There are a few key takeaways from the Twins' news conference introducing Derek Falvey and Thad Levine on Monday, including:
*Levine is genuinely funny. His best line in morning with at least a few of them came after the venerable Sid Hartman — yeah, the same one who ran an NBA team at a young age in spite of never being a standout basketball player — asked about the proliferation of non-players getting high-level front office jobs in MLB. Said Levine: "I'm as offended as you are that this is happening."
*This will be a regime change and a fundamental shift in the way the Twins approach things. That shouldn't be a surprise given the profiles and ages of Falvey (33) and Levine (44), but it was confirmed Monday.
*That said, they are going to go to great lengths to prove they are more than just number-crunchers, in spite of the fact that they "didn't play the game" and embrace advanced stats. Indeed, the tone-setting quote of the day really came from Twins President Dave St. Peter, who said in introductory remarks about Falvey and Levine that with their hiring the Twins are looking to find the "balance between the art and science of baseball."
What exactly that looks like remains to be seen, but both men gave a decent idea of it by essentially saying analytics will be a component of every decision they make, but will only be one piece of the puzzle. Falvey also spoke of "cross-departmental collaboration," which might sound like corporate-speak but really is just a way of saying he expects decisions to be made based on the consideration of a wide range of types of information and input.
That collaboration will be the thing that brings the Twins up to speed with much of the rest of baseball — not just data. There's no point in having information, after all, if you don't know how to use it.
