Rocco Baldelli remaining patient amid stagnant Twins offseason

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli is remaining patient amid an offseason where the team has not acquired a single new player on a major-league contract, whether via free agency or trade.

Offseason moves are outside of Baldelli's control. They're also, to some extent, outside of president of baseball operations Derek Falvey's control this year, considering the payroll restrictions imposed by the Twins' outgoing ownership group. If Minnesota is going to add, it probably has to first free up money by subtracting from the roster in a trade.

Even with pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training in just a couple weeks, Baldelli knows there's still time for action. The Twins have typically made moves later in the offseason during his tenure, which is now into its seventh year.

"We work late," Baldelli said in a WCCO interview at TwinsFest this past weekend. "And we have for the last six seasons since I've been here. I'm not sitting here making promises, because no one knows what's going to come, but there are a lot of good players still out there, and we do a lot of our work late in January and early February, most of the time, sometimes even going into camp. So I remain patient. That's part of the job description."

Baldelli is also aware of a couple things. One, which he would never comment on publicly, is the payroll issues. The other is that the Twins already have a pretty talented roster on paper. Even without any major additions, it's not hard to imagine this team bouncing back from last season's collapse and winning the AL Central in 2025, as long as some key players stay relatively healthy.

"There's a reason why we haven't done a ton," he said. "When you look around the diamond, it's hard to add to our club. Maybe first base. Second base, one of the young guys, they're gonna have to grab that position and take hold of it. These are the things I'm looking for. Maybe a right-handed hitting outfielder of some kind, but we have some internal options that are pretty exciting too.

"Looking at our club right now, we have a pretty great collection, a well-rounded bunch. Pitching, a very good offense. It's really not that dissimilar to the club that we had two years ago when we went to the playoffs, and we had four and a half really good months of baseball last year from this club. They're capable of a lot, and I think they're gonna be motivated showing up to spring training. ... I could not be more excited to work with this group of players."

The source of that motivation is fairly obvious. Last season, the Twins were 70-53 on August 18, just two games back of the Guardians in the division and cruising towards a wild card playoff berth. Then they went 12-27 down the stretch in a stunning collapse that saw them miss out the postseason. That's something everyone involved, from Baldelli to his players, have had to grapple with over the last four months. He thinks it'll make them stronger.

"When we deal with tough times and challenges in life, not just in baseball, we learn a lot," Baldelli said. "It makes you tougher. It allows you to do things maybe a little bit differently the next time around. Not just our young players, but really I think all of our players are going to take a lot out of the last two months of the season. For some of them, the toughest part of their entire careers in baseball were the last two months of last season."

The goal in 2025 will be to make sure the Twins do everything they can to prevent that from happening again. That'll start with their preparation in spring training.

One notable change from last year's team is that the Twins overhauled the hitting department of their coaching staff, hiring Matt Borgschulte as their hitting coach and adding two new assistants to work under his lead. Baldelli said there will be a focus on modifying the team's approach, with a greater focus on line drives instead of swinging for the fences.

"Truthfully, I think we're gonna see some more well-rounded at bats from our players," Baldelli said. "It's gonna be something we're gonna talk about a lot from the first day of spring training on. ... I think we probably got a little bit into an all-or-nothing approach up and down our lineup last year. It would lead to us scoring 8 or 10 runs and then 1 or 2 runs. And you're not gonna win games if you score 1 or 2 runs. But if you can push 5 runs across every game, we have the pitching staff that are gonna pitch us to a heck of a lot of wins if we're able to do that.

"What is a well-rounded at bat? It's making the pitcher work by making him come in the zone. And then hitting line drives. We're gonna aim not to just put the ball in the seats, but to hit the ball hard, on a line, all over the field."

Pitchers and catchers report to camp in Fort Myers, FL on Feb. 13. The first full-squad workout is on the 17th. And Opening Day is less than two months away.