is the Miami Marlins who come in at $1 billion. That fact alone makes it hard to see why teams and their owners are so comfortable crying poor. Just because the financial flexibility of a team like the Dodgers, Mets or Yankees isn't there doesn't mean there's a money drought.
Unfortunately, the Twins find themselves falling into this category, as do the Guardians. Some of their competition in the Central is young and exciting and coming up fast. There's going to need to be some sort of give sometime soon, but trading away Correa, Buxton or Lopez feels counterproductive more than anything.