Updated Post: Dec. 5 at 3:32 p.m. EST

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal has reported that the Minnesota Twins aren’t looking to trade away their star players, meaning the likes of Byron Buxton, Joe Ryan and Pablo López are more or less off the block just days before the Winter Meetings are set to begin in Orlando, Fla.

Minnesota sold at the deadline this past season, moving franchise cornerstones such as Carlos Correa and Jhoan Duran, among others, in the process. The club finished with a 70-92 record and were expected to explore trades for their remaining veterans this offseason, but unless they’re blown away, their current core is now likely to remain intact as they look to compete in 2026.

Buxton, Ryan and López all made sense as potential trade targets for the Mets, with Ryan in particular being linked to them, but the organization may have to look elsewhere to fill its holes in center field and the starting rotation.

Original Post: Dec. 4 at 11:50 p.m. EST

Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that the Mets may try to fill their rotation needs via trade, and Twins starter Joe Ryan is among the starting pitchers they have shown interest in. Jonah Tong is believed to be a player the Twins would seek in a package for Joe Ryan.

Ryan is coming off his best season yet with a career high 171 innings pitched and a career best 3.42 ERA. He also posted a 1.04 WHIP, 28.2% K% and 5.7% BB%. His 22.1% K-BB% was in the 94th percentile.

Joe Ryan. Photo Credit: Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

Ryan throws a fastball, sweeper, splitter, sinker, slider, and curveball. His 93.6 MPH four-seam fastball has impressive movement coming from his 25-degree angle arm slot with 13.6 inches of iBV and 12.6 inches of horizontal break. His unique arm angle and movement profile have made his fastballs one of the nine most effective fastballs last season per Baseball Savant at +18 run value, just above Astros pitcher Hunter Brown.

Jonah Tong ended the 2025 season ranked the 46th best prospect in baseball per Pipeline and the 40th best prospect is baseball per Baseball America. Both sites rank him as a 55 future value starting pitcher on the 20-80 grading scale.

Tong dominated the minors in 2025, pitching 113.2 innings to a 1.43 ERA and 0.92 WHIP across AA and AAA. During that span, he ran an incredible 40.5% K%. He got a cup of coffee in the majors pitching 18.2 innings to a 7.71 ERA and 1.77 WHIP, but his 4.97 xERA, 4.31 FIP, 3.96 xFIP and .396 BABIP speaks to potential bad batted ball luck in that small sample size.
Tong throws from a very unique arm angle at 64 degrees. His arm angle is very similar to that of Blue Jays starter Trey Yesavage, who threw from a 63-degree arm angle.

Tong primarily throws a four-seam fastball, a changeup, and a curveball, but he did start to work in a slider towards the end of the season. That slider may be the key to unlocking the next level for Tong as he seemed to need another east-west pitch to work off his fastball and changeup combo. He also worked on a cutter during the 2025 season before pivoting to the slider,

Tong’s fastball was tied for the fourth most iBV in baseball at 19.8 inches last year behind Alex Vesia, Triston McKenzie and Yaramil Hiraldo. He throws his four-seam at 95.2 MPH with plus extension, throws his changeup at 85.8 MPH, and his curveball at 77.5 MPH. His curveball has an impressive -16.4 iBV and 2,603 RPM of spin.

Any package including Jonah Tong would be a hefty package, but Joe Ryan does come with two years of control and over the last two seasons has been a top eighteen pitcher in ERA at 3.47, top eight in WHIP at 1.01, and top seven in K-BB% at 23%.