Minneapolis – Minnesota Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey and General Manager Jeremy Zoll met with media on Tuesday morning, not even a full day after the team fired manager Rocco Baldelli after seven years at the helm.
Their decision to fire Baldelli didn’t come as a surprise to many, including Baldelli. The team traded away 11 players at the deadline and went 23-43 in the second half. The Twins required a change in leadership at one level or another after the disappointing results of the 2025 season, and Baldelli marked the beginning of that change.
“It was both difficult and as expected as possible in terms of professionalism and ease in communication,” Falvey said regarding his conversation with Baldelli about being fired. “I think that Roc is — you all know — he’s a stand-up guy. He worked tirelessly every day to try to put us in the best position to be successful.”
Falvey said he and Baldelli sat for a couple of hours on Monday discussing his firing before the move was made public. The two reviewed much of what had gone well for the Twins during Baldelli’s tenure, and areas where things hadn’t worked as well, particularly over the last two seasons, in terms of the team’s performance on the field.
While Baldelli will ponder his next role in baseball for a while, a strong bond will remain with the Twins organization.
“It was a difficult moment and a sad moment for both of us,” said Falvey, “but it was also rooted in a desire to say ‘Listen, there’s a lot of relationships and you pour a lot of time and effort and energy into people and you care about them being successful going forward.’
“There was no bitterness in that. It was very much about the go forward. He’s a pro, as you would expect, and he wants nothing but the best for these players and this organization going forward.”
Now the search for a new manager begins for the Twins. As for the rest of their off-season plans? It will remain unclear until Minnesota’s ownership group brings in new limited partners and the league approves them during the MLB Ownership Meetings in November.
The Twins ownership group has still not gone public with the names of its limited partners, as the details are still being finalized.
Among those details are what the payroll cap could look like for the Twins in 2026, and Falvey declined to speak to specific numbers on whether it will increase or decrease from the $90 million they have committed to by the end of the 2025 season.
“Candidly, you don’t need that answer today,” said Falvey. “If we’re being honest in this room. No one has a perfect plan on Oct. 1. The playoffs have to play out, a lot of decisions have to be made. GM meetings is usually the time you start to get a feel for what other clubs are thinking of doing.”
Until the World Series has concluded and the GM Meetings are underway in November, Twins fans can expect the team’s primary focus to be on finding a new manager. The search will involve some participation from these new limited partners. However, their involvement will not be as necessary as it will be when payroll discussions take place in a month.
While the managerial search is their priority, Falvey and Zoll did not provide any names they intend to pursue for the job in the coming weeks. That hasn’t stopped anyone from throwing names out there that could be a good fit for the role, from former coaches James Rowson and Derek Shelton, to Twins alumni Nelson Cruz and Torii Hunter. People have speculated about potential managers with no previous ties to the organization, such as Brandon Hyde and David Ross.
No matter who it ends up being, they are looking for someone who can continue some of the strengths Baldelli provided, such as the aggressive base running and more athleticism from the players that were seen over the last two months.
“It feels like it can be an opportunity to keep leaning into it and hopefully, guys felt like that opportunity was really valuable for the forward,” Zoll said. “And as it pertains to manager, coaching staff, all those things. So full expectation that that would be, there would be versions of alignment there. Obviously, on the specifics, we want to feel that partnership and feel exactly where we are pushing the boundaries even further.”
“The most important thing, I think, always is that you want a good partner who cares about not just maybe that day, but does want to invest in the whole organization and wants to think about young players and how we get them better,” said Falvey.
“If you’re in a market like ours, and you’re going to bring up players, you’re going to bring up young players and guys that aren’t quite there yet. They need to be given runway, need to be given development, and need to grow at this level.”
With the Los Angeles Angels announcing the termination of manager Ron Washington on Tuesday, there are now four teams with officially open managerial positions: the Los Angeles Angels, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, and Twins. There are also three that have yet to decide on the status of their interim managers: the Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals, and Colorado Rockies.
It’s unlikely any team will announce a new manager until the days after the final out of the World Series is recorded. However, their searches for new leadership begin today, in hopes of turning their teams around for the 2026 season.