What Franchise Records and Milestones Will Minnesota's Players Will Be Chasing This Season?

Reviewing a team’s franchise records is one of the fun things that comes with spring and a new baseball season.

With almost all the players in camp healthy, what better time to look ahead at milestones and records they can chase this season?

Offense 

After Max Kepler signed a one-year deal with the Philadelphia Phillies, Byron Buxton is the leader among active Minnesota Twins players in most offensive franchise categories. Buxton leads Minnesota in games played (772), runs (426), hits (639), home runs (133), and stolen bases (93).

Seven will be Buxton’s lucky number this season. Seven more stolen bases will make him the 21st player in franchise history with 100 in a Twins/Senators uniform.

Hall of Famer Rod Carew instructed Buxton to steal 60 bases this year. If Buxton stays healthy this season, he could surpass Torii Hunter (128) and Kirby Puckett (134) in career stolen bases.

Michael Cuddyer (141) and Joe Mauer (143) are the next players for Buxton to surpass on Minnesota’s all-time home run list. Given his recent track record, Buxton will likely hit anywhere from 10 to 30 home runs. Therefore, he’s likelier to break the home run milestone than steal 60 bases this season. If Buxton can match his career high in home runs (28 in 2022) this season, he’ll tie Kepler for the 13th most in franchise history.

It may be a while before any other Twins player can catch up to where Buxton is in the Twins franchise record books, especially with home runs.

Ryan Jeffers (59) and Carlos Correa (54) are the next closest to him among active Twins players. As great as it would be to see Jeffers and Correa have their first 40-plus home run season in a Twins uniform, it’s unlikely to see them eclipse the mark. Correa’s career-high is 26, and Jeffers’ is 21.

Starting pitching

There are several more notable franchise records for Pablo López, Bailey Ober, and Joe Ryan to chase.

Ober and Ryan have fewer than 30 innings to qualify for spots on Minnesota’s ERA list (minimum 500 innings thrown). López isn’t too far behind. He only needs 120 ⅔ innings to reach 500 in a Twins uniform.

Each starter also must hit 500 innings in a Twins uniform to qualify for the lowest WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched)in franchise history. Going into the season, Ryan and Ober are tied with a career 1.07 WHIP, while López is at 1.17. All three players’ WHIPs are among the best in franchise history.

If Ryan and Ober maintain a 1.07 career WHIP through their first five or six starts to get to 500 career innings, they’d be tied for third in franchise history with Dean Chance. They’d only be behind Walter Johnson (1.06) and Jim Merritt (1.05). López’s 1.17 WHIP would place him only behind Johan Santana, whom he idolized. Santana’s 1.09 WHIP is fourth in franchise history.

López, Ober, and Ryan are also close to setting franchise records for strikeouts. Ryan leads the way with 525, Ober sits at 484, and López 432, good for 38th, 44th, and 50th in Twins history. A 200-strikeout season from each of these righties would catapult them all into the top 25 in franchise history and surpass the likes of Twins Hall of Famers Joe Nathan, Rick Aguilera, and Every Day Eddie Guardado.

Relievers

Records for relievers are more sporadic than starters because 500 innings qualify them to land on these lists. Among active Twins players, Griffin Jax has the most innings thrown at 290 ⅓ innings, but a good fraction of that came from his 14 starts in 2021.

Jhoan Duran is already among Minnesota’s franchise leaders in saves. While Aaron Gleeman and other experts don't like using saves to evaluate relievers, Duran has become one of Minnesota’s most reliable pitchers in the bullpen.

Duran’s 58 saves are the most by any reliever in Derek Falvey’s tenure. Typically, Minnesota’s closers were previously established players who couldn’t replicate their past success, like Alex Colomé or Emilio Pagán. Rocco Baldelli has never officially designated a closer role. Still, Duran only needs 19 saves this season to move up a spot in the all-time franchise rankings.

Former Twins reliever Ron Perranoski sits ahead of him with 76 for ninth all-time, and the first great closer in Twins history, Al Worthington, has 88. Both records are within reach for Duran to pass this season. It will come down to how healthy he is, how he performs in the closer role, and how many save opportunities in the first place.

Record-chasing is fun during every baseball season. These are only a few of the more notable franchise records Twins players will pursue in 2025.