The Twins’ search for a new manager has taken them to a familiar name, as The Athletic’s Dan Hayes and Dennis Lin report that the club will be speaking with former utilityman Nick Punto. The Padres currently employ Punto as a coach on their big league staff, and granted the Twins permission for an interview with the 14-year MLB veteran.
Seven of Punto’s seasons (2004-10) were spent in a Twins uniform, and his nickname of “the Shredder” sums up Punto’s style of play. Despite below-average hitting numbers for his entire career, Punto enjoyed a long career based on defensive versatility, speed, and a focus on solid fundamentals. As Hayes/Lin note, Minnesota team president Derek Falvey stressed that the next version of the Twins is “going to be a really good base running team, we’re going to be on the details, we’re going to be leaning into the fundamentals.”
On paper, this would seemingly make Punto an ideal match, plus his past ties to the Twins organization certainly help. What Punto (who turns 48 next month) lacks in comparison to other candidates is a lot of coaching or managerial experience, certainly at the big league level. Punto was a manager in MLB’s Prospect Development Pipeline League in 2021 and he coached at the high school level in 2023-24 before taking the job on San Diego’s staff. Punto didn’t have a defined role with the Padres, but Hayes and Lin wrote that his duties included “working with the team’s infielders.”
Punto is the fourth candidate publicly linked to the Twins’ search for Rocco Baldelli’s successor. Former Pirates skipper Derek Shelton is the only known candidate with MLB managerial experience, as Punto, Yankees hitting coach James Rowson, and Red Sox bench coach Ramon Vazquez would all be first-time managers (apart from Vazquez’s single game as a fill-in for Alex Cora when Cora was attending his daughter’s graduation this past May).
“Another hot name internally” for the Twins is Cubs bench coach Ryan Flaherty, according to Hayes and Lin, but it isn’t known if the Twins have yet been given permission to speak with Flaherty. Already a popular name amidst the many managerial vacancies around baseball this fall, Flaherty has been cited as a likely candidate for the Padres and Orioles jobs. Flaherty has bench coaching experience with the Cubs and Padres but would be another first-time skipper at the MLB level.