General manager Jeremy Zoll was quoted as saying that the club hopes to add “another bat or two with a little thump, with some impact,” and Dan Hayes reported in the Athletic that the group has shown specific interest in free agents Ryan O’Hearn, Josh Bell, and Rhys Hoskins.
Let’s take a look at the case for each of those three hitters, and a few more free agents who qualify as “thump” (skipping over lighter-hitting names like Luis Arraez), using the perceived market for O’Hearn, Bell, and Hoskins as a cap for the type of free agent the Twins could be interested in.
Ryan O’Hearn
O’Hearn is probably the top remaining free agent at first base after Pete Alonso and Josh Naylor signed. At 32, he was a late bloomer, floundering for years in Kansas City before blossoming into a quality hitter with a .788 OPS (20% above league average) over the last three seasons.
He’s left-handed and can play a bit of corner outfield—neither of which is a need for the Twins—and he doesn’t boast huge power numbers (46 home runs over the past three years), but he’s a very dependable bat and plays good first base defense.
He’s likely to be paid more than anyone else on this list, so it’s questionable that the Twins will have the spending room to play in his market, but it’s definitely worth exploring.
Josh Bell
Bell has been a mercenary-like first baseman-for-hire for the past several seasons. He was traded from Washington to San Diego in 2022, signed with Cleveland in 2023, then traded to Miami, and finally traded from Miami to Arizona in 2024, before staying in Washington for a full season in 2025. He’s been streaky, but since 2022, his .749 OPS has been 10% above league average.
He’s a 20-homer switch-hitter (slightly better against righties) who can be gotten for a seven-figure, one-year deal, and the Twins can plug him into the middle of the lineup every day with few qualms. He’s a poor defender at first base, but the team will also have DH opportunities for him.
Rhys Hoskins
Hoskins was one of the more reliable first basemen in baseball until a 2023 torn ACL sidelined him for an entire season.
Since recovering from the knee injury, he has not been the same hitter, and subsequent thumb and hamstring injuries have hampered his production.
However, even in his diminished form, he still has 25-homer power and his .748 OPS last season was about 10% above league average—roughly equivalent to Matt Wallner and Ryan Jeffers.
At the bare minimum, his righty bat can play very well against lefties, making him a good platoon candidate who can hold his own against righties. There are a ton of questions about what his market is, and it’s easy to see him as a quintessential February Derek Falvey signing.
Ozuna is a DH-only player at this stage of his career, but the 35-year-old continues to justify a spot in the lineup.
He’s a set-it-and-forget-it player just a year removed from an All-Star appearance, but if the Twins are swimming in the O’Hearn market, Ozuna could likely sign for a similar dollar amount on a one-year deal.
His .867 OPS since 2023 is 40% above league average, though last season he only got to .756 with 21 home runs.
This mark was only bested by Byron Buxton and Luke Keaschall on the 2025 Twins, though, so it could be worth exploring, so long as the Twins can stomach his checkered personal history.
Garcia was not tendered a contract by the Rangers for the 32-year-old’s third year of arbitration, making him a free agent ahead of 2026. He’s been merely a league-average hitter over the past two seasons, sporting a combined .675 OPS (96 OPS+), but he was an All-Star Gold Glover in 2023 as a 30-year-old and was a driving force in the Rangers’ World Series victory. It’s unclear that he can get back to that level of production as he enters his mid-30s, but he still boasts 20-homer power and is a plus defender in right field.
He was due about $12 million in arbitration, and no team traded for his rights, so he might be affordable for the Twins. Even with all the outfielders currently on the roster, the righty Garcia could slot in in right field, moving Matt Wallner to the DH spot.
It’s unclear that Goldschmidt still qualifies as a slugger, as he only popped 10 home runs last year and sported a league-average .731 OPS. He’s 38, and the potential Hall of Famer is showing clear signs of decline, but he may have the juice for one more solid campaign.
The bar at DH and first base is low for the Twins, and Goldschmidt should be within their budget. He signed for $12 million last season and will likely sign for less this year.
He’s also slipped defensively, and he might be more of a righty platoon option at this point in his career, but he brings a lot of experience. He can serve as something of a mentor for younger players as he plays out the strings on his career, if that’s something that matters to you.
Nathaniel Lowe
Lowe, like Garcia, was not tendered a contract ahead of his third year of arbitration. Like O’Hearn, he’s a lefty who would be joining a team full of lefty corner bats, but between 2019 and 2024, he was a 20% above average hitter (.789 OPS) with 15-20 homer power. He struggled in his age-29 season last year, prompting the Red Sox to release him before he was due approximately $13.5 million by MLB Trade Rumors’ arbitration estimates. Like with Garcia, that could signal a market conducive to the Twins’ needs.
I debated including Andújar on this list because he’s probably got the lowest power cap of any hitter listed. He’s been a part-time player who hasn’t flashed much power since hist 27 home run season in 2018. He technically plays the corner outfield and infield spots, but it’s not pretty.
However, he’s got a .282 career batting average, hits lefties well, and could pop 15 homers.
He’s also likely to be paid less than most of, if not all of, the players on this side of the list, and his marginal flexibility gives him the leg up on a lot of these names, especially if the “or two” part of Zoll’s comment is to be believed.
Including him as a technicality. Okamoto is a great power hitter from Japan who is in the O’Hearn or Ozuna neighborhood, but he’s likely to sign a deal for four years or more, and there are additional posting fees.
Probably not going to happen, unless his market is soured by the standard uncertainty of international players making the transition to MLB.
Okay, let’s do some rapid-fire, lower-cost options.
Santana’s 2024 with the Twins was just what they needed, but he’ll be 40 next season
. Still, he’s a good defender, and although his offense continues to slip, he’s better against lefties than Kody Clemens (damning with faint praise). He’s viewed as a leader and could have just a little more gas in the tank.
If you want homers and only homers, Rowdy is your guy. He’s built like a first baseman of yesteryear, and he’s like Walmart-brand Josh Bell, a first baseman for hire.
He’s a league-average bat who doesn’t play good defense and needs a platoon partner against lefties, but he has 25- to 30-homer power. It’s thump.
He’s Tellez with less power but more OBP, but he had a better 2025 with the Giants, and he can pop 15 homers over a full season.
In both players’ cases, they would need to be platooned, but if you have seven dollars to find a little hitting, sure. Go for it.
The Rockies thought they had a breakout season in 2024 from Toglia, if you call a breakout being a league-average hitter in Coors with 25 homers, but he was bad in 2025 (and 2023 and 2022).
He’s got neutral splits, but he could platoon with Clemens, potentially.
He can’t really catch much anymore, and isn’t more than an emergency option at first base, and also he’s had some questionable comments about the Twins’ decision to choose Ryan Jeffers over him, but with Alex Jackson’s limitations, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to carry a third catcher, and Garver can still hit lefties fine with 15-20 homer power over a full season despite his poor overall numbers last year.
