The Twins announced a trio of front office promotions this morning. Minnesota bumped each of Alex Hassan, Sean Johnson and Josh Kalk to assistant general manager. They join Daniel Adler as AGMs in the Twins’ front office.
Minnesota’s front office is led by president of baseball operations Derek Falvey, who is heading into his ninth season at the helm. The Twins promoted AGM Jeremy Zoll to general manager at the start of this offseason. Zoll replaced Thad Levine, who stepped down after spending eight years as Falvey’s top lieutenant.
Hassan, 36, had a very brief major league playing career. He appeared in three games for the 2014 Red Sox. He retired in 2017 after playing parts of six seasons at the Triple-A level. The Duke product joined Minnesota’s player development department the following year. Hassan spent some time as the organization’s director of player development and has worked as the club’s vice president of hitting development and acquisitions for the past two years.
Johnson has spent nearly a quarter of a century with the organization. He has worked his way up the scouting ranks since the team first hired him in 2002. Johnson has been the team’s vice president of amateur scouting since the start of 2022. He has been in charge of the Twins’ amateur drafts over that stretch. Bobby Nightengale of the Minnesota Star-Tribune notes that Johnson will continue in that role.
Kalk is entering his eighth season with the organization. He’d previously spent nine years as a member of the Rays’ analytics staff. Kalk has held the title of vice president of baseball operations strategy and innovation for three years. The team noted in their press release that he has worked to integrate data from their analytics department into both player development and MLB advance scouting (essentially building game plans for upcoming opponents).
How many assistants does a GM need? How about cut half the assistants, empower the actual GM, and spend the money on an actual player or two
As a season ticket holder I agree. You spend money year after year on tickets and then the team claims it can’t spend. meanwhile the front office grows while the batting averages don’t.
A collective think-tank of an ex player, scout, and analytical data is reasonable for all front offices
You realize Assistant GMs make less than $1M a year, right? And these guys were already in the organization. They’re probably getting 10-15% raises on six figure salaries and a promotion in title.
The team isn’t going to be able to sign anyone useful for that kind of money. Pro sports teams are notorious for underpaying everyone in the organization, let’s not act like it causes the MLB payroll to be hurt.
Diabetic – The GM position these days is actually what the Assistant GM position was years ago.
The GM is the assistant to the POBO.
Assistant GM”s are basically what George Costanza was for the Yankees. They could leave their car in the team parking lot and go on vacation for a month, and nobody would notice they are not there …. except the birds pooping on their car.
It takes a village to run a front office that doesn’t sign any players
More like, It takes a village idiot to run a front office that doesn’t sign any players. Ahahahaha!
I’m reminded of when Michael & Jim were co-managers of the Scranton branch.
Or when Andy throws the garden party and his dad goes “are you all regional managers?”
Assistant TO the General Manager
Can they pitch?
No, they are all catchers
You get to be an assistant GM, and you get to be an assistant GM, and you get to be an assistant GM! Everybody gets to be an assistant GM!
More guys to blame when the team sucks because the owner won’t spend enough money on good players
No evidence that they are increasing staff size, just giving fancier titles. You used to be staff, now you are an assistant GM. The GM is now middle management under a POBO in many orgs. Assistant GM is like a bank teller who is a “Vice President”.
Three heads are better then one?
3 assistants to the GM
Holy underwear! Sheriff murdered! Innocent women and children blown to bits! We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!
I didn’t get a “harrumph” outta that guy!
Meeting’s adjourned!
4 is better than one, they say.
Three of them? Very much not on brand for a team that dares call themselves the Twins.
Merry Christmas, if/when there’s a sale you guys may be cut loose, so now you can do it as ASST GM instead of Asst To The GM..
How the heck can the Poorhouse Pohlads afford to promote these guys??
Their new title is actually “assistant to the GM”
Can either of these guys play fantasy baseball