Both chief baseball officer Derek Falvey and manager Rocco Baldelli will be returning to the Twins next season, as team executive chairman Joe Pohlad and Falvey himself told reporters (including the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Bobby Nightengale and The Athletic’s Dan Hayes). Today’s official announcements confirm yesterday’s report from The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman that both Falvey and Baldelli would be back for their respective ninth and seventh seasons with the organization.
Baldelli’s current contract runs through at least the 2025 season, while Falvey’s contractual status isn’t publicly known. Falvey’s previous deal was known to be up at the end of the 2024 campaign, yet the Twins have tended to be somewhat secretive when it comes to contracts for team personnel. It seems entirely possible that Falvey was inked to an extension at some point over the course of his previous couple of years, or his contract might indeed currently be up, but an extension is expected to be finalized shortly.
Of course, contracts might not have mattered much if ownership felt compelled to make changes following the Twins’ late-season collapse. Minnesota had a 70-53 record on August 17 and looked to be safe bets to make the postseason, either as AL Central champs for the second consecutive season or at least as a wild card. Instead, the Twins have gone 12-26 over their last 38 games, and two division rivals (the Tigers and Royals) zoomed past them en route to the playoffs.
As “embarrassing” as Pohlad felt this collapse was, he still has faith in Falvey to lead the front office. “I don’t judge employees off of six crummy weeks. He’s got eight years of a résumé and I talk with Derek daily so I know what he’s doing, ” Pohlad said. “He’s got player development resume, he’s got a major league resume and yeah, he’s busting his [butt]. He’s the right guy.”
Falvey made a similar defense of Baldelli, saying “we’ve been gutted during this process trying to figure out how we fix it. That’s led to sleepless nights and challenging conversations and one-on-one conversations between he and I that will stay one-on-one, but have been at times really digging deep and trying to figure out how to fix it. I believe in his process, I believe in him, I believe in the partnership I have with him. That is how I feel and ultimately, that’s the way we’re going to go forward.”
The 2024 season is the latest twist in the overall successful, yet inconsistent tenures of both the CBO and the manager. The duo have combined for three AL Central titles and four winning records in Baldelli’s time as manager, plus Minnesota also won 85 games and earned a wild card in 2017, Falvey’s first season with the organization. Still, the Twins followed up that 2017 campaign with a losing season in 2018 that got previous manager Paul Molitor replaced in favor of Baldelli, and the Twins stumbled to sub-.500 records in both 2021 and 2022 on the heels of consecutive division crowns in 2019-20.
A return to the playoffs last year and (most importantly) the Twins’ first postseason series win since 2002 seemed to restore order to the franchise, but that playoff success was then undermined by a controversial offseason. Ownership’s decision to cut payroll by roughly $30MM left Falvey and GM Thad Levine somewhat hamstrung in their roster maneuvering last winter, leaving it easy to second-guess plenty of decisions or non-decisions that could’ve made the difference between a playoff berth or the Twins’ current situation.
On the other hand, playing even .500 ball since August 17 would’ve sent Minnesota cruising into the postseason, and the payroll decisions wouldn’t loom nearly as large. According to The Athletic’s Dan Hayes (X link), the Twins aren’t planning any more payroll reductions this winter, so it would appear as if the front office will be working with at least the roughly $129MM that the club is currently spending on players.
While Falvey and Baldelli appear safe, neither Pohlad or Falvey mentioned Levine’s status heading into 2025. Levine has been serving as Falvey’s chief lieutenant since the pair were hired in November 2016, and like Falvey, his contract is also thought to be up once the 2024 season is over. Again, Levine might well have quietly signed an extension at some point, or the Twins might be looking to bring a new voice into the front office if they feel some kind of change is necessary.
wjf010
they may be the last mens professional team from Minnesota to win a championship, but they will NEVER win again with this horrible ownership group and even more inept front office. with pupper Master Rocco on the strings. what do you know and about whom, Derek?
Carl Winslow
Clueless Rocco couldn’t even stay on the field as a player because he was physically weak. Now he’s showing his mental weakness as a manager.
Baldelli is the Italian word for incompetent.
– Carl Winslow
fred-3
Vikings 27
Chiefs 24
Super Bowl LIX (remember this post when it happens)
Carl Winslow
Sam Darnold is raising eyebrows! Shows you how pathetic those NY Jets are!!!
– Carl “Caleb Williams is trash” Winslow
HopefulTwinsFan
*cries* And no, they’re not tears of joy.
Monkey’s Uncle
It wasn’t “six crummy weeks”. You don’t take away a sizable percentage of payroll from an arguably overachieving team and then wonder why the rest of the league eventually surged ahead.
Carl Winslow
The giant blue tarp in RF at the old Metrodome was more likable than clueless Rocco and this weak Twins team.
– Carl “Kirby Puckett Respector” Winslow
MasterCal
Sounds like cheap ownership to me
mathblaster
“Cheap ownership” is the whine we constantly hear from Twins fans, as if they didn’t extend Pablo Lopez and sign Correa. Look at the team in first place in the Central, and tell me with a straight face that your owners are cheaper than theirs.
wjf010
they are not cheap. they are clueless
mathblaster
That’s not what I hear. All I hear from Twins fans is about how $30M in payroll would fix every problem their roster has. Every post in their cursed subreddit is “sell the team pohlad” and “pohlad strangled my puppy when he cut payroll”, etc
Citizen1
Minnesota’s penchant for success is a .500 team. Their two ws winners weren’t even that dominant .
Canuckleball
I felt a great disturbance in Minneapolis, as if thousands of fans suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
mlb fan
The Twins are awful on the basepaths and consistently don’t play clean, intelligent, winning baseball.
JimOToole
The Twins are nothing like their NL natural rival from Milwaukee. The Brewers’ didn’t need a payroll the size of Minnesota’s to win their division because they’re superior at developing players.
ohyeadam
Whoever is in charge of the tv deal needs to be fired. The rest of the team is doing okay
Holyshirts
I’m no water carrier for the Pohlads but the trope about bad ownership is getting really tiresome to me. There’s so much blame to spread around for this season, and honestly I don’t think payroll constraints topped the list. There are plenty of teams around the league with objectively worse ownership situations than the Twins, and one of them even plays in the same division.
I fear the same gripe is going to come at them no matter what the offseason has in store for them. Realistically, with more uncertainty about TV plans in 2025, combined with the disastrous Bally gap deal which cut TV revenue by at least a third and the Comcast carriage outage which completely killed the gate take even when the team was hot, we aren’t going to see the Twins spend meaningfully this winter. I can only hope that Joe Pohlad doesn’t say the quiet part out loud again and slash more payroll out.
Twinswanker
So, nothing will change. Over reliance on analytics, stupid pitching decisions, no actual investing in the team, just more of the same AAAA players and a few good players who can’t stay on the field for more than a portion of the season.
twinky
Don’t retain the Pohlad family as owners.
CO Guardening
Shooting for a solid 3rd place finish.