Minnesota Twins 2025 Player Development Staff

[Seth Stohs]

Three of the Twins minor league affiliates announced their 2025 coaching staffs on Tuesday morning. The Twins announced the rest of them on Tuesday afternoon. There has been a lot of change, and there were even some managerial shifts. 

Image courtesy of Seth Stohs (Toby Gardenhire, Brian Dinkelman), William Parmeter (photos of Brian Meyer, Kevin Morgan, Nico Giarratano)

We all know the importance of player development to any sports organization. Obviously, it’s incredibly important in baseball where organizations have players entering as 16 or 17 year olds from international countries, 18 year olds just out of high school and 21 or 22 year olds coming out of college. Each organization has six levels of development before reaching the big leagues, and there are adjustments and improvements needed to keep moving up. 

The Twins made some changes on their big-league staff at the start of the offseason. Ramon Borrego and Rayden Sierra were promoted to the Twins from within the organization. Other Twins player development staff was poached by other organizations. So there are quite a few changes from just one year ago. 

The Twins affiliates have started announcing their coaching staffs this morning. The Twins usually follow by announcing their entire player development staff, and we will update this article accordingly. Without further ado, here are the 2025 Twins Minor League Coaching Staffs. 

St. Paul Saints
Manager Toby Gardenhire will lead the Saints again. He has been the team’s manager for all four years that the Saints have been affiliated with the Minnesota Twins. 2025 marks Gardenhire’s 10th season as a coach or manager in the Twins system. The son of Twins Hall of Fame manager Ron Gardenhire played for three colleges. He was drafted by the Twins in 2002 and 2005. He played in the Twins organization for parts of seven seasons. He became the head coach at UW-Stout in 2012 and spent five seasons there. 

Gardenhire will work with some new staff in 2025. His defensive and first base coach, Tyler Smarslok, is now the Marlins first base coach. Pitching coach Peter Larson is now in a similar role in the Yankees organization. 

Shawn Schlecter is the lone coach returning to the Saints. He is the lead hitting coach. This is the Burnsville native’s sixth season in the Twins organization. He’s been a hitting coach in Cedar Rapids (2022) and Wichita (2023). This will be his second season with the Saints. He played ball at North Iowa Community College and then spent six years as a coach at the school. He joined the Twins organization in 2020. 

New to the organization, Danny Marcuzzo will be a hitting and development coach for the Saints. A native of Omaha, Marcuzzo spent two seasons at Coffeyville Community College before playing two seasons at Western Illinois. He later earned his Masters Degree at Central Oklahoma where he also helped the baseball program. He returned to Coffeyville as the assistant coach in 2019. In 2020, he started a four-year stint as an assistant coach at the University of Nebraska. Most recently, he was the assistant coach at the University of Akron. He is touted for his defensive coaching as well as hitting. 

Jonas Lovin joins the Saints after two years with the Kernels. This is Lovin’s third season in the organization. He came to the Twins from Iowa Central Community College where he was the pitching coach. In college, he pitched for Division II Augustana (SD) and was a big part of their 2018 national championship team. He went to Nebraska-Omaha in 2019 and earned a master’s degree.

Carlos Hernandez moves up from Wichita where he spent the past two summers. Hernandez is now in his eighth season in the Twins organization. You may recall that the southpaw pitched for the Astros in the early 2000s. 

Wichita Wind Surge
Ramon Borrego has been in the Twins organization since signing as a player in October of 1995. He held several roles in the Twins organization since he stopped playing in 2003. He has been a manager in the Twins system the past 15 seasons including all four seasons in Wichita. He moved up to the big leagues, and deservedly so. That does mean that there will be a new manager for the Wind Surge. 

Brian Dinkelman will be making the move from Cedar Rapids to Wichita. He was named the Minor League Manager of the Year by Baseball America in 2023 when he led the Kernels to a Midwest League championship. He was drafted by the Twins in 2006 and spent eight seasons as a player including some big-league time in 2011. He is a career .301 hitter in the big leagues! He spent the past eight seasons in Cedar Rapids including the last five as a manager. 

Andrew Cresci is new to the Twins organization. He has been coaching in the Houston Astros organization the past three seasons. In the spring of 2021, he was the hitting coach for Central Lakes College in Brainerd, MN, and then joined Driveline for a short stint before the Astros hired him. He played club baseball at Sacred Heart University and graduated in 2014. He then went to Rome (yes, the one in Italy) to continue his education at John Cabot University. In 2017, he played for S.S. Lazio Baseball Club in Italy.

Yeison Perez will return for his second season as the Hitting and Development Coach for the Surge. Perez played for the DSL Twins in 2016 and 2017 and in the GCL in 2018. He spent two seasons as a coach in the FCL before joining Cedar Rapids in 2023. 

Ryan Ricci joined the Twins player development staff a year ago after coaching at Lafayette College for two years and then spending 2023 at his alma mater, George Mason. After college, he signed with the Diamondbacks and pitched in 15 games in 2018.

2025 marks the third season that Jesus Sanchez has coached in the Twins organization. The Venezuelan coached in the DSL in 2023 and with the FCL Twins in 2024. He had a unique career as a player. He signed with the Phillies in 2006 as a catcher. He caught for three years before they moved him to the mound. He pitched in affiliated ball through the 2014 season. He spent three seasons in the Brewers system and one season with the Marlins. He spent about two-and-a-half seasons pitching in Triple-A but never got The Call. He continued to play in Venezuela in the winters and independent baseball in the summers through the 2022 season.

The Wind Surge have played their home games at state-of-the-art Riverfront Stadium since 2021. They will continue to play at the same stadium. However, it will now be called Equity Bank Park. 

Cedar Rapids Kernels
Brian Meyer has been the manager in Fort Myers the past four years. In 2025, he gets an opportunity to move up the ladder with some of his players. He had spent 13 years coaching in college before joining the Twins organization, including five seasons at Tulane and three seasons as an assistant at Butler. 

Argenis Angulo returns to the Kernels for his second season as a pitching coach. Drafted in 2014 by Cleveland, Angulo pitched professionally through the 2022 season (which he spent with Wichita). He pitched in the Arizona Fall League in 2017 and 2019 and was named to the AFL Rising stars team both years. He began coaching in 2023 with the FCL Twins. 

Hunter Townsend has joined the Twins organization this offseason. He pitched at the University of Charleston in West Virginia from 2016 through 2020. He transferred to East Tennessee State for the 2021 season. He began working as a Performance Coach at Tread Athletics in Charlotte, North Carolina.  

CJ Baker will be a hitting coach with the Kernels for a second straight season. He joined the Twins organization a year ago after coaching nine seasons in the college ranks. Most recently, he was in charge of Video, Technology, and was the Analytics Coordinator at Stanford for two years. And yes, he has a master’s degree too, from the University of Washington. 

New to the Twins organization is hitting coach Julian Gonzalez. He spent the past two seasons in the Orioles organization, spending a year in the DSL and then 2024 in the FCL. The Orioles hired him after the 2021 season. He had spent the previous two years as a high school hitting and outfielder coordinator in Jacksonville, Florida. While studying at the University of North Florida, he was a volunteer assistant on the softball team. 

Fort Myers Mighty Mussels
Seth Feldman is in his seventh season in the Twins organization. He began by managing in the Dominican Summer League for three seasons. He has been the manager of the FCL Twins the past three seasons. This will be his first year as a manager of a full-season affiliate, the Mighty Mussels. Before joining the Twins in 2019, Feldman was an assistant coach at his alma mater, UW-LaCrosse for three years. He played for the team the four previous years and twice participated in the Division II World Series, finishing second in 2015.   

Richard Salazar returns to the Mussels for the third straight season. He’s been in the organization for the past eight years. He coached in Cedar Rapids the two previous seasons. He came to the States to attend Miami Dade College, got drafted by the Orioles in 2001, and then spent 17 years playing pro baseball. 

Anders Dzurak pitched for Division III St. Olaf from 2010 to 2013. Since then, he has continued his education and coaching career. He spent time at Macalester and then at his alma mater. Then he went to Northern State to earn an advanced degree, but he also kept coaching. The Twins hired him in 2020 as the rehab coach. He is now in his sixth season in the organization. This will be his first season with a full-season affiliate. 

The Mighty Mussels hitting coaches in 2025 will be Luis Reyes and Andrew Parks.

Reyes is in his third season as a hitting coach with the Mussels. He began coaching with the Twins late in 2021 and coached in the FCL in 2022. Prior to joining the Twins, he earned a bachelors and a masters degree. He has coached in a variety of hitting and infield roles at colleges in Oklahoma, and joined the Twins after two seasons at Texas A&M, International University. 

Andrew Parks was hired by the Twins last September. He will be a hitting coach in Ft. Myers. He had been working at the Florida Baseball ARMory in Lakeland. He pitched for four years at Division III Medaille College.

FCL/FTM Complex
With Feldman moving up a level, the new manager in the Florida Complex League will be Nico Giarratano. This is his third season with the Twins organization, first as a manager. He’s been a development coach the past two seasons. In 2022, he was the manager of the Mariners’ DSL team. Prior to that, he was drafted by the Giants in 2017 out of the University of San Francisco. He played through the 2021 season.  

There will be two hitting coaches, three pitching coaches, and two development coaches at the complex in Ft. Myers. 

Chris Powell came to the Twins before the 2024 season and will be a pitching coach in the FCL again. He was drafted by the Dodgers in 2015 out of Cal-Poly, Pomona, and pitched three seasons, topping out at Double-A. He played independent ball in 2018. Since then, he’s been very busy coaching. He did some work as a high school coach, an instructor at Fully Functional Baseball (Fullerton). The past few years, he has worked with MLB as a pitching coordinator at the Urban Youth Academy in Compton, California, and as a coach for the 2023 MLB Diversity Pipeline program in Arizona. 

Erick Julio has been with the team since the 2022 season. He’s been working in the DSL, but this year he moves to the States as a pitching coach. The 28-year-old from Colombia played professionally from 2014 through the 2021 season. 

Dan Urbina returns to his roots, working with pitchers in the lower levels of the minor leagues. He was a pitching coach with the Saints a year ago. It is his seventh season in the Twins system. He was a pitching coach in Wichita for three seasons before joining the Saints last year. He came to the Twins from the Pirates organization. He was the pitching coach for their Venezuelan Summer League team for 11 seasons and then for seven more seasons with their Dominican Summer League team. Before that, he pitched for three seasons in the Dodgers organization.

In addition, Carter Kessinger will be the rehab pitching coach at the complex in Fort Myers. He will be working with any pitchers returning from injury. Kessinger joins the Twins from Yale University. He pitched there from 2020 through 2024 in a variety of roles, from starter to closer. He was unable to pitch in 2023, so we became the team's director of analytics and spent time reviewing game film and pitch tracking data. He also had an internship with Cressey Sports Performance in 2023. 

Collin McBride is now in his third season in the Twins organization and specifically in the FCL. He spent one season in the Rangers organization before joining the Twins. He played college ball at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, and he spent time at the College of Central Florida as a coach. He co-owns Thundercat Sports Academy in Lake Mills, Wisconsin. 

Emilio Guerrero is starting his fourth season with the FCL Twins as a hitting coach. He signed as an infielder with the Blue Jays in 2011 and played in their organization through the 2019 season. He actually attempted pitching the last couple of seasons. 

The development coaches are Jairo Rodriguez and Tristan Toorie. 

From 2006 through 2016 (11 seasons), Rodriguez represented the Minnesota Twins organization as a player. He got a little time at first base, but he was usually the #2 (or #3) catcher on whichever roster he was on. He reached Triple-A for a few games. He was a part of the first group of Twins players to play in Cedar Rapids in 2013. He has been coaching in the organization since the end of his playing career. He was with the Kernels in 2021 and 2022. He went back to the DSL for the 2023 season and came back to the Kernels in 2024. 

Toorie is in his second season in this same role. Previously, he had been an assistant coach at some small colleges, and he worked for MLB helping scouts and coaches. He played ball at Augusta State University and made his coaching debut in 2013 with the St. Cloud Rox of the Northwoods League. 

The Twins will likely announce their entire Player Development staff later today, and we will update this article when we get that information. 

DSL/Dominican Complex
For the fourth year in a row, Rafael Martinez will manage the DSL Twins. 

The hitting coaches are Steven Cardona and Carlos Lara. Both were in the same roles last year. Cardona was working as a hitting instructor at Infinite Hitting. He has worked in a variety of roles, from sales, to data entry, to ESL instructor in the Mets, Marlins, Rays, and Blue Jays organizations. Lara has also with the Twins' baseball technology group. 

Former Twins minor leaguer Ruben Santana returns for his fourth season coaching in the DSL. He originally signed with the Twins in September of 2015 and was a player in the organization through the 2021 season. He has been responsible for hitting, base running and infield work through his tenure. 

Dylan Hawley will be one of the team's pitching coaches. Hawley is in his second season with the organization and in the DSL. He is from Minnesota and had been working at Driveline the previous three years. In 2022, he was the pitching coach for the Excelsior Legion Baseball team. 

Alex Wright is joining the Twins this season and will be a pitching coach in the Dominican Summer League. He was a student at the University of South Carolina from 2016-2020. As a freshman, he applied for an internship with the Gamecocks as a video analyst. He became a student manager as well. His second year, the school invested in Trackman, Rapsodo and other technology and he dove in head first. After school, he joined Ascent Athlete, a sports performance facility in Pennsylvania that focuses on baseball and softball player development.  

Player Development Staff
Jeremy Zoll: VP, General Manager
Alex Hassan: Assistant GM
Drew MacPhail: Director of Player Development
Brian Maloney: Director, Minor League and High Performance Operations
Amanda Daley: Director of Player Education
Tommy Bergjans: Director, Player Development
Frankie Padulo: Assistant Director, Player Development
Josh Ruffin: Director, Applied Analytics
Jason Davila: Senior Manager, Minor League Operations
Lisa Maria Tolentino: Coordinator of Minor League Operations
Chad Raines: Coordinator, Player Development
Nihar Maskara: Analyst, Player Development Research

Coordinators
Kevin Morgan: Minor League Field Coordinator
Edgar Varela: Coordinator of Instruction
Ehire Adrianza: Assistant Coordinator of Instruction.
Nat Ballenberg: Pitching Coordinator
Bobby Hearn: Assistant Pitching Coordinator
Bryce Berg: Hitting Coordinator
Ryan Smith: Assistant Hitting Coordinator
Tucker Frawley: Catching Coordinator
Mike Quade: Outfield Coordinator

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[FlyingFinn]

Brian Dinkleman - sure hoping he got promoted to Wichita. I thought he was our best manager in minor league baseball.

[Seth Stohs]

He did.

[IndianaTwin]

Interesting article about Ehire Adrianza joining the staff, noting that the Twins reached out to him proactively before he had decided to retire: 

https://www.mlb.com/news/ehire-adrianza-twins-player-development-assistant

[Shaitan]

I thought it said Luis Rivas as hitting coach as I read too fast.

That definitely forced me to read slower. 😆

[Rosterman]

Didn't Tucker Frawley leave for the Mets?

[Seth Stohs]

4 hours ago, Rosterman said:

Didn't Tucker Frawley leave for the Mets?

He did, but... 

The Twins replaced him with Tucker Frawley.  This Tucker Frawley: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=frawle000har