Could Twins think about moving core players?

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As there is to any Twins offseason under president Derek Falvey’s stewardship, there will be some degree of push and pull -- and the need to be “creative” in that space has always been something Falvey will openly acknowledge, especially with the continued uncertainties around the club’s revenue situation.

With Minnesota coming off a disappointing finish to its 2024 season, could the magnitude of that pushing and pulling grow more significant?

Put more plainly, if the Twins want to add more flexibility to work the market, wouldn’t it help for them to try and move one of their largest contracts -- say, Carlos Correa or Pablo López or Byron Buxton -- instead of working on the margins by exploring names like Christian Vázquez or Chris Paddack?

But that’s not the way the club is going, Falvey said.

“Everyone's always going to ask, when you're a team in the payroll bracket that we are, around, ‘How do you gain flexibility and what does that look like?’” Falvey said. “And that's obvious. But I feel really confident that those guys are going to be part of the ability for us to do what we want to do on the field. They're going to fuel us to some of that hopeful success we want to have.”

It’s true to a good extent that the franchise’s economic outlook perhaps looked different when the opportunistic Twins made the biggest splash in franchise history by twice signing Correa to a free-agent deal, including this most recent six-year, $200 million deal from January 2023 that allocates to him a massive chunk of the club's active payroll at any given time.

Minnesota was similarly aggressive with its payroll allocation when the team immediately extended López for four seasons and $73.5 million after trading for him during the 2022-23 offseason -- and the first big payroll hit of that extension will begin now in ‘25. The Twins were also aggressive -- to a lesser extent -- in inking Buxton to a long-term extension, too.

But Falvey was firm in his indication that those highly paid players remain the club’s core building blocks.

“Obviously, we'll need to be creative, as I told you last week, around how we make our roster work and fit together,” Falvey said. “There will be a long offseason to figure that out. But I feel really good about those players.”

It’s perhaps a more intriguing question in light of Brooks Lee showing up to an infield logjam and showing a seeming ability to play a pretty good defensive shortstop, with Luke Keaschall (Minnesota's No. 3 prospect, No. 63 overall) likely set to add to that infield logjam at some point this season (and Keaschall has also been a good enough athlete to play center field).

Add that to the fact that, for once, the Twins actually have a glut of starting pitching -- to the extent that exploring potential deals for Paddack, Bailey Ober or Joe Ryan might even make sense to either add financial flexibility to use elsewhere on the roster or to bring back meaningful Major League talent.

But, again, Minnesota doesn’t seem to be looking in the direction of trending towards the biggest splashes possible in the trade market -- not to mention that it would also need to get Correa or Buxton to agree to waive a no-trade clause.

“We reserve the right to have that conversation at any point in time with any player and agent,” Falvey said. “That's part of the process across the league. But that's not something we're focused on.”