Is Rocco Baldelli a Lame Duck Manager in 2025?

[AKTwinsFan]

I think you give them 5yrs to get things in order, if it ain't done by then look for a replacement. Sames going on with the Minnesota Timberwolves, after having success the previous year, changes were made to "payroll" and now they are in 9-10th place when they were #1 last season. Some has to go back on the COACH.

[mikelink45]

9 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

I believe Tingler's main job is to pre-analyze possible future situations so they can promptly have the analytical solution if & when they occur.

Is he doing any good? When those situations come up Baldelli just pinch hit Margot and brought in a lesser arm. So what did tinglers analysis do?

[Doctor Gast]

21 minutes ago, Schmoeman5 said:

He'll do his best? So he can get re-signed? And then what? Go back to being mediocre at best 👌 Every ML coach loves baseball. Thats why they do it.A prerequisite? Is that a question on the job application? Or does that question get asked during the face to face interview part?

Not everybody in baseball has their heart in it. Ask Rendon or Derek Bender. They may have talent to play, in analytics or in the business side of the game they may even like the game but not love it.

[Schmoeman5]

16 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

Not everybody in baseball has their heart in it. Ask Rendon or Derek Bender. They may have talent to play, in analytics or in the business side of the game they may even like the game but not love it.

Coaches and managers! I wasnt talking about players. 

[Doctor Gast]

38 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

Is he doing any good? When those situations come up Baldelli just pinch hit Margot and brought in a lesser arm. So what did tinglers analysis do?

IMO Margot was more a mandate.

[Brandon]

3 hours ago, old nurse said:

The price paid for the collapse of 2024 was paid by Levine who was the architect of a flawed roster. Baldelli, or any other manager, is only as good as the talent they have to work see. See Tom Kelly 

Baldelli has been at the helm for two Twins teams collapses at the end of the season.  Granted injuries were the main culprit in both seasons having a team collapse twice is a good excuse to make a change.  My question for this last season is why didn’t the Twins put Miranda on the DL? It seems clear he was affected by a HBP.  He didn’t hit the rest of the season after that.  But also Rocco doesn’t seem able to keep the team from getting down and staying there.  He may have good development processes but the teams that should produce need to.  
 

I think Levine was on his way out anyways.  I think that has more to do with the Twins scaling back costs and the stability of the roster.  The pitching staff is mostly set for the next 3 seasons.  Most of the lineup is as well.  Our minor leagues have many prospects.  What is Levine and Falvey going to do?  

[tony&rodney]

The team is for sale, thus all non players are lame duck pending a sale. Who even knows how much the Pohlads are involved. If the team sells change may happen, or not. In any business of size it is hard to fire everyone. 

[Jeff K]

Like, or dislike Baldelli; if there is new ownership, they will almost certainly fire him at the first reasonable opportunity.  I'm on the dislike portion of the Baldelli O'Meter for the same reasons many have stated:  He is all analytics and no heart.  AND, I don't understand many of his analytical choices (see Margot).  Failing new ownership; we are in for a bad stretch.  Tangentially, baseball needs a salary cap.

[bean5302]

Quote

But you know what? That decision didn't cost the Twins their season. None of Baldelli's decisions did. And while he certainly owns some of the blame for what happened, the players shoulder far more. Collectively, they all went through that hell together, and hopefully they will ultimately come out better for it. 

This reads like hubris for a team which missed the playoffs by a few games. If Baldelli's often perplexing decisions couldn't have possibly cost the Twins the playoffs, then the Twins should trade him to another team who wants him for cost savings because he adds zero value. In fact, why even employ a traditional baseball manager? Just have an entry level data analyst at $50k a year making calls based on a printed spreadsheet.

I don't see the advantage in late season collapses to teach players something when they happen every other year so somebody needs to clue me in on that.
The Twins were in 1st place on Sept 4th in 2022 only to fail to make the playoffs.
The Twins were in WC#2 with a 95% chance of making the playoffs on Sept 4th in 2024 only to fail again.

If it was so valuable to have a last minute collapse to the season, wouldn't 2022 have taught the Twins something?

[bean5302]

I can't say if Baldelli is a lame duck manager. If a new owner buys the team, probably. If the Pohlads don't complete a sale, Baldelli is probably back.

[Blyleven2011]

3 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Baldelli can't be gone soon enough.

 

 

Because he is not a major league manager  ...

It just isn't there , he gets a talènted minor league player up from the minors  an expects him to play baseball at the major league level  , I have to believe that Rocco and his coaches are incapable of taking a  minor league talent to the next level  , you should be taking that talent and make that talent better at the major leagues , I just don't see that happening ...

We have gone in the wrong direction  at assembling a talented roster that lacks an̈ identity  ...

 

[sweetmusicviola16]

To sum up what I have read in the comment section, there are a lot of the TD posters that I would prefer were managing the team instead of Baldelli, and I am among the least of the Rocco bashers. He's a nice guy as far as I'm concerned. But strategy needs to change. The direction of the team needs to change.

[sweetmusicviola16]

2 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

IMO Margot was more a mandate.

Margot was an organizational disaster. Win win for the Dodgers. Rid of Margot and have Miller to develop.

[Craig Arko]

43 minutes ago, sweetmusicviola16 said:

To sum up what I have read in the comment section, there are a lot of the TD posters that I would prefer were managing the team instead of Baldelli, and I am among the least of the Rocco bashers. He's a nice guy as far as I'm concerned. But strategy needs to change. The direction of the team needs to change.

There are plenty of TD posters who couldn’t manage to find their way out of a paper bag.

[David Maro]

The team is in total disarray as it stands. It's a Laural and Hardy joke,who's on 1st and what's on 2nd and how about 3rd. Everyone is hoping for new ownership, I don't see them lining up to buy. The FO got pitching turned around but failed elsewhere. Rocco is a bad situational manager and this team will finish in 3rd place at best in 25.

[jmlease1]

2 hours ago, bean5302 said:

This reads like hubris for a team which missed the playoffs by a few games. If Baldelli's often perplexing decisions couldn't have possibly cost the Twins the playoffs, then the Twins should trade him to another team who wants him for cost savings because he adds zero value. In fact, why even employ a traditional baseball manager? Just have an entry level data analyst at $50k a year making calls based on a printed spreadsheet.

I don't see the advantage in late season collapses to teach players something when they happen every other year so somebody needs to clue me in on that.
The Twins were in 1st place on Sept 4th in 2022 only to fail to make the playoffs.
The Twins were in WC#2 with a 95% chance of making the playoffs on Sept 4th in 2024 only to fail again.

If it was so valuable to have a last minute collapse to the season, wouldn't 2022 have taught the Twins something?

The "baldelli/spreadsheet" insults are pretty tired.

the collapses in 2022 and 2024 are pretty different. In 2022 the team literally ran out of MLB-quality players; we used 13 OFs that season, including an ill-famed cameo in CF by Royce Lewis. The team had a ton of injuries down the stretch and ran out of options in the minors. And they protected against that in the next season by adding veteran OF help, having players with more flexibility,  and keeping some of the best prospects in the minors longer to ensure they didn't run out of depth in 2023.

2024 they actually weren't that bad off in terms of health: sure, there were guys battling some issues and we'd lost some important players, but the reality was the team just fell apart with multiple players falling into dreadful slumps with no time to correct. in 2022 we had 24 position players get in 12 or more games. In 2024, that number was just 17.

Different situations entirely.

[AceWrigley]

[mikelink45]

The posts caused me to dig a little deeper - If I read BR correct there were 689 hits in 3314 ABs as PH (seems to many, but that is as much as I could understand) 208 average. How does that compare with a good batter facing the opposite arm?

[bean5302]

2 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

The "baldelli/spreadsheet" insults are pretty tired.

the collapses in 2022 and 2024 are pretty different. In 2022 the team literally ran out of MLB-quality players; we used 13 OFs that season, including an ill-famed cameo in CF by Royce Lewis. The team had a ton of injuries down the stretch and ran out of options in the minors. And they protected against that in the next season by adding veteran OF help, having players with more flexibility,  and keeping some of the best prospects in the minors longer to ensure they didn't run out of depth in 2023.

2024 they actually weren't that bad off in terms of health: sure, there were guys battling some issues and we'd lost some important players, but the reality was the team just fell apart with multiple players falling into dreadful slumps with no time to correct. in 2022 we had 24 position players get in 12 or more games. In 2024, that number was just 17.

Different situations entirely.

Baldelli runs his team based on analytics, and I'm not sure why you're so obstinate about trying to fight that concept or is it just that "spreadsheet" is offensive now? If spreadsheet is now an offensive term, I can always add a trigger warning to my posts or perhaps I can use a less offensive term like "grid" or "table" "array" or "matrix" if you like?

By the way, when is late season criticism of collapses allowed? Does Baldelli have to oversee 20 or 30 years of late season collapses until there are enough collapses which mirror each other before criticism can be levied?

[Bob Twins Fan Since 61]

8 hours ago, TopGunn#22 said:

The focus of this article is on Rocco and I will say that unless we have a very fun year as Twins fans, and the possibility is there with the core talent we have and the expected bounce back by certain key players like Lewis and Lopez to name just 2, there is also the real chance we finish 3rd or 4th and out of the playoffs again.  

In that scenario, Rocco is toast.  New ownership will probably want a fresh start with "their guy."

But I don't think anybody can make the assumption that Derek Falvey is secure in any way.  Again, if the Twins battle for the division crown and make the playoffs, both Rocco and Falvey probably stick around, but on a short leash.  If we finish 3rd or 4th and out of the playoffs once again, I expect Falvey to be packing his bags as well.

Many of us don't think Rocco is a good "in game" manager.  I've never liked the way he handles his bullpen and the 2nd inning pinch hitting drives me crazy, especially after the opposing manager changes pitchers and renders the platoon PH move null the next inning.

But with all the "holes" the Twins need to fill this off season and the lack of action as we hit the New Year, a failure to make the playoffs will fall squarely on Falvey's shoulders.  New ownership could rightfully determine that Falvey should have pushed the Pohlad's harder to allow him to fortify the weak areas.  I'm not really sure Falvey himself understands that HIS JOB is more at risk than Rocco's.  

Oh, I think Falvey and Rocco understand their jobs are at risk if there is new ownership.  Their fools if they don't.  They don't at least win the division or make the play-offs and win a series.  Their toast, I think.  It's my biggest hope for them being competitive this year.  Being a season ticket holder, I want to see winning baseball for the coming season.  Rocco needs to run tough spring training camp.  Let the players know last years' collapse was unacceptable.  Work hard on being sound in all facets of the game.  Reducing mental mistakes and lack of hustle plays.  Like the Wild coach did this season.  The Wild had significant budget constraints and added very little in off-season.  But so far, a third of into season they are doing very well with basically the same roster.

[T.O.]

4 hours ago, Blyleven2011 said:

Because he is not a major league manager  ...

It just isn't there , he gets a talènted minor league player up from the minors  an expects him to play baseball at the major league level  , I have to believe that Rocco and his coaches are incapable of taking a  minor league talent to the next level  , you should be taking that talent and make that talent better at the major leagues , I just don't see that happening ...

We have gone in the wrong direction  at assembling a talented roster that lacks an̈ identity  ...

 

"You put your third baseman in
You take your third baseman out
You move second base to third
And you shake it all about
You do the hokey pokey
And pinch hit for number 1
That’s what it’s all about"

How can new players settle in if the manager plays it like a game?
Lacking identity seems to be the thing here.

[Nick Nelson]

6 hours ago, bean5302 said:

This reads like hubris for a team which missed the playoffs by a few games. If Baldelli's often perplexing decisions couldn't have possibly cost the Twins the playoffs, then the Twins should trade him to another team who wants him for cost savings because he adds zero value. In fact, why even employ a traditional baseball manager? Just have an entry level data analyst at $50k a year making calls based on a printed spreadsheet.

The problem with your argument here is that it presumes Baldelli added no value and played no positive part in the teaming moving 17 games above .500 before the collapse. You can say the impact of managers is fairly trivial (I'd agree) but you if you're going to say they matter and have a tangible effect on winning, it's gotta go both ways.

[D.C Twins]

55 minutes ago, Nick Nelson said:

The problem with your argument here is that it presumes Baldelli added no value and played no positive part in the teaming moving 17 games above .500 before the collapse. You can say the impact of managers is fairly trivial (I'd agree) but you if you're going to say they matter and have a tangible effect on winning, it's gotta go both ways.

It does go both ways and for the totality of the season he was nowhere near good enough...

[tony&rodney]

The harping on Baldelli is a function of his position, manager. My guess is that the entire front office and management team is on notice this year, to a much greater degree than the players. If the Twins finish below .500 and compete with the White Sox for the AL Central cellar, it is very likely that there will be change. If Royce Lewis repeats his year, he will still have a job next year and get a raise. The nature of the manager position means eyes on on the decisions, even if they are the company line. The manager goes first and then the front office when everything goes south.

Occasionally I will read a Yankee blog and those fans are brutal towards Boone and Cashman, far beyond anything I have ever seen on Twins Daily. I commend you all for your civility.

[dxpavelka]

21 hours ago, purplesoldier4u said:

That being the case, Rocco must be feeling the same as most fans in wondering what the FO is doing to help make his job easier. The Twins seems like a handful of teams that seem to have no interest in winning, nor do they care about their fans. In the words of Joe Mauer, "it's frustrating." 

Matter of opinion.

[dxpavelka]

23 hours ago, Craig Arko said:

I’d say it depends on the status of the sale. New ownership would probably clean house and find their own people.

More likely that new ownership would do exactly the the current FO did when they took over, leave things as is for a year and evaluate what is already here before making any major moves. 

[Linus]

I think most people over estimate the importance of a manager and under estimate the importance of the FO ability to construct a roster. 

[jmlease1]

15 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Baldelli runs his team based on analytics, and I'm not sure why you're so obstinate about trying to fight that concept or is it just that "spreadsheet" is offensive now? If spreadsheet is now an offensive term, I can always add a trigger warning to my posts or perhaps I can use a less offensive term like "grid" or "table" "array" or "matrix" if you like?

By the way, when is late season criticism of collapses allowed? Does Baldelli have to oversee 20 or 30 years of late season collapses until there are enough collapses which mirror each other before criticism can be levied?

Because the "Rocco only does what his spreadsheet tells him" isn't "Baldelli uses analytics to inform his decisions", it's a pejorative that says he's a useless robot. It's entirely designed as an insult. I think you know that the twins don't have an elaborate decision tree set up on the iPad that tells Rocco what decision to make after every single AB throughout the game, but for the people that either don't like the use of analytics in baseball decision-making or just dislike Rocco this has become the cheap shot attack, repeated over and over again without any nuance or real accuracy, designed solely to denigrate the manager (and the front office) mostly because you don't like the way modern baseball is played. There's real areas to criticize Rocco's game management but the "he takes orders from a spreadsheet" one is consistently and spectacularly dumb IMHO.

Criticism of late season collapses are absolutely allowed, but this is another one of those areas where people overrate the impact of managers in baseball. Maybe another manager would have been able to pull Royce Lewis out of his horrific slump or get Willi Castro going again, etc but I'm skeptical about any "new manager bounce" in baseball. Rocco and the coaches get some blame for not being able to find a lever to pull to get anyone out of their slumps, but the players should get most of the stick because too many of them just stunk and came up empty when they needed to.

In 6 seasons, Rocco has 3 division titles, a .525 win %, and 3 playoff wins (including one short series). That's pretty good, but not out of line with the talent level of the team IMHO. Could/should any of those teams have done more? I'd say yes on the 2019 squad, maybe on 2021 group (who had more talent than a last place finish, but obviously the sell-off mattered). is it on Rocco that the 2019 team only scored 7 runs in 3 games in the playoffs? The record overall has been good.

[Bob Twins Fan Since 61]

12 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

Because the "Rocco only does what his spreadsheet tells him" isn't "Baldelli uses analytics to inform his decisions", it's a pejorative that says he's a useless robot. It's entirely designed as an insult. I think you know that the twins don't have an elaborate decision tree set up on the iPad that tells Rocco what decision to make after every single AB throughout the game, but for the people that either don't like the use of analytics in baseball decision-making or just dislike Rocco this has become the cheap shot attack, repeated over and over again without any nuance or real accuracy, designed solely to denigrate the manager (and the front office) mostly because you don't like the way modern baseball is played. There's real areas to criticize Rocco's game management but the "he takes orders from a spreadsheet" one is consistently and spectacularly dumb IMHO.

Criticism of late season collapses are absolutely allowed, but this is another one of those areas where people overrate the impact of managers in baseball. Maybe another manager would have been able to pull Royce Lewis out of his horrific slump or get Willi Castro going again, etc but I'm skeptical about any "new manager bounce" in baseball. Rocco and the coaches get some blame for not being able to find a lever to pull to get anyone out of their slumps, but the players should get most of the stick because too many of them just stunk and came up empty when they needed to.

In 6 seasons, Rocco has 3 division titles, a .525 win %, and 3 playoff wins (including one short series). That's pretty good, but not out of line with the talent level of the team IMHO. Could/should any of those teams have done more? I'd say yes on the 2019 squad, maybe on 2021 group (who had more talent than a last place finish, but obviously the sell-off mattered). is it on Rocco that the 2019 team only scored 7 runs in 3 games in the playoffs? The record overall has been good.

My perception of Rocco is he comes across has soft in dealing with his players.  His comments after the season ended badly.  Sounded like he is re-thinking his approach.  I am in favor of him doing so.  He needs to start with off-season communication with players.  Be ready to go when spring training starts.  We are going to get to work and don't plan on having a lot of time on the golf course.  Better conditioning will reduce injuries and missed time playing in season too.

[bean5302]

4 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Because the "Rocco only does what his spreadsheet tells him" isn't "Baldelli uses analytics to inform his decisions", it's a pejorative that says he's a useless robot. It's entirely designed as an insult. I think you know that the twins don't have an elaborate decision tree set up on the iPad that tells Rocco what decision to make after every single AB throughout the game, but for the people that either don't like the use of analytics in baseball decision-making or just dislike Rocco this has become the cheap shot attack, repeated over and over again without any nuance or real accuracy, designed solely to denigrate the manager (and the front office) mostly because you don't like the way modern baseball is played. There's real areas to criticize Rocco's game management but the "he takes orders from a spreadsheet" one is consistently and spectacularly dumb IMHO.

Criticism of late season collapses are absolutely allowed, but this is another one of those areas where people overrate the impact of managers in baseball. Maybe another manager would have been able to pull Royce Lewis out of his horrific slump or get Willi Castro going again, etc but I'm skeptical about any "new manager bounce" in baseball. Rocco and the coaches get some blame for not being able to find a lever to pull to get anyone out of their slumps, but the players should get most of the stick because too many of them just stunk and came up empty when they needed to.

In 6 seasons, Rocco has 3 division titles, a .525 win %, and 3 playoff wins (including one short series). That's pretty good, but not out of line with the talent level of the team IMHO. Could/should any of those teams have done more? I'd say yes on the 2019 squad, maybe on 2021 group (who had more talent than a last place finish, but obviously the sell-off mattered). is it on Rocco that the 2019 team only scored 7 runs in 3 games in the playoffs? The record overall has been good.

Does anybody believe Rocco doesn't make decisions almost exclusively based on analytics and pre-determined strategy? Baldelli does not employ analytics the same way other teams do; Baldelli appears to employ analytics (spreadsheets/databases) to the extreme end of MLB organizations blurring the line between Baldelli being a data analyst and an MLB manager. Implying Baldelli's decision making process is robotic, and that it lacks a feel for the game feels pretty fair to me, and it has nothing to do with the "the way modern baseball is played" it has to do with the way Baldelli's Twins teams have played baseball.

Baldelli's record in 2019-2024 isn't great. The 2020 season is kind of a lame duck, and Baldelli's teams have truly earned a division title only once in 5 full season years, in 2019 when the team won 101 games. They've never won more than 87 games in a full season otherwise (under Falvey/Molitor, either), and no team other than the Twins, in the pitiful AL Central, has won a division title with fewer than 88 wins during Baldelli's (or Falvey's) tenure. In 6 seasons, Baldelli's teams have won 3 playoff games and been swept out in their 2 playoff appearances. Baldelli's teams have missed the playoffs for 3 of the past 4 years where only 3 of 5 teams were competitive. Since Falvey's start in 2017, the division win in 2023 represents the only time a division has been won with fewer than 88 wins in a full season. In fact, there's less than a 1 in 10 shot a division winner has less than 90 wins (7.7%) and less than 90 wins hasn't even been a 50/50 shot at the Wildcard. If you want to excuse Baldelli for missing the playoffs 3 of 4 seasons, armed with a huge payroll advantage, in a division where 3 of 5 teams were undergoing full rebuilds, where the only other competitive team ran a payroll 50% lower than Baldelli's teams, where his team won fewer games than any other division winner in a full season in modern history, and the results included 2 late season collapses in 3 years, feel free. Set that bar right on the ground. Make all the excuses you like. Just know for every argument you make, I (and many others) see much stronger counterarguments as to why Baldelli isn't a good manager.