BREAKING: Twins Dismiss Manager Rocco Baldelli

[tony&rodney]

"The roster Baldelli was given was far from ideal. The fault for that lies (in large part) with the Pohlad family,"

The Pohlads have no business running a baseball team. That has been effectively shown in the past 40+ years. That said, the Pohlads have zero input on baseball decisions. They wouldn't know the difference between an infield fly rule call and a ground rule double. The manner in which the organization is run is due to the philosophies and desires of the POBO. Falvey can change. He can change today. The proof of his skills and talent and even competence will rest with the record of the team in the next two years. Falvey has had more money to build a team than half of the baseball world, including Milwaukee and all teams in the AL Central Division. He can change though and I am hopeful for 4-7 significant moves this offseason. 

Rocco Baldelli was always an unknown to me. His playing and managing career were in total opposite directions. It doesn't seem possible but I always felt he was merely following orders. That is sad.

I wish Rocco Baldelli well in his future. He has many options as a young man with no financial concerns, a family, and good health.

[Doctor Gast]

1 hour ago, Rhyno006 said:

Lol Falvey will probably be acting as coach next year in order to save more money and the payroll will still be reduced to the sub $75 mil range.

Now tell me Falvey will be shown the door and I'll be interested again. Regardless, who in their right mind would want to coach here now anyway?

Very funny & we need to laugh as not to cry, but it's not a laughing matter. Since Falvey wasn't the 1st axe to fall, Baldelli became another sacrificial lamb to Falvey's incompetent regime. While Falvey is in charge nothing will change, just like the many sacrificial lambs before. I absolutely don't want Falvey leading this mess that he has created. I expect a manager worse than Baldelli if Falvey is the one choosing. I am not celebrating.

[mikelink45]

It means nothing.  I am not a Rocco fan, but I am more against Falvey and Pohlad - this is meant to take the pressure off of them.  But it shouldn't.

[nicksaviking]

3 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

Very funny & we need to laugh as not to cry, but it's not a laughing matter. Since Falvey wasn't the 1st axe to fall, Baldelli became another sacrificial lamb to Falvey's incompetent regime. While Falvey is in charge nothing will change, just like the many sacrificial lambs before. I absolutely don't want Falvey leading this mess that he has created. I expect a manager worse than Baldelli if Falvey is the one choosing. I am not celebrating.

Well that would be good wouldn't it? Either get a really good manager that's capable of turning things around or one bad enough to cause even more changes.

[lukeduke1980]

I suppose then Falvey gets minimum 3 more years to see next manager through.  

[IndyTwinsFan]

1 hour ago, C-Gangster said:

Ill ask this again how is this Rocco's fault and not the Pholads

Someone had to be the scapegoat and Rocco was the most logical choice.  Couldn't fire everyone on the 26 man roster, plus the Pohlads and Falvey weren't going anywhere, so Rocco was waved goodbye. 

[Reptevia]

2 hours ago, C-Gangster said:

Ill ask this again how is this Rocco's fault and not the Pholads

How many young players didn’t get worse once they made it onto Rocco’s team????  Zero. 

[Doctor Gast]

Twins need a leader, Hunter would be a good leader; he knows baseball & good baseball people to help with coaching. I also like Skip Schumaker. Will Falvey hire these guys & give them free rein? Probably not.

[DJL44]

I don't think it helped Rocco that Carlos Correa started hitting as soon as he left.

Did he have a good roster? No. Did he get the most out of it? No.

[LastOnePicked]

By all accounts, a very decent guy. I wish him a very happy life.

But thank goodness he's not the Twins manager anymore. 

[purplesoldier4u]

1 hour ago, weitz41 said:

Brandon Hyde strikes me as a good choice for a team full of young players that need a manager that seemed to make young players better.

Why would you think that. O's fans couldn't wait for him to be gone and believe he mismanaged to deepest young talent pool in baseball.

[shimrod]

32 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Guys don’t “develop” at the MLB level other than mental fortitude and physical toughness to handle the grind. Sure, they improve

Ideally they improve. The Twins young players haven't. 

Call it development, call it improvement, whatever. Twins youngsters haven't done it. They more often regress. The manager, responsible for both players and coaches, has to bear some responsibility for improving and optimizing the play of the team. 

 

 

[nicksaviking]

Hold on here, I just read the presser, and I think we all missed a big distinction. This was announced by Joe Pohlad('s AI). This wasn't announced by Derek Falvey.

Looking back, I can see that Terry Ryan announced the Gardenhire firing and Dave St. Peter and Thad Levine announced the Paul Molitor firing. Ownership hasn't done these announcements in the past. 

So for those upset Falvey is still here; this may not have been his call, and it may indicate he doesn't have the leash people resenting his presence suggest he has.

[LastOnePicked]

2 hours ago, C-Gangster said:

This Is Just BS

There is nothing even remotely BS about this. Not a single thing. You fail repeatedly - and so spectacularly - at this level, you fall. It's the gravity of the job.

He was repeatedly given the AL Central's highest payroll and a top farm system. He repeatedly got next-to-nothing out of this club. If his firing is BS, it's BS that it took this long to happen.

[Patzky]

2 minutes ago, purplesoldier4u said:

Why would you think that. O's fans couldn't wait for him to be gone and believe he mismanaged to deepest young talent pool in baseball.

Every other team has a Rocco. Just ask their fans.. Orioles Yankees Cubs even the Tigers.

Then they start winning 

[USAFChief]

From the OP: but (Baldelli) was good at the vital functions of the job: communicating with players, the media, and his bosses in the front office.

 Balderdash. Hogwash.

These are not the "vital functions" of a baseball manager. 

The vital functions of a baseball manager are

-to ensure his team knows how to play the game, and does. 

-making decisions on playing time. 

-strategy 

And these are precisely the areas Baldelli sucked at.

Long overdue canning. It's one critical step on the road back to respectability. 

[DocBauer]

Crap rolls downhill. The owners aren't going to fire themselves. Hopefully they still sell the team thr next few years. I suspect they might depending how the next CBA changes financials, and how the TV deals with MLB change.

Falvey had his legs cut out from beneath him after 2023. That limited a lot of what he might have wanted to do. I think there's a lot of broken promises made to Falvey based on comments Joe had made previously concerning the future. And I really appreciate a lot of the things Falvey has done to improve the structure of the entire organization. 

But there is a disconnect between MILB development and players reaching MLB. Is there a system wide issue that Falvey has been blind to? And how can he run the business side AND the baseball side? Seems to me they need a GM/President of baseball operations who has the power to actually run things and make changes. Is Zoll that guy? If not, let Falvey run the business side and bring someone else in.

I didn't always agree with some of what Baldelli did. There have been times where he was handled a lump of crap instead of clay and told to make a nice ashtray out of it. But I've certainly had some issues with how he ran the team. But also, where is the blame on his staff? Has he had any say in them? Or was that all on Falvey? 

I do believe Rocco is a bit of a fall guy here. But I've also had enough questions and concerns about strategy, player usage, lack of defense, bizarre miscues at times, that I've begun to question he AND his coaching staff. But again, how much input did he actually have regarding his staff?

It would appear the actual talent level of the team is starting to change, and hopefully improving, over the next couple of seasons. The SYSTEM should be put in place, along with good coaches at the MILB level, to prepare players. I just don't know that Falvey hasn't been blind to some changes in the SYSYEM that should have already taken place.

Regardless, the manager and the coaching staff should still have the ability to work with players and tweak as necessary. Isn't that PART of their job? How many rookies come up and are just ML ready DAY ONE? 

And that's why I'm OK with a change at this time. A new voice just might be needed going forward. A new approach to how things are done. I can only hope whoever they bring in has a real say...if not complete control...over his staff. Said new manager has to have coaches he trusts to help bring out the best in the roster he has. 

If he DOESN'T have control over his staff, and his approach to working with players, then the Rocco firing truly will be a "face saving" ploy by Falvey and not much more.

[purplesoldier4u]

I wonder if Wes Johnson is available ... maybe Jay Johnson? Maybe the staff of Vandy, Florida, or Texas? Nelson Cruz? This team needs something different, and if they even hint at Toby Gardenhire, I'm done!

[TheLeviathan]

37 minutes ago, jkcarew said:

True.

Still, get ready for the assistant or minor league guy willing to take next to nothing for the first-time opportunity.

Guaranteed. Not that that never works. Let’s hope it does. It’s a bit of a crime if Falvey gets to do the choosing, though…regardless of the candidate pool.

I expect whomever we hire to be the equivalent of dumpster diving for dinner.

[Twodogs]

2 hours ago, Rhyno006 said:

Lol Falvey will probably be acting as coach next year in order to save more money and the payroll will still be reduced to the sub $75 mil range.

Now tell me Falvey will be shown the door and I'll be interested again. Regardless, who in their right mind would want to coach here now anyway?

Someone will take the opportunity to coach in the MLB, but you are correct because Falvey is the one in charge of the decisions, Rocco was just the guy who put on the uniform and handed the umpire the lineup card.  

[Piranyas]

The roster (and organizational) teardown seems almost complete. The Pohlads extended Falvey, likely so he could help continue to navigate a sale of the franchise. In my view, the responsibility for the franchise's ultimate success rests with ownership and the business side. And, the teardown may continue into the off-season, perhaps with Cory's predictions about Pablo Lopez and Byron Buxton coming true.  

 With Pohlad ownership, we're in a chicken-and-egg situation, with the Pohlad's unwilling (perhaps unable) to spend money and a fan base that's not likely to return until the team starts winning again.  Can a new manager (and his new staff) right the ship that Falvey has built and continues to build?  It's unclear. As a long-time Twins fan and one who continues to hope and pray that things will get better, I'm struggling to be an optimist. 

[RLTW894]

1 hour ago, weitz41 said:

I'd say they're cutting payroll on a manager as well. But that won't kick in until after next season. Pohlads will get a new yacht next offseason....

Brandon Hyde strikes me as a good choice for a team full of young players that need a manager that seemed to make young players better.

I agree with Brandon Hyde. He is a good blend of data and old school fundamentals while focusing on developing young players. He'd be a perfect fit. The last series against Baltimore in the 2024 season, the seed was already planted. He just smiled at me when I told him we'd love him here in Minnesota, but I didn't think it would become a reality as I didn't see Baltimore firing him. The stars have aligned. 

When I hear the Twins are trying to save money, but then throw away $35M paying for Correa and now another $3M on Rocco, it makes me realize how they got so far in debt with such wasteful spending. I do not agree that the Polhads are guilty of not spending money. They did on Correa and Buxton. There is your proof, record spending. It just wasn't the best spending.

I am glad the Twins have moved on from Rocco. He made so many bad decisions, namely, blindly following the data while not having the pulse on his team. While there are many such examples, the one example that really stands out, and represents his faulty mindset was when Kepler was on his 13 game hitting streak, doing well enough against lefties, and Rocco platooned his hottest hitter for Margo, who was batting .180ish. What in the world. 

I don't think Rocco's firing is a bad thing at all for him. I think it has the potential to be a blessing in disguise. Rocco needs mentorship from an old school manager. He needs it desperately. If he can learn and evolve and not go back into the data only rut, I think he could have a bright future down the road. Every must have the data. But everyone does have the data. It's not an advantage anymore. Go learn how to manage players. I genuinely wish him the best.

[shimrod]

3 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

I expect whomever we hire to be the equivalent of dumpster diving for dinner.

Twins record is 70-92. Who thinks, based on talent, the Twins were actually a 65 win team and Rocco added value? 

So far, reading this page, I've learned that the manager is not responsible for player development, choosing coaches, or strategy. Some doubt he sets the lineup. 

Half the contributors to this site would do a better job of filling out a lineup card. Any who feel it's idiotic to play the infield in in the first inning would set better strategy. Any who thinks it's wise to let young talent face same handed pitching early in their career would be better at player development. 

We'll likely get the cheapest feasible manager available and it's highly likely that manager contributes to winning more than Rocco. 

[1985Fan]

1 hour ago, UK Twin said:

Come on, the collapse last year was on Rocco and the coaching staff. But the buck stopped with Rocco as manager. The roster, until the end of July, was stacked full of play off calibre talent so I'm not sure how the Pohlad's can be blamed more than Rocco TBH.

I’m not a Pohlad defender and I think they are not good stewards of the franchise. Having said that, can you blame them for the fire sale and rebuild? They followed Falvey’s advice and spent big on Donaldson and Correa. They had the highest payroll in the Central for several seasons and were constantly outplayed by low budget Cleveland and Detroit last year. After last years collapse with a roster full of supposedly playoff caliber talent (according to Falvey) and this years woeful team, I don’t blame them one bit for ordering the sell off and rebuild. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. I think Pohlads went to Falvey and told him to fire Baldelli and hopefully put him on notice as well. I think this is a positive in that they are showing some signs of being aware that fans are not buying this garbage. 
As far as Baldelli goes, he is NOT a scapegoat. I echo what some others have said here; manager is responsible for how the team plays (example Brewers). The lack of fundamentals in many areas of play, the stupid play calling (infield in in early innings, contact play on always, never bunting or hit and run, etc…), and never seeing any player improve once they arrive, is all on Baldelli. No sympathy for him and his smarter than everyone attitude. He had zero managing experience and it showed. 
Yes, Falvey should go also. I hope Pohlads put him on notice that he’s out the door if he doesn’t show more wins out of the payroll he is given. It’s not the amount of payroll Derrick, it’s how you spend it! For all the TD posters blaming payroll, look no further than the Mets this year and past few seasons. Spending does not correlate directly to wins. 

[IndyTwinsFan]

18 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Hold on here, I just read the presser, and I think we all missed a big distinction. This was announced by Joe Pohlad('s AI). This wasn't announced by Derek Falvey.

Looking back, I can see that Terry Ryan announced the Gardenhire firing and Dave St. Peter and Thad Levine announced the Paul Molitor firing. Ownership hasn't done these announcements in the past. 

So for those upset Falvey is still here; this may not have been his call, and it may indicate he doesn't have the leash people resenting his presence suggest he has.

Might it mean he may soon be relieved of his POBO responsibilities??

[jaimedude]

I wish Rocco Baldelli well in his future endeavors. I want to try what Cleveland did hiring Steven Voght as manager. How about seeing if AJ Pierzynski as manager of the Twins? 

[hitterscount]

Really good news, would be better if the second half of this dynamic duo was relieved of his duties as well. Now we wait for a replacement and then the winter meetings to see if the priority is dumping more salaries and a total rebuild or they try to compliment a serviceable to above average rotation. Better times ahead…. Maybe

[Aggies7]

4 minutes ago, hitterscount said:

Really good news, would be better if the second half of this dynamic duo was relieved of his duties as well. Now we wait for a replacement and then the winter meetings to see if the priority is dumping more salaries and a total rebuild or they try to compliment a serviceable to above average rotation. Better times ahead…. Maybe

Even if he wanted to manage at all, AJ is never coming back here as long as ownership stays the same. Allegedly, same for Torii as well. 

[exeoud]

The Pohlad's extended this man before the season. I'm starting to think they're not very good at this whole business thing, well that and the $500 million in debt.

Nothing will change as long as Falvey and Pohlads are still in place.

[Aggies7]

Why in the world did they pick up his option so early on in the season? Has that ever been explained