Twins Insider: Derek Falvey sees Twins falter on the field and at the ticket booth

No matter which person the Twins bring in as their next manager, the coming season will be about assessing what Derek Falvey built over the last nine seasons.

External expectations on the team certainly will be lower after their massive trade deadline sell-off, but there was a lot that went poorly during a 2025 season in which the Twins expected to contend for a division title. It cost manager Rocco Baldelli his job Monday, and now there will be a spotlight on the organization’s priorities.

Maybe the Twins will continue to run the bases aggressively. They need to build a new bullpen. There are several young starting pitchers who need to take a step forward. After slugging power hitters and strikeouts were a big part of the 2023 offense, when the Twins won a playoff series, they’re in a spot where they may have to focus on different ways to score runs.

“We didn’t perform, and I feel like I’ve let down the staff, the coaches, the fans and everybody in here when that happens,” said Falvey, the team president.

Twins owner Joe Pohlad backed Falvey after the team collapsed in the final six weeks of the 2024 season, calling him “the right guy” with his background in player development and his major league track record.

About a month after the 2024 season ended, Pohlad named Falvey as the successor to Dave St. Peter as the team president overseeing the business operations. It’s a rare setup — the head of both the on-field and off-field sides of the organization — and it gives Falvey about as much power as any executive across the league.

St. Peter is still around as an adviser, but Falvey expects to continue in the dual president role after the Pohlad family announced it was no longer selling the team.

Fan morale is down. The Twins traded away nearly 40% of their major league roster at the trade deadline and they had one of the worst records in the league (19-35) over the final two months of the season. They sold 1.77 million tickets to their home games, their lowest total in Target Field history in a season that wasn’t affected by COVID-capacity limits.

“You can’t separate the business and the baseball side,” Falvey said when asked how the Twins can win back fans through their business operations. “This is a baseball team. You want the baseball team to go perform and be the best it can be, so you can create the environment and the experience that not only matches but exceeds some of the things that happen outside of the lines.”

The Twins haven’t won consistently since they claimed back-to-back American League Central titles in 2019 and ‘20. Pohlad slashed payroll following the 2023 playoff run, but the Twins didn’t have the prospects to create necessary depth when injuries hit.

“It wasn’t working over the course of the last couple seasons,” Falvey said.

Falvey’s front office was granted about $10 million to spend during the late stages of the offseason, and their free agent signings — outfielder Harrison Bader, first baseman Ty France and lefty reliever Danny Coulombe — worked out as well as the Twins could have hoped for, considering their salaries.

They’ve had trouble developing many of their recent top prospects into significant impact players. Royce Lewis, for as much as he looked like a future star, had a career-worst .671 OPS in 106 games this season. Shortstop Brooks Lee is hitting .232 with a .636 OPS through his first 189 career games. Edouard Julien and Jose Miranda took major steps backward from where they were in past seasons.

Two of the organization’s splashiest free agent signings, Carlos Correa and Josh Donaldson, both lasted only two years after signing lucrative long-term contracts.

“Sometimes there is a reality to a different voice and a different direction that is a part of sports,” Falvey said. “It’s not just about one individual moment or one performance that leads to this. Sometimes, it’s the right time for a change in voice and direction, and that is where we’re headed now.”

Are there any concerns that Falvey was spread too thin, leading the business operations along with the baseball side?

“I don’t feel any differently about the role I was able to play with Rocco, with [General Manager] Jeremy [Zoll], with our group here,” Falvey said. “Our performance on the field was our performance on the field.