Souhan: What are the Twins thinking?

The Twins say they like to think outside the box.

In hiring Derek Shelton as their manager, they didn’t just think within the box, they recycled their own box.

I’m not criticizing the hiring of Shelton on its merits.

He’s a safe pick. The Twins know him well.

He is widely respected and liked, he contributed to winning teams in Minnesota, he gained valuable experience as a big-league manager in Pittsburgh, and he should work well with the current front office.

Shelton will be successful here if the Twins’ young players perform well, and he will fail if they don’t.

Just like his buddy Rocco Baldelli.

They fired Baldelli, then hired the candidate most like Baldelli.

This is an organization where former managers who have been fired hang around the ballpark and show up for all the events. Where Baldelli was used as a scapegoat for the team’s collapses but left without a single public complaint.

This is an organization that prefers to promote from within and prefers to employ people who will not feel tempted to criticize ownership for payroll size or the farm system for not producing better-prepared players.

Derek Falvey is closing in on a decade of running the baseball department. Now he’s also team president. During his time in charge, the Twins have won one playoff series.

That the series win was the first one for the Twins since 2002 might distract from the fact that winning one playoff series in nine years in the modern playoff format is not impressive. And Falvey’s greatest successes — three division titles and a playoff series victory — came with Baldelli as the manager.

How do the Twins sell Derek Shelton to the public at a time when the public is sick of the Twins’ M.O.?

That playoff series victory was just two years ago. Somehow, this organization turned the high point of the last 20 years into a negative.

Since the Twins defeated many of the same Toronto Blue Jays who are on the cusp of winning a World Series this year, they have:

Shelton might be a good manager, but he’s a lousy symbol.

He’s a symbol of contentment with a system that has collapsed each of the last two years, and that has missed the playoffs four of the last five years.

Shelton might prove to have been the right hire, but he’s not going to instantly bring back fans who have recently turned away.

He also continues a trend.

The Twins have never hired a manager of color. They chose Shelton, who is white, over New York Yankees hitting coach James Rowson, who is Black, and Boston Red Sox bench coach Ramón Vázquez, who is Puerto Rican.

Since the epic collapse during the summer of 2024, the Twins’ brain trust has fired hitting coach David Popkins and Baldelli.

Popkins is proof that the best revenge is living well. He is receiving a lot of credit in Toronto for the Jays’ deep, productive lineup.

Shelton was the logical and comfortable hire for this brain trust.