The Minnesota Twins have recently made moves to bolster their depth in the bullpen and outfield, but it seems as though the team may still have a trick or two up its collective sleeves before spring training gets going in full force later this month.
The team could still use some help at shortstop, and one other spot that's up in the air is first base. Let's look at how the Twins can expect to replace the departed Carlos Santana, who'll suit up this season for the Cleveland Guardians.
Let's start with some internal options
The Twins could stay internal with their options, which would be good enough for what they need. They put Jose Miranda through a trial run at first last season, and in 100 innings, he posted a flat zero in defensive runs saved.
While it isn't an eye-popping number, it's good enough for not playing the position before. With the departure of Carlos Santana, they will certainly miss the Gold Glove defense on that side of the infield, but Miranda has also proved that he can be a solid contributor at the plate. Before he suffered a July back injury, he was slugging .510 with an .871 OPS and a 146 wRC+.
The biggest problem with Miranda is that he has been plagued by injuries in his first few seasons. Even if they go internal with Miranda, the Twins will need a backup plan, which could be Mike Ford, who was signed to a minor league deal earlier this offseason.
Another option could be Edouard Julien. He's only played 19.1 big-league innings at first, but it appears the Twins thought enough of him being a future option there from Day 1. In his first year of pro ball, he played 20 games at first base (along with 18 in left field, 39 at second and 23 ghastly games at third base with a .895 fielding percentage) and he's dabbled there at times since.
Searching in the trade market
This may be widely viewed as the most realistic option, as the Twins have some options to dive into the trade market before Spring Training starts. There have been three 1B's who are rumored to have been shopped around.
The first is Baltimore's Ryan Mountcastle. Mountcastle has been on a steady decline for the last few seasons. The 36th overall pick in the 2015 MLB Draft has gone from 22 home runs to 18 to just 13 last season, but still provided some decent offensive value with a 113 OPS+ last season. Where Mountcastle could help the Twins at first is defensively. He put up plus-8 DRS last season, which was a career-high.
He has steadily increased his defensive production over the course of his career. The connection with new Twins hitting coach Matt Borgschulte, formerly of the Orioles, might make sense here.
The next trade possibility is Boston's Triston Casas. With the number of left-handed hitters the Red Sox have, it wouldn't be a surprise to see them move off Casas. He would provide another left-handed bat with some pop, as Fangra has him projected to hit 28 home runs in 2025.
The problem is that he may not provide enough defensive value for the Twins to part with the prospects they covet. The Twins have built a good pitching pipeline, some of which are near-MLB ready. They likely have the assets, but the question is do they want to pay it?
Lastly, and maybe the hardest to pull off, is with a divisional foe, the Detroit Tigers. Spencer Torkelson was the first overall pick in 2020. The Tigers understood there would be growing pains with the college slugger, but it looks like they may have run out of patience.
The 22-year-old was slashing .203/.285/.319 in 2024 before being sent down to AAA, but that was also deemed unsuccessful as he slashed a respectable .239/.356/.443 in 58 games with Toledo. With the Tigers announcing that Colt Keith will be moving to first with the signing of Gleyber Torres, Torkelson's fate in the Tigers organization is cloudy.
Maybe the Twins feel they can fix Torkelson. But even if the Tigers want to move off Torkelson, would they want to send him to an already-good Twins lineup? This seems like it would be a low-risk, high-reward move.
Finding a Free Agent
The least likely option here is dipping their toes in the free-agent market. The names available would probably not outproduce what they could find in the trade market.
One free agent that could fit the bill for the Twins is former Yankee and Cub Anthony Rizzo. Rizzo, on the tail end of his career, is projected to be a league-average hitter at best (ZiPS and Steamer both project him for a 99 wRC+). Pairing up with league-average production at the plate, and league average-production in the field, it could be possible that this is all the team needs.
The benefit of Rizzo, along with the other available free agents, is that it won't force the Pohlads to stretch the budget further than they already have with the additions of Harrison Bader and Danny Coloumbe.