MN Twins Pretending to Chase Star Talent Again?

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Freddy Peralta
Credit: Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

The Minnesota Twins have done next to nothing all offseason, which shouldn’t be a surprise. Even after Derek Falvey and Tom Pohlad proclaimed otherwise during the MLB Winter Meetings.

Sure, Byron Buxton, Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez are sticking around (probably), but if this is what being a “buyer” looks like, god save whatever poor baseball soul has to sit through an offseason of “doing nothing”.

So far, the Minnesota Twins have signed first baseman Josh Bell, catcher Victor Caratini, and new/old closer Taylor Rogers. All three are expected to play major roles in 2026. But those moves don’t move the needle on a team supposedly planning to “contend”.

Minnesota Twins pretending to contend on superstar market?

If Derek Falvey and ownership were serious about winning the AL Central and getting back to the postseason, they’d find a few more pennies and bring in some talent that would actually get the fanbase excited.

Or… and hear me out here… they could PRETEND to be in on players that sign elsewhere! That way, fans will think they’re trying to compete, and they WON’T have to actually spend the money. GENIUS!

The farm system is ripe with talent and could be leveraged to add established talent. It hasn’t been thus far, but they want to constantly be tied to the “we tried” movement.

The Milwaukee Brewers — another smallish market team — put their high-priced starter Freddy Peralta on the trade block this offseason, in order to get some return on their investment before his contract expires.

Shocker: He landed with the New York Mets and their billionaire baseball fan owner Steve Cohen — who throws money around like he’s playing Monopoly with a cheat code.

Freddy Peralta could have been a MN Twin?

But here’s where the Minnesota Twins come into the picture. Before Peralta was dealt to the Big Apple, Ken Rosenthal (The Athletic) says other teams made a late push for his services, including the Minnesota Twins.

The Rangers, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants and Minnesota Twins all expressed varying degrees of late interest in Peralta before the Brewers dealt him to the Mets, league sources said.

The Athletic

Last season Peralta threw a career-high 176 2/3 innings, posting a career-best 2.70 ERA (3.64 FIP) — good for 5th in NL Cy Young voting. Freddy is a free agent following the 2026 season and he is owed a reasonable $8 million this year.

However, the Twins committing multiple top 100 prospects to bring him here for one season, just so he can leave as a free agent in 2027 doesn’t make a ton of sense.

And if we know one thing about this current iteration of the Pohlad-owned Twins, they weren’t going to pay Freddy Peralta hundreds of millions of dollars on a new deal, even if he was interested in staying beyond 2026.

This is the Derek Falvey we remember

Maybe this is how we know that the Minnesota Twins really are back? Hear me out. It’s been a little while since we’ve seen Falvey pretend to show interest in a big-dollar trade/FA assets, but this used to be a go-to maneuver for the 10th year Twins executive.

When the Falvey regime took over baseball operations back in 2016, the Twins quickly became synonymous with regularly “being involved” in free agent and trade conversations involving some of the league’s biggest stars, but NEVER coming out as the winner.

Back then, we used to see Minnesota mentioned next to all sorts of available superstars. The 2017 Twins, for example, were “highly interested” in Yu Darvish when he was available. Jake Arrieta was their supposed 1A, at the time.

Spoiler: They signed neither.

Then, Later that year, Falvey and then general manager Thad Levine were “top contenders” for a young Japanese superstar we were just starting to hear rumors about, named Shohei Ohtani. Yeah, they weren’t able to land that fish, either.

Related: Minnesota Twins Preparing for a Trade?

Eventually (around 2019), the Minnesota Twins actually did get serious — dealing for Josh Donaldson and Pablo Lopez, signing Nelson Cruz and eventually Carlos Correa (twice) — moves that would help spiral them into $500 million worth of debt.

Ultimately Peralta would have cost the Twins something like Emmanuel Rodriguez and Connor Prielipp. That’s a pretty steep price to pay for a team that was NEVER going to write him a check to stay on a new contract, beyond 2026.

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