The Minnesota Twins are in a weird spot. They’re 54-54, which in most years would be the definition of mediocre. But somehow, after Royce Lewis walked things off with a two-run triple against the Royals on Tuesday, they’re sitting half a game out of the final AL Wild Card spot. And only two games behind the White Sox for first in the division. A team everyone wrote off as a rebuild-in-disguise suddenly has multiple paths to October.
That changes the math for a front office that had every excuse to sell. Attendance at Target Field has been brutal. Owner Tom Pohlad has been vocal about needing to give fans a reason to come back. But general manager Jeremy Zoll just made it clear: the Twins are buying.
“I feel clear on the direction and opportunity that lies ahead of us,” Zoll told MLB.com’s Matthew Leach. “And on being in sync across the board with Tom and Derek, and our baseball ops group. We’re trying to work on that over the course of the week and execute on it.”
That’s as close to a public declaration as you’ll get from a front office guy three weeks before the deadline. No hedging. No “we’ll evaluate all options.” Just a straight-ahead statement that the organization sees a window and intends to push through it.
What does that mean for the roster? For the last year-plus, Joe Ryan and Byron Buxton have been the names floating around trade rumors. Ryan is a legitimate frontline starter. Buxton, when healthy, is one of the most electric players in baseball. Those are exactly the kind of guys contenders sell off when they punt on a season. Based on Zoll’s comments, neither is going anywhere. The Twins want to build around what they have.
Zoll specifically mentioned the bullpen as a priority. That’s not news to anyone who watched this team blow late leads all spring. Fans wanted bullpen help before Opening Day. They wanted it in May. They wanted it in June. Now, with the front office publicly on board, the question is whether they can actually get it done before the Aug. 3 deadline. Zoll said he’s open to improving the roster in other ways too, depending on what options materialize.
The players in that clubhouse deserve some credit here. They forced the organization’s hand. A team that was supposed to be a non-factor through August made itself impossible to ignore. The Twins are still not a championship roster — not close, really. But in an AL that has no dominant team, having a chance is enough. It’s enough to make ownership spend. It’s enough to make a young GM go public with his intentions.
Now the front office has to follow through. The Twins have said what they’re going to do. There’s no more suspense, no more mystery. The next two weeks will tell us if they actually meant it.
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