It's Time for Derek Falvey To Actually Stand Up For His Decisions, or Go Away

[Craig Arko]

The sale happens and they are likely all gone. Probably not before. 

[NYCTK]

3 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

You are making me chuckle a bit when I'm trying to drink coffee. Your anger over it all is probably a little over the top if it is spilling onto Corey Provus. 

Did you really expect Corey Provus to counterpoint Falvey (His Boss) into the ground in front of everyone? It doesn't work that way. 

Propagandists? Of course they are. We all are. 

 

 

 

Twins aren't alone in their sycophantic commentators, but that's not necessarily a requirement. The Twins have one of the worst booths in baseball largely because of the extreme Company Line nature of it (in addition to most of their color men being without charisma). 

[Nashvilletwin]

6 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

You are making me chuckle a bit when I'm trying to drink coffee. Your anger over it all is probably a little over the top if it is spilling onto Corey Provus. 

Did you really expect Corey Provus to counterpoint Falvey (His Boss) into the ground in front of everyone? It doesn't work that way. 

Propagandists? Of course they are. We all are. 

 

 

 

I guess not, hahaha.

But it was the most obvious question….

Of course, next too: “Well if it weren’t Rocco’s fault, do you think maybe the team you hand assembled personally wasn’t as talented as you thought and therefore the underperformance really comes down to your roster construction?”

I mean, it’s mostly one or the other or a combination of the two. 

[GNess]

2 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

I just don't buy the prevailing idea now that these weren't baseball decisions. 

As many have pointed out, if it was financially driven then trading Varland makes no sense. That was a baseball decision. You don't have to agree with it, but there is solid roster construction baseball driven reasoning behind it. 

Same with Correa. That while working out financially, is a baseball decision. For whatever reason his tenure just didn't work out. He was a pretty good player with the Twins, but starting to look like a liability, both financially and on the field. Could he have stuck around and been a veteran presence like see with Baez in Detroit? Maybe. But we also know he was campaigning to take Royces position in the background because even he knew he wasn't going to be a very good SS going forward. He might still be a 115 OPS+ guy for the remainder of his contract but as a 3B that runs poorly, is that really that valuable for a team doing a reset? 

Your response is thoughtful and makes sense. Allow me a few counter points - plenty of teams performing below .500 don't trade away nearly 40% of their rosters.  That has to raise some. eyebrows - no? The bottom line here is there will be a significant reduction in payroll with the roster filled with younger (read less expensive) players during this so called reset. I. suspect they aren't finished and the off season will see some more re-setting.

[TwinsDr2021]

Falvey two biggest signings are Correa and Donaldson. (Maybe Shoemaker and Happ as well 😀, opps forgot Vazquez)

Traded, and didn't the Twins have to eat Salary on both? They developed a couple of relief pitchers, a starter, and basically no offensive players. 

The best thing this FO has done has been trading the former FO's players  (Escobar, Pressly, Arraez, Gaterol, Palacis, Rogers, Polanco) for decent/Good returns, signing and trading Cruz, Ober and a couple of relief pitchers. sgined a couple of low cost FA (Solano, Santana) and maybe I missed a couple of things. 

Winning one 2 game playoff series.

This in what 8 years? is/should that be enough to keep his job. HELL NO!

 

[Glorybound]

1 hour ago, NYCTK said:

This just is a misunderstanding of what they got in return. 

You can be disappointed they murdered their bullpen, I get that, but the returns they got on the last minute deals were pretty good, fair returns. 

Taj and Kendry are good pieces. Roden is a fine OF. That's a good return for bullpen arms. But be prepared to see Griffin Jax be used as a starter in Tampa and really become a valuable player.

 I am not high on Taj  so I guess we will see. I remember the great haul we received from the Berios trade. How has that aged? My prediction is these two deals age poorly as well.

[TwinsDr2021]

5 minutes ago, Nashvilletwin said:

I guess not, hahaha.

But it was the most obvious question….

Of course, next too: “Well if it weren’t Rocco’s fault, do you think maybe the team you hand assembled personally wasn’t as talented as you thought and therefore the underperformance really comes down to your roster construction?”

I mean, it’s mostly one or the other or a combination of the two. 

100%

[The Great Hambino]

1 hour ago, Glorybound said:

My fears exactly. The owners actually think they can rebuild a competitive team by midpoint next season. Instead they have a team that will structure to stay ahead of the Whitesox.

There's no way they actually think that.  However, they do think we're dumb enough to believe it.

If they actually reinvest the salary savings and retain the starters, then I'll eat as big a plate of crow as they can find.  But there's nothing they've done since they were eliminated from the playoffs that tells me that they will

[NYCTK]

13 minutes ago, GNess said:

Your response is thoughtful and makes sense. Allow me a few counter points - plenty of teams performing below .500 don't trade away nearly 40% of their rosters.  That has to raise some. eyebrows - no? The bottom line here is there will be a significant reduction in payroll with the roster filled with younger (read less expensive) players during this so called reset. I. suspect they aren't finished and the off season will see some more re-setting.

It doesn't raise eyebrows for me in the slightest. 

5 players traded were gone at the end of the season regardless. I think Falvey did a pretty poor job of getting returns for these players but the Willi and Bader trades did bring in some talent. 

Correa, as discussed has some real baseball benefits to it. He was expensive, and that contract was really bad. 

So the question is about 4 relievers under control. And the simple fact is baseball executives do not value bullpen arms very highly. And it's easy to see why. Danny Coulombe (perhaps the most underrated RP in all of baseball) was signed for 3M and traded for next to nothing. 

RP, even the best RP, are just failed starters. Baseball execs think they're able to take their AAAA failed starters and turn them into good relievers, and they're often right. 

[Parfigliano]

2 hours ago, Derojo said:

My view is the Twins sold two relievers too many. Note that no starters were traded. As for the underperforming position players we traded, no one of long term consequence. This team has not performed since 2019 when the Yankees swept us. Beating the Jays in the playoffs is not a feat. The offense was going nowhere. The illusion that we were one or two players away was nonsense. This was not a winning team with a winning culture; consistently underperformed. 

     Baldelli is an ok manager. He understands the game well, but he doesn't get the best out of his team. He needs to go along with the owner. Jhoan Duran is the only player traded that will be very difficult to replace. Jax to a lesser extent. I'm happy for the players traded who will have the opportunity to play on a competitive MLB team.

The Twins haven't been to the World Series in the last 34 years. They have not had a team that could possibly get to the ALDS. Enough of treading water. Correa; 0-11 with bases loaded; another underperformer, non-clutch player.

It'll take two to three years to rebuild, and perhaps then the Twins will evoke the memory of past teams that performed at a high level.

Baldelli is terrible at in game managerial decisions.  

[NYCTK]

6 minutes ago, Glorybound said:

 I am not high on Taj  so I guess we will see. I remember the great haul we received from the Berios trade. How has that aged? My prediction is these two deals age poorly as well.

The berrios trade has worked out fine actually. Woods Richardson has matched the value Berrios would have brought in his last season. And there's still a chance Austin Martin provides some value if he's miraculously learned how to play a competent OF. 

[Parfigliano]

2 hours ago, yeahyabetcha said:

If this sell off helps  the sale of team isn’t that what you all wanted??  

It's what I want

[bunsen82]

1 hour ago, Eris said:

Falvey deserves to be held accountable more for putting this team together than for blowing it up.  The Twins had put a team on the field that for whatever reason was not delivering.  As a fan, I have never been so disappointed in a team.  I was led to hope after the 2023 season that I might live to see another WS before I die.  It doesn't look promising.    The main issue left unaddressed is that the replacement level killers remain (see previous TD article on this topic The Twins’ Replacement-Level Killers Killed the 2025 Season - Twins Daily Front Page News - Twins Daily).  This is primarily because position players generally don't have as much value at the trade deadline as a relief pitcher because every team needs to reinforce their bullpen for the playoffs).  Therefore, selling pitching is the most effective way to build value at the trade deadline.  A number of trades (Duran, Jax, Stewart) seem to have fallen short on capturing the excess value of the July 31 trade deadline.  

To have competitive team, the position players need to produce in something about or > 25 fWAR.  The math is quite difficult for the Twins this year and I am not certain the current roster will be better next year.  Please tell me that Wallner, Larnach, Lewis, and Ryan will be better next year.  At the trade deadline, the Twins had 2 players (Buxton and Bader) with > 2 fWAR and 4 players between 1 and 2 fWAR and a team fWAR of 10.3.  The Tigers in contrast, have 4 players at > 2 fWAR and 5 players between 1-2 fWAR and team fWAR of 17.4.

I am summarizing below what I have written earlier on the threads, so if you have already read this, feel free to skip the remainder of the message.

Carlos Correa was only producing at about 1/2 of his expected contract.  I am not certain what has all transpired to result in this.  To me the most insightful note on this came from Phil Miller and reposted to TD by several.  It is hard to comprehend the good clubhouse presence/image of Carlos Correa and being an on the field general manager with the data, which is that the Twins had a better outcome when Correa wasn't in the lineup.  Wow!  I would never have guessed this and I wish TD writers who were more capable that I would explore this in great detail as it might help us understand why this current team has so underperformed.  Our team was actually better when our on-the-field leader was not on the field.  OMG!!  No wonder Twins fans have been so royally disappointed.  (Note that the differences in the data are small and likely within the standard deviations, but the best we can say about Correa's tenure with the Twins is that the Twins did not do better than when he was in the lineup).  Most of us would be fired from our day jobs in a couple of weeks if our teams performed better when we were not around.

I am expecting more changes.  Larnach, Wallner, and possibly Lewis may all need to go (read replacement level killers linked above)--maybe Wallner would work out at 1B.  Falvey deserves to be held accountable for putting this team together in the first place.   Blowing it up was only a natural outcome of the failure to build a decent team.   To paraphrase one of my favorite quotes on the topic from a fellow TD, the Twins have put together a team where 5 or 6 players best position is DH--they are slow, they don't play good defense, and they can't hit consistently.  What is left?  Falvey should be fired for this.

 

 

 

Say what you will on Correa but he was also worth 10 WAR and carried us in post season series win.  Correa does not appear to be the same player he was even last year.  I wish him well but all in all after paying $30 million we did ok. Go ask the Angels about bad contracts. 

[Doc Lenz]

1 hour ago, LastOnePicked said:

I struggle to understand how trading away effective, team-controlled relievers who have - and probably will - outperform their contracts helps facilitate a sale. It's like buying a business known for it's very effective, low-cost staff and then having the previous owner fire them all before the sale is final. This benefits your new business how exactly?

These moves convinced me this team isn't going to be sold.  

You are correct. Only salary dumps are Correa and a little left on Paddack’s contract. Rest were players under multiple years of control with low salaries. Lots more to this than we know. There was no reason to gut the bullpen and Castro and Bader are going to be free agents. Loved Bader. Wish we knew the truth but probably never will. Wonder what Sid Hartman would have said.

[bronald3030]

I guess I am in the minority, we were not going to win big with what we had. The only player I wish we had kept was Varland everybody else I was ok with. We got a lot of arms in the deals and maybe a few will be good. If the new owners spend a little on free agents the Twins CAN ACTUALLY be a real contender in short time

[Major League Ready]

2 hours ago, yeahyabetcha said:

Exactly.   And despite all the negative takes.  The starting pitching is still as good as it was before the trades and the offense may actually turn out better than it was performing.

the bullpen….that might need a little work.

I don't think it's as simple as they rebuild the BP.  Starting pitching just got a lot deeper.  However, I think you will see phase 2 of the rebuild this winter when they sell at least one of Lopez / Ryan / Ober.  They don't want all three of those contracts expiring at the same time and those assets are the ones that return prospects most capable of becoming stars.   

They will take the rest of this year and 2026 to evaluate the plethora of young SPs.  It will be mostly sorted out by 2027.   My guess is that one of Lopez / Ryan / Ober remains.  The other 4 will be some combination of Matthews / Festa / Bradley / Abel / Rojas / Prielipp / Raya / Morris with Hill / Soto / Quick and a couple surprises on the horizon.  There will also be a couple high caliber SP prospects from the Lopez / Ryan or Ober trades.

Larnach and or Wallner could also be traded.  My guess would be Wallner.  Just like the SPs, they are going to sort through a bunch of OF prospects.  Right now that includes Martin / Roden and Outman.  Next year Jenkins and Gonzalez will be added to the mix.

The INF is pretty simple.  They need to find a 1B.  Lewis is at 3b.  Lee is SS until Culpepper arrives although their are other candidates.  2B is probably Keaschall.

I think the BP gets cobbled together next year with a couple mid-tier free agents and a couple of the guys mentioned above will be converted to RPs. 

[TheLeviathan]

2 hours ago, Nashvilletwin said:

100% agree that this was dictated by ownership.  Why?  Here are a couple of hot takes/bold predictions.

1. The sale process is going very poorly.  Ownership is not getting near the price they want.  These moves are not going to help in the near term.

2. Ownership thinks the price will go up after the lockout in ‘27 when the small/mid market teams go to the mat to effect a hard salary cap. Also, that gives them time to figure out the tv side of things and help future cash flow.

3. The Pohlads are thus keeping the team until after the lockout.

4. Consequently, the strategy going forward is to reduce payroll while building a new promising young core to build fan interest post the lockout and to raise the price.

5. ‘26 will be all about building and positioning for that core while keeping payroll down.  ‘27 will be a no baseball season for the most part. Thus, Lopez and Ryan are moved in the off-season.  Jeffers very likely as well as the team looks to transition to cheap young catchers in ‘28.  Buxton stays unless he demands a trade.  Too early to tell on Lewis.

So, hate to be the predictor of bad news, but the Pohlads may very well pull the sale until after the new CBA is done.

I almost posted something yesterday wondering aloud how the lockout might be trickling down to team behaviors right now.  The D-backs also got relatively mediocre returns on their sell-offs and it had me wondering if owners are already bunkering down.

For the Twins this seems especially true.  Hell, these very same owners had substantially gutted payroll prior to contraction efforts as well.  It does feel like they're trying to pocket money, ride it out until the lockout, and walk away with a sale price then.

If so....I have another thing to add here that people won't like:  Falvey won't be going anywhere.  Which means like neither is Rocco.  This is going to feel like the late 90s again.  We just have to hope some of these guys they acquired usher in a new early 2000s by the time the team is sold. 

[jorgenswest]

If this is what it took to put the Pohlad’s in positions to seek the team I get the plan. They will need to rebuild the relief core but all of the guys they traded were inexpensive additions. They may have a trio of very good relievers among the many young starters. They can add a better bat than Correa’s with the savings in his contract.

This plan works if…

• the team is reported to be sold before the end of the season so the new owners can give Falvey a direction forward
• the Correa savings are reinvested in the offense for multiple years as opposed to the one year team friendly veteran deals offered to several. That probably is best done by trade.
• The pitchers and catchers acquired in this deal and meet or exceed their future value. Some of the starters might find their way to late innings in the pen. I see that in Bradley.

Does Falvey need to explain? Yes. It doesn’t need to happen though until the Pohlad’s are on their way out and we have new owners waiting on league approval. He is going to have to speak carefully until that deal is done. I am sure the Pohlad’s directed this tear down.

[NYCTK]

3 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

We just have to hope some of these guys they acquired usher in a new early 2000s by the time the team is sold. 

I'm optimistic that 2026 is analogous to 2000, which means it's going to be rough but a lot of pieces starting to fall in place. The next year playing fun exciting baseball that brings the fans back. 

Unfortunately, that means 2028 is the actual year we should probably expect any level of success, but I'm being optimistic and looking towards 2027! 

[Nshore]

What Falvey did is certainly not unprecedented in baseball.  It's the reality of the business now.  But I think it's damaging - to the reputation of the franchise, with the players, and most importantly with the fans.  Lots of empty seats in some of the Major League stadiums.  And lots of obsolete Twins Correa jerseys.

[Doctor Gast]

I always like to listen to Levine's interview, they are insightful, interesting & intelligent. But Flavey talks a lot & says nothing, which I can't stand, or put a lot of stock in what he says. We can't go by what he says, so we have to pay attention to what he does. 

 

[GNess]

1 hour ago, NYCTK said:

It doesn't raise eyebrows for me in the slightest. 

5 players traded were gone at the end of the season regardless. I think Falvey did a pretty poor job of getting returns for these players but the Willi and Bader trades did bring in some talent. 

Correa, as discussed has some real baseball benefits to it. He was expensive, and that contract was really bad. 

So the question is about 4 relievers under control. And the simple fact is baseball executives do not value bullpen arms very highly. And it's easy to see why. Danny Coulombe (perhaps the most underrated RP in all of baseball) was signed for 3M and traded for next to nothing. 

RP, even the best RP, are just failed starters. Baseball execs think they're able to take their AAAA failed starters and turn them into good relievers, and they're often right. 

Why did the Twins consider the 5 players on expiring contracts as gone at the end of the season? Couldn't they resign with the Twins?

Correa trade is 100% about money.

If RP are so poorly valued why did. the Phillies trade two Top 100 prospects for RP when it is so easy to develop them anyway?

[Pat]

One thing I don't understand is this apparent mania of collecting left handed hitting OF's.  They already have a pair on the big league roster and a couple more as top prospects.  Then they add  more in their trades.  They can only play so many.  Perplexing.

[NYCTK]

Just now, GNess said:

Why did the Twins consider the 5 players on expiring contracts as gone at the end of the season? Couldn't they resign with the Twins?

They can still resign them if they really wanted. 

1 minute ago, GNess said:

Correa trade is 100% about money.

I don't fully agree. But I discussed why so we can agree to disagree there. 

2 minutes ago, GNess said:

If RP are so poorly valued why did. the Phillies trade two Top 100 prospects for RP when it is so easy to develop them anyway?

Their GM is very agrresive in this current window. They are at or near the end of a very competitive window and they and their fans have no real interest in any prospects that aren't immediately potential superstars. Yes, Abel has a good chance of being Ober but no real shot of being Ryan. Tait is interesting because he could develop into one, but that's in 3+ years. 

The Phillies have a very good core of players and a real chance to win the World Series this season. This is textbook way to bolster a bullpen on a competitor. Patch it together as best you can and then pounce for reinforcements when you're ready to push in some chips and go for it. 

We saw three teams build "super bullpens" this trade deadline in the Phillies, Mets, and Yankees. And if you ask baseball people how much they paid to put them together the answer will be fair, but not a ton. 

Simple fact is Twins have no reason for a good closer right now. Nor next season. And the fickle nature of relievers means betting on them for 3 years is a fool's bet. 

[Ghost of Kirby Puckett]

4 hours ago, LewFordLives said:

Well said.

Provus pressed him on the Varland trade during the telecast last night and Falvey gave the standard response that the deal was too good to pass up. I'd be curious to know if that's also his view of the Stewart trade.

I don't follow the minors that closely, so I can't tell you if Kendry Rojas is the second coming or not. However, why would you completely handicap your bullpen like that? The bullpen went from a position of strength to a glaring weakness. I watched the early 80's Twins and saw how ugly it can be without a decent bullpen.

I love Rojas and he will be good imo. But how is it too good to pass up Derek, when you have a homegrown kid who is also really good and also under control FOR 6 MORE FU**ING YEARS? THIS IS BS, PERIOD. I swear on my brothers grave it was done as an F U. I literally cannot make sense of it, any other way. That or the guy is just an absolute dip ****. In my head when I heard Varland rumors, I thought Dodgers and probably a really good haul for all the reasons stated above. But I also thought, even moreso really, no way, why?

He is exactly what every damn team wants and needs. I can make sense of almost all the other deals, maybe not the returns, if I'm calm and think it thru. Varland, nope. And even Jax really. Why? There was no need, at all. You could do it in the off season or next July when we suck ass again. This was the Pohlads sticking it to fans, period. All that family has done for a 100 years is take, destroy, repeat. Why stop now.

[Parfigliano]

1 hour ago, bronald3030 said:

I guess I am in the minority, we were not going to win big with what we had. The only player I wish we had kept was Varland everybody else I was ok with. We got a lot of arms in the deals and maybe a few will be good. If the new owners spend a little on free agents the Twins CAN ACTUALLY be a real contender in short time

Problem is there is not a new owner.  Probable lockout in 2027.  There's a good chance there isn't new ownership for several years.

Hope I'm wrong.

[weitz41]

Just a random thought about Thursday's fire sale...What if, on top of ownership (present or future) wanting a reduced payroll, Falvey factors in the likely work stoppage/lockout after the 2026 season? This trade deadline and this offseason would be the best time to set a team up for after that lock out.

Not trying to give any cover what-so-ever.

BUT if that were true you certainly wouldn't want to advertise it before you traded away your other big pieces.

I know, I KNOW. No, I'm not interested in buying that bridge your selling.

Just a random thought...

[S Bart]

Watching Julien fumble the ball as he did before his demotion and Gasper totally lost at the plate made me realize that the Twins now have a AAA team in a MLB stadium.

[Doctor Gast]

You always hear from the Twins. "Don't look at the results, trust the process". What happened to the process? The process was broken from the start. They thought they were the smartest in the room, but they had no idea what they were doing. Results do matter; the long period of bad results, you have to wonder what's going on? They can't be wrong, so it's the players' fault for not executing their brilliant plan. Get rid of all of them! 

[HerbieFan]

Once again, Nick is reading my mind.  So, the guy who "really liked" his roster entering 2025 sees his team once again underachieve (and do we remember the 2024 collapse?) and yet re-ups his computer printout reading manager??  At least one of the two is not good at his job....