> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.aarongleeman.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Twins' season ends with a 77-85 record, one big missed opportunity, and lots of questions - URL: https://www.aarongleeman.com/twins-season-ends-with-a-77-85-record-one-big-missed-opportunity-and-lots-of-questions/ - Published: 2026-09-28T12:03:38.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-28T12:03:38.000Z - Description: Wait 'til next year. Again. - Author: Aaron Gleeman - Tags: Analysis, Announcements, Derek Shelton, Jeremy Zoll, The Pohlads What a weird season this was for the Minnesota Twins. Actually, it all started last offseason with leadership changes at three levels of the organization. First they changed managers, replacing Rocco Baldelli with his former right-hand man Derek Shelton. Then they changed lead owners, swapping out Joe Pohlad for his older brother Tom Pohlad. And then days before spring training they changed front office bosses, replacing Derek Falvey with his right-hand man Jeremy Zoll. Despite coming off a 92-loss season in 2025 and making all those organizational changes, the Twins did surprisingly little to alter the roster itself. Victor Caratini and Josh Bell were their biggest offseason additions. No real bullpen help arrived. Payroll fell to $100 million, $35 million below 2025 and $60 million below 2023. Fan morale and expectations were low as spring training began in February. And then on Day 1 of camp, they lost All-Star pitcher Pablo López to a season-ending elbow injury. Odds-makers set their over/under at 72.5 wins. Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs were a bit more optimistic, each projecting the Twins for 78 wins. Pohlad, Zoll, and Shelton were steadfast in their collective belief the Twins would be competitive and [repeated](https://www.aarongleeman.com/twins-latest-collapse-falls-short-of-oft-stated-goal-to-play-meaningful-games-in-september/) "play meaningful games in September" as the team's goal. And for much of this season, it looked like they would accomplish it, thanks in part to the players' resiliency and in part to the American League's weakness. They ended July with a winning record, which was enough for sole possession of the AL's final wild-card spot. And three days later, with Pohlad's blessing/urging, Zoll and the front office bought at the trade deadline, acquiring veteran pitchers Jeff Hoffman, A.J. Minter, and Dean Kremer in exchange for six prospects. At the time, the messaging was that the players had done their part and stayed in the playoff mix, so Pohlad signed off on adding $8 million to the still-small payroll and Zoll cashed in a decent amount of prospect capital to make a push to expand the "play meaningful games in ..." goal from "September" to "October." And then, just as fan morale and expectations were growing, and the new Pohlad had taken the first small step toward differentiating himself from old Pohlads, the bottom fell out. They went 22-30 after August 1, third-worst in the AL for the last two months. August 26 was their final day with playoff odds above 10 percent. Their once-admirable resiliency and ability to bounce back from tough stretches turned into an inability to sustain any modicum of success. For four months, they kept getting up after being knocked down. And then, with two months to go, and having successfully raised expectations, they simply stayed down. [Why didn’t the Twins win this season? Five big reasons, from bad decisions to bad luckSlashing payroll yet again and ignoring glaring weaknesses during the offseason went every bit as badly as feared, but the Twins’ problems didn’t end there.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/99/d2/99d2ed79-3513-4dc5-b2af-8762fe79e214/content/images/icon/gleeman-fb-logo-89e7af28-c320-4817-b252-9af00e852235.jpg)AaronGleeman.comAaron Gleeman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/99/d2/99d2ed79-3513-4dc5-b2af-8762fe79e214/content/images/thumbnail/shelton-pulls-matthews-2-1-1-551e439f-3b8e-4066-85ab-0da830d55f5d.jpg)](https://www.aarongleeman.com/why-didnt-the-twins-win-this-season-five-big-reasons-from-bad-decisions-to-bad-luck/) It's clear the Twins ran out of gas four months into the six-month race. That can be partly blamed on injuries — first López and then fellow All-Stars Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan, plus other prominent players missing time — but league-wide they ranked just 22nd in days lost to injuries and 21st in projected WAR lost to injuries. Beyond that, attributing the bulk of this season's issues to injuries would wrongly take the Twins' decision-makers off the hook for cutting payroll and infuriatingly little offseason effort to improve a disjointed roster. Everyone knew their bullpen and defense would be glaring weaknesses. Those unforced errors [hurt a lot](https://www.aarongleeman.com/why-didnt-the-twins-win-this-season-five-big-reasons-from-bad-decisions-to-bad-luck/). Things almost certainly look brighter for the future with Walker Jenkins (21 years old), Kaelen Culpepper (23), and Emmanuel Rodriguez (23) joining Luke Keaschall (24) and Brooks Lee (25) as the next lineup core, and Taj Bradley (25) and Connor Prielipp (25) emerging as rotation building blocks. But in the meantime, this year felt like a missed opportunity. They failed to take advantage of an unexpectedly decent first half and an unexpectedly weak playoff field, and what was by Twins standards an aggressive trade deadline adding three veteran pitchers who combined for a 3.13 ERA in 95 innings down the stretch. They had a real path to turn a season with very low expectations into a very nice surprise, and possibly even a playoff trip no one saw coming, in Year 1 of the new leadership trio. Instead, for the third straight season, the Twins collapsed in the second half, finishing between the 72.5-win over/under and 78-win projections. They won 77 and missed the playoffs by eight games. Wait 'til next year. Again. Now the Twins need to actually ... well, try. Pohlad needs to increase payroll, and not just by a few million, but by raising the spending level back to where it was in 2023 ($160 million) or at the very least 2025 ($135 million). League-wide spending has risen so much that the average MLB payroll was over $180 million this year. Assuming the front office is given the resources to add, not subtract, talent, Zoll and company need to surround this promising young core with reliable veterans and, perhaps just as importantly, build a roster where the individual pieces fit the overall puzzle rather than just collecting overlapping skill sets and deficiencies. This cannot be enough. Not after back-to-back losing seasons, three consecutive second-half collapses, and five missed playoffs in six years. And not after Pohlad's big talk about wanting to be aggressive and being willing to spend. At some point, actions need to match words. And that some point starts now. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/99/d2/99d2ed79-3513-4dc5-b2af-8762fe79e214/content/images/2026/09/gleeman-fb-logo-copy.jpg)](#/portal/signup) Let's do this together. Support my independent writing with a [subscription to AaronGleeman.com](#/portal/signing) and get my year-round, in-depth, unfiltered Twins coverage, plus so much more. [Subscribe to AaronGleeman.com ](#/portal/signup) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/99/d2/99d2ed79-3513-4dc5-b2af-8762fe79e214/content/images/2026/09/press-box-seat-2026-1.jpg) (The view from my seat in the Target Field press box this season.) On a personal level, this season was ... a lot. It began as the seventh season doing my dream job of writing about the Twins for The Athletic, but a few weeks later I was told they no longer wanted me to cover the team I've been covering for over two decades. It took me by surprise, and the timing of it was particularly awful. I considered their request to stay and move to national news writing, considered what was important to me as a writer and as a person, considered whether I was willing to put my financial well-being on the line for that, and decided to do what I wanted and not what a corporate entity with no regard for me wanted. It required taking the biggest risk of my life, with zero warning and little time to waste with the season already underway. And it paid off immediately, because of the support I received from the people who have been riding with me this whole time. I [wrote on Day 1](https://www.aarongleeman.com/welcome-to-the-new-aarongleeman-com-and-why-i-left-the-athletic/) that I wanted to do this together and we have. [Welcome to the new AaronGleeman.com (and why I left The Athletic)I refuse to stop covering the Twins, so I’m betting on myself and returning to my independent roots. Let’s do this together.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/99/d2/99d2ed79-3513-4dc5-b2af-8762fe79e214/content/images/icon/gleeman-fb-logo-0e4c4219-0522-447e-afc7-fd97c7ed313b.jpg)AaronGleeman.comAaron Gleeman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/99/d2/99d2ed79-3513-4dc5-b2af-8762fe79e214/content/images/thumbnail/dpjumyfy1jm6lpwi7w9o-4d5386c1-cea4-4d14-a004-85a210052080.jpg)](https://www.aarongleeman.com/welcome-to-the-new-aarongleeman-com-and-why-i-left-the-athletic/) I'll never forget the feeling of waking up on Monday morning, May 11, as nervous as I've ever been, hitting "publish" on my announcement, and realizing within an hour everything was going to work out just fine. By noon, I'd already hit my goal for paid subscribers. By midnight, I was making more than I did at The Athletic. In the five months since then, your support has continued to grow. It's been such a life-affirming experience to watch AG•com readership numbers steadily climb, and to hear from subscribers at Target Field who signed up because they wanted to keep reading my work and also wanted to support me as a person. I'm forever grateful. Truly. You turned a super difficult situation and a very scary leap of faith into the best decision of my life, despite the Twins' losing record. I'm now more motivated than ever to cover the Twins in an in-depth, unfiltered way, and I've got a ton of stuff planned for the offseason. Thank you for reading. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/99/d2/99d2ed79-3513-4dc5-b2af-8762fe79e214/content/images/2026/09/gleeman-fb-logo-copy.jpg)](#/portal/signup) Let's do this together. Support my independent writing with a [subscription to AaronGleeman.com](#/portal/signing) and get my year-round, in-depth, unfiltered Twins coverage, plus so much more. [Subscribe to AaronGleeman.com ](#/portal/signup)