Welcome one and all to Twins Opening Day! As always, we will have our game thread up this afternoon to make predictions about the rest of the season based off a single game, but for now you can read our predictions before a single game is played. All your favorite Twinkie Town writers have pitched in their thoughts. Leave yours as well!
Who will be the Twins’ best hitter in 2026?
Ben Jones: Byron Buxton this, Luke Keaschall that. How about Matt Wallner? He has major flaws but he’s also not that far away from being one of the best hitters in baseball,
frankly. Wallner has his best season as pro, hits 45 dongs, and leads the team in every major offensive category including, yes, strikeouts.
Matt Monitto: Seeing a lot of buzz for a Luke Keaschall breakout, and I have to agree with it, especially if he bats leadoff ahead of Buxton: that would suggest pitchers go after him to avoid facing Buck with men on, giving him more chances to hit.
Zach Koenig: I think we may have seen the apex of Buxton in 2025. Now, slightly-regression Buxton may still be the best hitter on this squad, but I’m gonna go with Luke Keaschall. He really impressed me last year I sometimes wonder if he hadn’t gotten hurt maybe the Pohlads wouldn’t have gone scorched earth on the bit. Extremely inexperienced, I know, but that speed really plays.
James Filmore: Byron Buxton
John Foley: Byron Buxton. It’s still best to look at things for Buck on a rate basis, even after he played in 126 games last year (his most since 2017), but we shouldn’t overthink this question. Since the 2020 campaign, Buxton has solidified his place as one of the game’s premier sluggers. By isolated slugging, Buxton trails only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani over that span.
John Von Mosch (aka our good friend Imakesandwichesforaliving): Byron Buxton. He’ll carry over from last season. Maybe a 30-30 season??
Hans Hollander: Buxton continues to be a star with another fantastic season…this time earning top-10 MVP honors.
Who will be the Twins’ best pitcher in 2026?
Ben Jones: This was a more fun question back when Pablo Lopez was healthy and Bailey Ober could crack 90 MPH on his fastball. Now, the only real answer is Joe Ryan. However, I’ll add a caveat that I think there’s like a 80% chance Ryan is dealt at the deadline, leaving space for someone to catch him on overall impact. In that case, 2027 All-Star Taj Bradley is on the case.
Matt Monitto: Joe Ryan for as long as he remains a Twin.
Zach Koenig: I’m going chalk here with the Joe Ryan Experience. When he’s right, he’s a top-flight MLB starter. With Pablo out, I don’t see an obvious challenger to that mantle.
James Filmore: Joe Ryan
John Foley: Joe Ryan for the first half of the season. Again, let’s not overthink it. Who will be the best pitcher in the second half is anyone’s guess because Ryan won’t be with the Twins past the trade deadline. If the outlook going into 2027 is going to be improved over this past winter, the answer needs to be Taj Bradley and Mick Abel.
Sandwiches: Joe Ryan. I think he’s the only pitcher on the staff, isn’t he?
Hans Hollander: Joe Ryan will lead the staff…and will stay with the Twins for the entire year! And, as a unit, the rotation is tops in the division. As for the bullpen, Taylor Rogers regains the closer title and leads the team with saves.
Who will be their breakout star?
Ben Jones: I really think Brooks Lee puts it together this year. That doesn’t mean he’s suddenly a mid-order bat, but a .750 OPS and 20 home runs would unironically make him one the Twins’ three most important position players. With Kaelen Culpepper on his heels, he’ll feel the pressure to get back to his top-prospect status and it’s now or never.
Matt Monitto: I already said Keaschall, but I’m going to add another and say Eric Orze becomes a high-leverage option in the bullpen. My justification is that I had Orze as a solid relief options for several seasons in my Twins Out of the Park save, so I’m rooting for him.
Zach Koenig: A bit of a swerve here, but I’ll say manager Derek Shelton. I know from all accounts that Rocco seemed to be really good behind the scenes with player relationships. But to me, that never translated to fans. He never showed much emotion and, quite frankly, at times (too many times, by the end) didn’t seem to be having much fun at all. I’ve heard a few Shelton interviews and he seems to bring a new energy.
James Filmore: Taj Bradley because the Twins are due for a great young starter.
John Foley: Austin Martin in a nearly everyday super utility role. (Editor’s note: the heart yearns for 2024 All-Star Willi Castro)
Sandwiches: I have a feeling Luke Keaschall will tear it up this year.
Hans Hollander: Austin Martin proves he belongs in the lineup, leading off more than any other Twin.
Which top prospect will have the greatest impact in 2026?
Ben Jones: I don’t think he’s the best of the Twins’ top 100 quartet, but the answer here is probably Connor Prielipp. Minnesota’s bullpen is so vacant of impact arms that he would probably be their best reliever right now. As it stands, he’s in St. Paul working as a starter, but the Twins will likely want to lighten his load as the season wears on, giving him a chance to step in as their best reliever down the stretch.
Matt Monitto: Gabriel Gonzalez because eventually they’ll call up a right-handed-hitting outfielder.
Zach Koenig: I have to plead the fifth on this one, as I simply do not follow the minor leagues or prospects enough to have an informed opinion. As I always say, a player “becomes real” to me when he hits the majors. (Editor’s note: that makes Zach’s answer 30-year-old career minor league catcher David Bañuelos according to the TT bylaws. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.)
James Filmore: Prielipp because his name sounds kinda kinky.
John Foley: Mick Abel. His improvement in throwing strikes last year appears to have carried over into this spring. Abel has been hard to square up throughout his minor league career and generates frequent ground balls when hitters do put it in play. Avoiding free passes at a much higher rate has changed the trajectory of his outlook.
Sandwiches: I’ll have to go with Emmanuel Rodriguez. I don’t keep tabs on the prospects well enough, but I think he’s been healthy and had a great spring. He’ll get the nod at some point and impress folks.
Hans Hollander: Culpepper ends the season as the starting shortstop, starting to make Twins fans optimistic about the position.
Predict the Twins’ final record and whether or not they make the playoffs.
Ben Jones: Most projection systems have the Twins between 78-80 wins. Outside of the bullpen, I think that’s about where they stand as a team with the opportunity for more if some combination of Wallner, Larnach, Roden, Lewis, Lee, Martin, and Bell can turn into true mid-order bats. That’s about where you want to live as a team who is mid-rebuild (despite what Tom Pohlad will tell you). Bullpens are fickle and it’s just as likely that Cole Sands has the best year of his life that the entire thing implodes. I’ll be the positive one and say they finish 85-77 and sneak into the final Wild Card slot.
Matt Monitto: 64-98, but incredibly, they finish first in the Central after a string of tornadoes sweeps through opposing clubhouses and leaves them without uniforms for the entire sea— actually, no, they finish last.
Zach Koenig: No playoffs—I just don’t see even a Wild Card berth happening. I do think this squad still has enough talent to not be 92+ loss bad. At the same time, they have enough holes that unless everything comes up 21, I don’t see them all that competitive. I’ll go with 74-88—four games better than last year based on the fact that morale won’t be quite as low as August/September ’25. But also not enough to really move the needle.
James Filmore: 72-36 (wait for it…)
Marea Anderson: Somewhere around 65-97, and that’s being generous. I’m not blaming players at all; this is based purely on the ownership. I’m convinced they’re trying to recreate the movie Major League into a documentary, and are doing everything they can to make the fans and players hate it here so they can move to a larger or warmer climate.
John Foley: 74-88. I think the chances they finish below the White Sox in the standings in 2026 are higher than their chances of making the postseason.
Sandwiches: 72-90, and I sadly think I’m being optimistic. If they make the playoffs with that record, something went terribly wrong in MLB.
Hans Hollander: The Twins finish at .500 and out of the playoffs. BUT, they finish with one of the stronger Septembers in the sport and clarity on a direction for the next season.
Give me a bold prediction for this season.
Ben Jones: I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I absolutely know that Austin Martin’s hair will cause him to make a game-losing mistake. Maybe it gets in his eyes during a crucial at-bat. Maybe his glove gets caught in it as he goes to make a leaping grab in left field. Maybe a bird takes up residence in his luscious mane, they develop an unbreakable bond, and said bird hears the high frequencies of the PitchCom device and starts whispering pitches into Martin’s ear but often gets it wrong because it’s still new to english.
There’s no way to know the specifics, but I guarantee it will happen. I can feel it my bones.
Matt Monitto: Due to a positional change forcing them to use their DH in the field, Kody Funderburk is forced to bat in a late June game and homers.
Zach Koenig: If by some chance the Twins are in contention on August 13—the Field of Dreams game—they are able to summon the ghost of Walter Johnson out of the corn. He hadn’t shown up with the 1919 bunch back in the Ray Kinsella Era because the notoriously above-board Big Train would never associate with known gamblers. Because he is, well, Walter Johnson, he immediately pitches a perfect game in Dyersville and the Twins are the new AL favorites. Because Minnesota is, well, Minnesota, he feels “a little something” in his elbow the next day and is diagnosed with a torn ACL. Because he can’t step over the chalk line of any ballpark, the surgery must be performed by Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, who of course botches it because he lived decades before Tommy John’s landmark procedure. The Twins collapse the rest of the way.
James Filmore: The Twins finish 72-36 because… the season will be canceled in August when the Twins are on the verge of clinching a #1 playoff seed, just because MLB hates YOU personally. Not Twins fans in general, just YOU. YOU know who YOU are and YOU know what YOU did.
John Foley: No fewer than five Twins finish the season with 10+ home runs and 10+ stolen bases. (They had 3 do it last year, none in 2024, and 1 in 2023).
Sandwiches: The Twims will set the record for the most innings pitched by position players in a season by a long shot, most of them by Kody Clemens, enough for him to qualify for some sort of award. Maybe best K/9 by a reliever.
Hans Hollander: T.C. Bear announces he has twin sons: Lil’ Minnie and Paulie B(ear). (Editor’s note: the notoriously litigious Disney Corporation already has a cease-and-desist in the mail, Hans. Nobody infringes upon Michael Theodore Mouse’s wife’s copyrighted name, image, or likeness. You can’t just say things like this on Al Gore’s internet!)
