Twins ownership expects to raise payroll for 2027 season

The Minnesota Twins expect to raise payroll for the 2027 season, ownership told MLB.com — a forward-looking signal from a franchise finishing 2026 at 77-85 and well outside the playoff picture.

What happened

Twins ownership, speaking to MLB.com's Matthew Leach, said the club expects to increase its payroll heading into 2027. Published by MLB.com, the statement carries organizational weight rather than the status of a rumor or a secondary-outlet report. No dollar figures, no specific targets, and no roster commitments were attached to the expectation.

That last part is worth sitting with for a moment. An ownership group saying it expects to spend more is, in the taxonomy of baseball offseason communications, roughly one tier above a vague tweet and one tier below an actual contract. It is, however, a tier that matters — particularly for a fanbase that has watched a roster churn through a difficult year.

Why it matters

The Twins enter this offseason carrying a fair amount of organizational turbulence. The club parted ways with assistant GM Daniel Adler after his role was reduced following Derek Falvey's departure in January 2026. The pitching staff coaching structure was also overhauled, with pitching coaches Maki and Ramirez and trainer Kirkman all departing ahead of the 2026 season — a staff that, by the end of the year, was navigating injuries to key arms.

Against that backdrop, a public commitment from ownership to raise payroll is not nothing. It sets an expectation — internally and externally — that the front office will have resources to work with as it rebuilds the roster. Whether that expectation translates into meaningful additions is, of course, the question that will define the offseason.

The Twins also have at least one significant roster decision looming. Catcher Ryan Jeffers plans to test free agency this offseason but has indicated he is open to re-signing with Minnesota. Jeffers represents exactly the kind of retention question that a payroll commitment speaks to, even if the MLB.com report did not reference any individual player.

Where the club stands

Minnesota finishes the 2026 regular season at 77-85 (.475), sitting third in the AL Central and 8 games back of the division leader. The Twins were eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race, and ranked 7th in the Wild Card standings — 7.0 games relative to the cut line. They close the year on a one-game winning streak, which is the kind of detail that reads as a small mercy rather than a momentum indicator.

Third place in the AL Central at 77-85 is not where the Twins expected to be when the season began, and the organizational moves of the past several months reflect an acknowledgment of that. The front office structure has shifted. The pitching staff coaching group has been replaced. Byron Buxton, the franchise's most dynamic position player when healthy, is rehabbing a right hip injury and targeting a return in 2027 — meaning the club has already been planning around his absence for the better part of this year.

The payroll commitment, then, lands in a specific context: a team that finished below .475, lost key personnel in the front office and coaching staff, and is now being told by ownership that the checkbook will be more open next cycle. Whether "more open" means meaningfully more open is the kind of thing that gets answered in November and December, not in a September media availability.

What we don't know yet

The MLB.com report does not include a target payroll figure, a list of priorities, or any indication of which roster areas the Twins plan to address first. The expectation of a payroll increase is attributed to ownership, but the mechanism — free agency, extensions, trades — is unspecified.

The Jeffers situation is similarly unresolved. His openness to returning has been reported, but no negotiation timeline or contract framework has been reported. Jeff Hoffman, who was placed on the injured list with forearm inflammation late in the season, has an uncertain status heading into the offseason — forearm injuries in pitchers carry their own set of questions that tend to linger well past the final out of the regular season.

The front office structure itself is still taking shape. With Adler gone and the coaching staff already adjusted, the Twins are building out a decision-making apparatus at the same time they are being asked to make decisions. That is not unusual for a franchise in transition, but it does mean the payroll commitment is being made by a group that is still, in some respects, assembling itself.

What to watch

The Jeffers free agency process will be an early indicator of how seriously the Twins intend to act on the stated expectation. A catcher who has expressed openness to returning is a relatively tractable negotiation — if the club cannot retain a player who wants to stay, the payroll commitment will require some explaining.

Buxton's rehab trajectory heading into spring will shape how the Twins construct the rest of their position player group. A healthy Buxton changes the calculus on what the roster needs; an uncertain one changes it differently. The club has said he is targeting 2027, but targeting and arriving are different things, and the Twins have navigated that distinction with Buxton before.

On the pitching side, whoever fills the roles vacated by Maki and Ramirez will need to be in place before the front office can fully assess what the rotation and bullpen require. Hoffman's forearm situation will be part of that evaluation. The Twins finished 2026 with real questions about their pitching depth, and a payroll increase only helps if the right arms are available and the infrastructure to develop them is in place.

Ownership's statement is a starting point, not a plan. The offseason will determine whether it becomes one.