Top Notes From the Minnesota Twins ZiPS Projections for 2025

Opening Day for Major League Baseball is quickly approaching. Earlier this offseason, Dan Szymborski of FanGraphs released his ZiPS projections for 2025. The Twins ZiPS projections can provide quite a bit of insight into how they might perform this coming season.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the ZiPS projection system, it can come across as quite complex. This quotation from creator Dan Szymborski does a great job of simplifying how it works.

“At its core,” Szymborski writes, “it’s still doing two primary tasks: estimating what the baseline expectation for a player is at the moment I hit the button, and then estimating where that player may be going using large cohorts of relatively similar players.”

Another great resource is the definition provided by MLB.com’s Glossary. Please refer to both Szymborski’s article and the MLB.com definition for an adequate understanding of the projection system.

Before diving into the numbers for the Twins, there is one more thing to keep in mind. While ZiPS is one of the most accurate projection systems available, it is not the end all be all. It is offering you a “50th percentile” projection for a player/team.

With that, let us take a look at the Twins ZiPS projections for 2025.

Twins 2025 ZiPS Projections

Starting with the Twins as a whole, ZiPS does not like them as much as I would have thought. On paper, it is hard to argue that the Twins got better this offseason, but they also underperformed last year.

ZiPS has the Twins as slight underdogs to the Cleveland Guardians to win the AL Central. The Twins are currently projected by ZiPS for 85 wins, which would be a three-game improvement on last season.

One interesting note about the entire division is that ZiPS projects it as the most competitive in all of baseball. The AL Central is the only division with four teams at over a 15% chance to win the division. Also, only the AL Central and AL East have at least four teams projected to be .500 or better.

BetMGM agrees with ZiPS in this regard. The Twins, Guardians, Tigers, and Royals are all between +220 and +300 to win the division (as of 2/25).

Where BetMGM does not agree is on the win total. They currently have the Twins’ win total set at 83.5, which is one and a half wins worse than the ZiPS projection. Do with that what you will.

Position Players

• Stolen bases will continue to be an issue. Over the last three seasons, the Twins are tied for last in stolen bases. Last season, while stolen bases were up, the Twins only swiped 65 bags as a team. What is concerning is this is a team with decent speed on it.
  
  Byron Buxton is one of the fastest players in baseball. Willi Castro is two years removed from 33 stolen bases but only stole 14 last season. Austin Martin is in the 75th percentile for sprint speed. This is where I really hope the ZiPS projections are wrong. It would be really nice to see the Twins moving more on the base paths.

• Byron Buxton is being sold short. Looking at the projections for Buxton, it shouldn’t be surprising at all if he overperforms. He is currently projected for 3.1 fWAR and a 127 wRC+.
  
  Since 2021, Buxton is averaging 5.6 fWAR per 162 games played. If you scale that down to the 95 games ZiPS is projecting Buxton to play, that comes to 3.3 fWAR. He also has a 134 wRC+ in that same time span. It should also be noted this sample includes a down year in 2023 where he had a 97 wRC+ and 0.6 fWAR over 85 games. There is a much better chance Buxton outperforms his 2025 projections than underperforms.

• ZiPS is projecting an uptick in power. ZiPS DC, which prorates the ZiPS projections using playing time from the RosterResource depth charts, has the Twins projected to hit 197 home runs. That would be a decent uptick from 2024 when they hit 183. This is going to be a team that could very well live and die by the long ball.
  
  ZiPS has the Twins with 11 different players projected for 10 or more home runs. One final note on the home run projections is that Matt Wallner is projected for just 21 home runs in 120 games played. Over the last two seasons, he has averaged a home run every 19 plate appearances. With his projected 518 plate appearances, that would be 27 home runs. He has as much power as anyone in baseball, and if the Twins cut him loose, he could hit 30-plus home runs.

• ZiPS still does not trust Willi Castro. ZiPS uses a formula to project a player’s future based on what they have done in the past, along with other factors such as age and playing level. With that said, it is not perfect. To that point, ZiPS seems to be struggling to believe that Willi Castro has found something.
  
  After really struggling with Detroit, the utility man has put together two strong seasons in Minnesota. Back-to-back seasons with a 108 wRC+ feel like a positive indication, as does his combined 5.6 fWAR in that time. ZiPS currently has Castro slated for a 1.1 fWAR and 102 wRC+. Even if the 102 wRC+ is right, I don’t foresee a 1.1 fWAR with that offensive production. Similarly to Buxton, it shouldn’t be a surprise if Castro exceeds his expectations. He is still just 28 years old, and ZiPS appears to be placing too much weight on those years in Detroit.

Pitchers

• Last year was just a blip for Pablo López. Pablo López got off to a really rough start last season. In his first 104 innings, he pitched to a 5.11 ERA. In games where the Twins typically should have expected to compete with their ace on the mound, they were finding themselves in dogfights. It did turn around, however, with López throwing to a 2.77 ERA in his final 81 innings.
  
  ZiPS views last season as an outlier for López. He is currently projected for a 3.78 ERA, which is just a tick behind Joe Ryan for the lowest ERA in the rotation. Part of the reasoning for this is likely López’s expected stats from last season. Stats such as xERA, FIP, and xFIP indicate that López was fairly unlucky in 2024. It is comforting knowing that ZiPS views his start to last season as an outlier.

• David Festa should get the final spot in the rotation. The Twins’ top three in the rotation are solidified. Pablo López, Joe Ryan, and Bailey Ober will be in the rotation on Opening Day. That leaves just two spots for Chris Paddack, Simeon Woods-Richardson, David Festa, and Zebby Matthews. Paddack likely gets the fourth spot due to the fact that he can’t be optioned. Festa is the best option of the remaining three, and ZiPS backs that up.
  
  One fun thing about ZiPS projections is that they are a 50th-percentile projection, and Szymborski also offers both 20th and 80th-percentile projections in his ZiPS articles. Festa has an 80th percentile ERA of 3.49 compared to Woods-Richardson at 3.82. Matthews is projected for a better ERA but worse numbers in numerous other metrics. Those include strikeout rate, home run rate, and FIP. Festa has the highest ceiling of the remaining options for that last spot.

• The best bullpen in baseball. ZiPS currently has the Twins projected to have the highest fWAR of any bullpen in baseball. With a projected 6.0 fWAR, the only other teams that come close are the Dodgers and Guardians who are both projected for 5.9 fWAR. After that, not many bullpens even sniff the Twins.
  
  Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart, and Danny Columbe are all projected with ERAs under 3.30 in over 50 innings. Four guys in the back of the pen with that kind of production is an incredible asset. Following the collapse that Twins fans saw last season, this is a projection they should be ecstatic to see.

• ZiPS has no idea what to think of Louis Varland. For one, it is unclear whether he is projected to be a starter or reliever. ZiPS has Varland making 22 starts, while ZiPS DC has him only making two. His 4.32 projected ERA looks a lot different depending on his usage. The rest of his stats run into the same issue — that his usage really impacts how they look.
  
  Varland is a real wild card in this bullpen, if that is indeed where he lands. He only has 29.1 innings in the bullpen during his career. His 6.44 ERA is not pretty. However, when you look at pretty much every other stat, he looks like a solid reliever. Posting 11.66 strikeouts per nine, less than two walks per nine, a 3.54 FIP and 2.86 xFIP should indicate success out of the ‘pen. Long story short, if you are a Twins fan wondering what Varland is going to do this season, ZiPS doesn’t know either.

Final Thoughts on the Twins ZiPS Projections

Looking through the Twins ZiPS, a lot of it feels like more of the same. There is really no profound projection that stands out. As is typically the case with projection systems, there are a number of slightly conservative projections.

It is easy to look at some of the players on this Twins team and see them overperforming their projections, such as Willi Castro and Byron Buxton.

If there is one thing that Twins fans should take away from the projections and feel good about, it is the overall quality of the pitching staff. When combining the projections for both the rotation and the bullpen, we could be looking at one of the strongest units in baseball.

Let’s say that the pitching staff just matches their projections. Even if the offense underperforms, there is a solid chance that the Twins match their win total from last year. Look for the Twins to ride this pitching staff as far as it will take them.