Reflecting after World Series, Twins Derek Falvey aims to 'do what those teams are doing'

The morning after his team was eliminated from the playoffs, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli texted this:

"Postseason Target Field is a downright monster. One of the most alive and consequential arenas in sports. We have an obligation to revive this every Fall. That was astounding to be a part of."

The current Twins front office has been in place for seven seasons. President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey has made the playoffs four times. Baldelli has made the playoffs three times in his five years as manager.

In 2017, with Paul Molitor as the manager, the Twins lost a one-game playoff in Yankee Stadium.

In 2019, they returned to Target Field down 2-games-to-none in what would become a Yankees sweep.

In 2020, they had home-field advantage against the Astros, but played in an empty ballpark because of the pandemic.

Not until 2023 did Falvey and Baldelli experience what Andy MacPhail and Tom Kelly did in 1987 and 1991 — a Minnesota ballpark filled with optimistic, intense and remarkably loud fans. Fans who could affect a game, and enliven their team. Even without a dome in place to trap the waves of sound.

"That was the only experience exactly like that since I've been here,'' Falvey said on Thursday, less than 24 hours after the Rangers put a World Series-winning bow on the 2023 season. "Every time we've made the playoffs has been a different experience, and I thought the fans, at the beginning of our home game in 2019, had a lot of energy, although we were down two games.

"This year, we anticipated the crowd showing up here and being into it, but they exceeded all expectations, from the get-go. Our players — heck, everyone in the organization — was, I don't want to say surprised, but really excited by what they experienced. It went beyond what they thought it could be."

Which made watching the rest of the postseason painful, and hopeful.

A 90-win team (Texas) defeated an 84-win team (Arizona) in a World Series lacking rich coastal franchises and traditional powers. With 87 victories and a late-season surge, the Twins did not look dissimilar to any of the final four playoff teams.

"It's hard for me to watch the next round after we get eliminated," Falvey said. "I'm a little bit hurt by it still. I'd be lying if I said otherwise.

"But because I'm a baseball-obsessed human, I'll wind up putting the game on, maybe on mute, while doing other things, and then I'm watching and eventually I just give in and watch all of it. And then I'm thinking, 'How do we make sure we can find a way to get there? What does that look like?'

"Where I walked away with a different thought this year than others was, as I'm watching these games, I was thinking, 'We had a team that could go do what those teams are doing.' It's not discrediting the teams that went farther than us, it's just that I think we could have played with any of these teams, and we did so during different junctures of the season."

The 2023 Twins gave us their best postseason performance since 2002. Their fans responded, creating the kind of atmosphere, in of baseball's great ballparks, that everyone should aspire to repeat.

"I look at this team, and I think about all of the young players who played such a meaningful role," Falvey said. "Then I think about all of the young-ish established players we have, like Carlos Correa and Pablo López and the guys who are in their primes, and that's all energizing to me."

In October, the Twins had what we now call "a moment."

This kind of wall-of-sound, can't-hear-yourself-think atmosphere has occurred here before, but not for a long time, and not in Target Field.

The current Twins regime was introduced to baseball euphoria.

And they all reacted with the same thought: Yeah, let's do this again, real soon.