Derek Falvey out as Twins president; GM Jeremy Zoll to run baseball operations

Derek Falvey sent a text message to Vikings General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah on Friday morning, Jan. 30, to let his longtime friend know he was leaving the Twins after nine seasons running the team.

“I got a very supportive text back,” said Falvey, the Twins president who worked in Cleveland at the same time as Adofo-Mensah in their previous jobs.

As Falvey spoke to reporters during a news conference, explaining his surprise announcement, he was informed Adofo-Mensah was fired by the Vikings.

On a dizzying day for major front-office changes, the Twins stunned the baseball industry with their announcement that Falvey was departing the organization two weeks before the start of spring training. Falvey had led the team’s baseball operations since October 2016, and the business operations department since last year, becoming one of only two baseball executives in a dual president role.

Falvey had discussions with Twins owner Tom Pohlad, who succeeded his brother, Joe, as the franchise’s primary owner, over the past few weeks that led to the change.

Twins General Manager Jeremy Zoll will lead the baseball operations department, and Pohlad will assume interim oversight of the business operations.

“We’ve spent time talking about our partnership and about the future of the organization,” Pohlad said. “I don’t want to share all our conversations, but ultimately, we just came to the conclusion, collectively, that the needs of the organization are evolving.

Falvey’s departure was framed publicly as a mutual decision to part ways.

Neither Falvey nor Pohlad divulged what differences prompted the departure, though they both noted they hadn’t worked with each other before.

“There is an element here that is rooted in structure,” said Pohlad, who is immediately beginning a search to hire a new president of business operations who will report to him. “Yes, there is an element where I’m a different leader in how I want to engage with this organization than in the past.”

Falvey, 42, guided the Twins to four postseason appearances, including American League Central Division titles in 2019, 2020 and 2023.

The Twins ended a playoff losing streak that spanned two decades when they won a wild-card series over the Toronto Blue Jays in 2023.

The next two-plus years have been turbulent. Twins ownership ordered the front office to slash $30 million from the payroll following the 2023 playoff run. The Twins collapsed out of the playoff picture in 2024 with a horrendous six-week stretch at the end of the season, and former GM Thad Levine left the organization.

In 2025, Falvey oversaw a massive trade-deadline teardown, which was partially driven by payroll, and manager Rocco Baldelli was fired after a 70-92 season.

“I’ll always regret not doing more and not finding a way for us to win more with the group that we had,” Falvey said.

The Twins announced their new ownership structure in December, bringing in limited minority partners to help pay down the team’s debt, and a different Pohlad became the leader of the ownership group.

There were conversations before TwinsFest started on Jan. 21 about Falvey departing, Falvey said, and they were revisited on Jan. 26.

“If you get to a place where you don’t think it’s that perfectly, you have to have really honest conversations and dialogue about it, and we did. Ultimately, it led to this point.”

Pohlad called Falvey’s tenure “transformational” and credited him for modernizing the organization.

“Sometimes things just run its course,” Pohlad said. “There doesn’t have to be anything wrong with that or anything salacious behind that. Derek has had an incredible run here at the Twins and accomplished as much as any other executive in baseball with this organization.”

Falvey doesn’t have specific plans for his next job, promising his family he would spend some time at home before thinking about what will come next.