he was a Twins player for life<\/a> and unwilling to waive the no-trade clause in his contract, even after the club dealt 10 players at the trade deadline.<\/p>\nBut a major-league source indicated Tuesday that Buxton, who turns 32 next month, wants to play for a winner and may reconsider his stance for certain clubs if the Twins continue breaking up their roster, potentially by trading starting pitchers Joe Ryan or Pablo L\u00f3pez. The two-time All-Star center fielder has three years and $45 million remaining on his current deal, one which grants him full no-trade protection through next season, and the ability to block trades to five clubs in 2027 and 2028.<\/p>\n
Even though the team\u2019s payroll and general direction remain unclear as Twins are set to add two limited partnerships to their ownership group, Falvey said Tuesday he doesn\u2019t want to further tear apart the club\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n
While acknowledging he\u2019s actively listening to all teams\u2019 trade concepts to determine the best direction for his club, the Twins president wants to build around a roster featuring Buxton and fellow All-Stars Ryan and L\u00f3pez if he can.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remain personally committed to figuring out what are the ways we can add to this group to make it better,\u201d Falvey said from the general managers meetings. \u201cThat is my goal. It was my stated goal before and remains my stated goal until I\u2019m told otherwise. \u2026 My focus for now is figuring out ways we can add to the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
It shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise the Twins are still facing questions about their direction as the offseason kicks off this month.<\/p>\n
Though the Twins refuse to say the word \u201crebuild\u201d even after trading away Carlos Correa in a salary dump in late July, as well as most of their bullpen, opposing GMs clearly sense the club is in a precarious state as Falvey and Co. wade through the murky waters created by ownership\u2019s potential cost-cutting measures.<\/p>\n
With several holes to fill on the roster, Baseball Prospectus estimates the team\u2019s current payroll at $95 million, a severe drop off from where the Twins resided the previous five seasons. The Twins opened the 2025 season with a $142 million payroll and in 2023 spent a team-record $153.7 million.<\/p>\n
But with the voices of two new limited partnership groups being added, the level of payroll Falvey will be given to work with in 2026 is undetermined. Three months after the Pohlad family indicated it wouldn\u2019t sell the club and instead was adding on the limited partnership groups to help pay down the team\u2019s $425 million debt, Falvey acknowledged he hopes to have more clarity on ownership and payroll by the winter meetings in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think at this stage, the GM meetings, there\u2019s ever a perfect answer to where you\u2019re headed,\u201d Falvey said. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to figure out what the market looks like for your players, for the players that are out there to some degree and even team needs. This is where everything kicks off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Falvey wants to provide new manager Derek Shelton with an improved roster. The Twins not only restocked their farm system in July, they added a bevy of talented pitchers near or at the major-league level in Taj Bradley, Mick Abel and Kendry Rojas.<\/p>\n
Falvey likes the makeup of his current roster and said he\u2019s not currently entertaining the idea of trading away one of Ryan or L\u00f3pez.<\/p>\n
Still, the windfall of young talent the Twins could receive by trading Ryan, who seems destined for free agency after the 2027 season, may be too tempting to pass up for an organization which has always been dependent on affordable, young players.<\/p>\n
Falvey spoke with Buxton in early August about the team\u2019s direction and again at the end of the regular season. In both cases, Buxton made it clear wanted to stay with the Twins.<\/p>\n
But if the Twins are to continue their unofficial rebuild, Falvey might need to address Buxton again. This time, it\u2019s possible the player\u2019s answer would change.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy view is you always want to be transparent and open with your players about where you\u2019re headed and what it looks like just like we were after the deadline,\u201d Falvey said. \u201cI\u2019ve talked to Byron and other players through this offseason already about ways we can get better as a team. With Shelty coming in, you can already tell there\u2019s a little bit of fresh ideas brewing around how do we make the team the best it can be no matter who\u2019s on the roster at that moment in time. My focus will continue to be on ways we can put players around the players that are on our roster and not subtract from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: Twins add Grady Sizemore to coaching staff<\/p>\n
Another former major-leaguer was added to Shelton\u2019s coaching staff on Tuesday when the Twins hired Grady Sizemore to be their new outfield\/base running coach, according to a team source.<\/p>\n
Sizemore served as interim manager for the Chicago White Sox in 2024 after the club fired Pedro Grifol, then remained in Chicago as the team\u2019s offensive coordinator in 2025. He played for the Cleveland Guardians when Shelton was the team\u2019s hitting coach.<\/p>\n
Sizemore is the second former big-leaguer to be added to Shelton\u2019s coaching staff following the hire of LaTroy Hawkins as bullpen coach<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Derek Falvey wants to begin building up his team\u2019s roster, but if he\u2019s instead forced…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":373335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1287,1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-373334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-minnesota-twins","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115535374235299716","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}