I am doing a series where I offer up three fantasy baseball questions for every MLB team. I look at under-the-radar stats, playing time projections, projected roles, and off-season news to try and highlight the issues facing you in your 2025 fantasy baseball drafts. We’ll do this thing in divisional order, and this time around I’ll consider three questions for the 2025 Minnesota Twins.
3 Fantasy Baseball Questions for the 2025 Minnesota Twins
Can Pablo Lopez Rebound and Win a Cy Young?
On an overall basis, it was a rough year for Pablo Lopez in 2024. The good news is that in 2024, Lopez made 32 starts for the third consecutive season. He also struck out 9.62 batters per nine innings while walking just 1.99 batters. Again, there’s nothing bad we can say there, so how were things rough? In reality, we are really just drawing that conclusion from Lopez’s 4.08 ERA. However, between his 3.67 xERA, 3.65 FIP, and 3.36 xFIP, things look a whole lot better.
Where things really stand out though, is when comparing the first half and the second half for Lopez. The right-hander saw his ERA improve from 5.11 to 2.77 as he got back on track. Everything tracks here for Lopez to continue on his path of success as Minnesota’s ace. Being in the same division as the White Sox certainly helps as well.
Can Matt Wallner Hit Left-Handers?
With the Twins inserting Matt Wallner into the leadoff spot, we might be finding out pretty quickly. While it’s likely he won’t have the same spot in the batting order against southpaws, I’d imagine Minnesota will give him more of a chance to show what he can do. In fact, given the Twins’ roster composition and depth, it might happen by default.
Last year, Wallner had 44 plate appearances, over 24 games against left-handed pitching. Wallner hit .184 with one home run and three RBI while striking out 21 times. In his career, Wallner’s production isn’t that much better with a .144 average, three home runs, and 43 strikeouts over 108 plate appearances.
When he faces right-handers though, the results have been very different for Wallner. Last year, he hit .275 in 217 plate appearances with 12 home runs and 34 RBI. A deeper dive into Wallner’s metrics truly being to jump. He had a .264 ISO last year with an elite 17.5% barrel rate and a 53.2% hard-hit rate. Wallner truly punishes the ball when he makes contact, but he does have to work around a 36.4% strikeout rate.
By default his playing time will increase if he bats leadoff against all right-handed hitters. The more he faces southpaws, Wallner’s batting average will likely suffer, but he could get more comfortable as well. The batted ball skills are certainly worth pursuing.
Will Jhoan Duran be an Elite Closer?
There is the top tier of closers that really get pushed up draft boards, and then there are strong options like Jhoan Duran who are a step below. But should that really be the case?
The presence of Griffin Jax limited Duran’s save upside last year to 23 saves. Everything else as it relates to Duran is elite though, so it’s really just the need for a few more saves that’s holding him back. On the surface, Duran’s 3.64 ERA is subpar, but his 2.76 xERA looks a whole lot better. His 61.5% strand rate from a year ago is also slated to improve.
Duran struck out 10.93 batters per nine innings last year while generating a 60.9% ground ball rate. With a 3.5% barrel rate last year, opposing hitters really struggled to square up the closer which should lead to increased and continued success.
For more of the great fantasy baseball rankings and analysis you’ve come to expect from FantraxHQ, check out our full 2025 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit! We’re here for you all the way up until Opening Day and then on into your championship run.
