Twins won’t shrink payroll further in 2025, regardless of television situation

For all the talk of change at Target Field this weekend, one thing hasn’t changed in the past 12 months: The Twins still don’t know who will televise their games next season, nor how much the team will be paid for the right to do so.

A substantial but unspecified reduction last spring in the $54 million the Twins once earned from Bally Sports North caused the team to trim more than $25 million from its Opening Day payroll for 2024, from a franchise-record $156 million in 2023 to roughly $130 million this season.

But according to a Twins source with knowledge of the team’s internal plan for 2025, the amount invested in player salaries will not be further reduced this winter, no matter what their new television partner pays them.

Those dollars will be spread differently, of course, starting with raises due two of their four highest-paid players: Carlos Correa’s salary will jump from $32 million to $36 million for the third season of his six-year contract, and Pablo López’s will rise from $8 million to $21.5 million in the second year of his four-year deal. Byron Buxton’s salary remains at $15 million, while Christian Vázquez will earn $10 million.

The rest? That’s up to Derek Falvey and his staff.

Payroll “has been a topic during the year. I understand and acknowledge that, and I’m not trying to minimize it,” Falvey said Sunday. “But I spend zero time worried about what we don’t have from a payroll perspective. … I tried to put the best team on the field that I could, and I felt like it was good enough to get us to where we wanted to go. That’s honestly how I feel about the payroll question. This team, I feel, was good enough with whatever payroll we had.”

Twins owner Joe Pohlad acknowledged that the payroll was reduced at his direction last winter, an order he said was hard to give after the Twins won a playoff series for the first time since 2002.

“We were at an all-time high last year, right? Fans were all in. Players were all in. We were headed down a great direction, and I had to make a very difficult business decision,” Pohlad said. “That’s just the reality of my world. I have a business to run, and it comes with tough decisions and that’s what I had to do. I wouldn’t make any other decision, because that’s the position that we were in.”

Falvey and Pohlad have adjoining offices at 1 Twins Way and see each other almost every day, Falvey said, so the payroll discussion isn’t a one-time meeting. Payroll cuts were not the reason that the Twins failed to make the postseason, both executives insisted, and Falvey said it won’t change his approach this offseason.

“It’s a constraint every offseason, in some way, shape or form, wherever you are. You’re always trying to fit the puzzle pieces together in some amount,” Falvey said. “It doesn’t mean there won’t be conversations I can bring to ownership, to say ‘this is a really great opportunity for us, if we want to try to push this button.’ I’ll continue to work within some parameters, and then ultimately try to put together the best team I can within those parameters.”