What The?!: Derek Falvey to Depart Minnesota Twins Front Office

[thelanges5]

This organization continues to baffle me. Tom did say he was a go big or go home guy. 

[ashbury]

21 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

Never should have let Darnold walk.

oh wait wrong guy 😂

The speech he gave in Waseca was probably his undoing. 

Or was that the other guy I'm thinking of...

[ashbury]

35 minutes ago, UK Twin said:

Well I didn't see that coming. 

[mluebker]

25 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

On top of that, there's been a clear lack of interest in changing up the roster construction. 

I’d like more team building and less roster construction. Maybe this will lead to that.

[Vanimal46]

This screams to me a fundamental difference on the business side of the organization. I'm guessing they are getting killed on ticket sales, and more importantly suite/advertising sales from companies around the area. 

Zoll remaining as the baseball guy also screams same old same old. Unless he decides to grow a spine and take advantage of this opportunity. 

[goliath]

Apparently, Tom Pohlad was a big Edouard Julien and Pierson Ohl fan.

[LewFordLives]

This organization does everything ass backwards. Don't get me wrong, he needed to go. Now you are trying to hire someone who will knowingly inherit Falvey's mess of a roster and hand picked manager. Who's gonna want this job?

[ashbury]

21 minutes ago, jharaldson said:

Gleeman quoted Falvey saying that he doesn't know what is happening next. 

Maybe the Dodgers are in the market for another assistant executive and Rocco can put in a good word for him.

[amjgt]

The writing was on the wall when Falvey wasn't around for the initial Tom Pohlad presser.

The Occam's Razor in my mind is that Tom Pohlad thought Falvey was doing a bad job on not only the business side, but also the baseball side, he didn't like how he talked for days without really saying anything, and there were a couple moves that once Tom settled in a little bit, he felt were pretty hard to forgive (the fire sale and probably Correa).

So he fired him.

[mluebker]

27 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I bet they 'mutually parted ways.'

Judging by how the language of Falvey’s and Tom Pohlad’s quotes in the press release is virtually identical, that’s certainly what we’re supposed to think.

[mluebker]

28 minutes ago, ashbury said:

 

"Be careful what you wish for, you may get it."

 

Or, to quote Groucho, “Outside of the improvement, you’ll never know the difference.”

[Parfigliano]

8 minutes ago, LewFordLives said:

This organization does everything ass backwards. Don't get me wrong, he needed to go. Now you are trying to hire someone who will knowingly inherit Falvey's mess of a roster and hand picked manager. Who's gonna want this job?

ME.  ME.  ME!!!!!!

[NJM]

We have to be missing some part of the story cause what the hell made him do this?

[howeda7]

Good. The timing sucks but it's clearly because Tom Pohlad has now seen enough to know he wants him gone. 

[amjgt]

I stand by this thought after Tom's initial press conference:

Quote

2) Man have I grown sick of Falvey. I've given him every possible chance and he's done some good things (not enough), but I just can't listen to him talk any more. It's like listening to the Peanuts teacher at this point. I'm going to guess Joe and Falvey were pretty in sync. Based only on the last 24 hours of getting to know Tom, I'm going to guess he's not a big Falvey guy. I haven't seen a single quote where he mentioned him (like... "I look forward to digging in with Derek and really figuring this thing out) and he wasn't at the press conference yesterday.

 

[jjswol]

I agree with the fact that the timing is very unusal and strange. That means that something catastrophic happened between Falvey and ownership. I'm not saying that it was necessarily the Pohlad's. Could it have been the minority owners that helped swing this stick? Guess we will have to wait and see what happens next. As they say in the public relations business, no news is bad news. The Twins can use all the press they can because they have ceased to exist in the eyes of many fans.

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

I'd like to think this marks a big shift or change in direction (in a good way) but I don't see Zoll doing anything differently - at least not enough to move the needle. Until the franchise (Tom Pohlad) develops a different philosophy, the Twins are kind of stuck in neutral.

[Jose Herrera]

I wish this had happened earlier in the offseason. Terrible timing with spring training about to begin.

Nonetheless, I wish Falvey well since he left us with decent coaches, contracts, facilities, players and prospects. 

I am excited for a new president and expect us to take our time selecting them. Hope they have experience and are given ample resources and time to build a great franchise.

[The Great Hambino]

If this really truly was a mutual decision - and that's a pretty big if - then the most plausible explanation I can think of given the comments about "ownership transitions" and "leadership an structure of the club" is that the new people in charge saw that it was not a good idea to have one guy running both business and baseball ops, and Falvey wasn't too hot on the idea of a demotion.

I have no explanation for the timing.  Seems like the kind of decision that should've been happening when Tom took over

[Dman]

Definitely bad timing but I think it was time for Derek to go.  There is just no energy or optimism about this club right now. 

I don't know that the new guy(s) will be any better, but at least this erases a lot of narrative's about the Falvey era.  The new guys are going to get the benefit of the doubt on their decisions while there is too much baggage to slough off with Falvey.

While there has been plenty of disappointment with this club Falvey did modernize a lot of things in the Minors and Major's.,  They hired good people that got poached by other teams.  I feel like pitching development has been more of a strength than it ever was in the past. He was terrific at saying nothing to the press using lots of words with no substance.

Still if the Twins are headed toward another rebuild and it looks like they are, as a front office you usually only get one of those.  He had his so it is time for some new blood to lead the next wave.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

49 minutes ago, Chembry said:

Wondering if this is fallout from the deadline fire sale. 

Or from the offseason “not-fire sale”

[bunsen82]

My initial opinion -  policy violation of some sort.     I don't think this is being done for last year or ticket sales for this year.    If it is for last years performance,  he should/would have been fired earlier.  Unless there was pushback on funds to rebuild the bullpen or promises of a better bullpen. 

[DJL44]

Tom Pohlad seems to have some experience actually running a business. He seems to have left PAR in better shape than he found it.

We will get to see how the "difference of opinion" plays out. There is nobody left to buy in free agency, so they can't pivot and spend money even if they wanted to. My guess is we will see Joe Ryan traded. Nobody is buying tickets. That means nobody will care if the team is good or terrible in 2026. Don't expect Buxton, Lopez, Jeffers, Bell or Ober to be with the team in September.

[nicksaviking]

23 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

This screams to me a fundamental difference on the business side of the organization. I'm guessing they are getting killed on ticket sales, and more importantly suite/advertising sales from companies around the area. 

Zoll remaining as the baseball guy also screams same old same old. Unless he decides to grow a spine and take advantage of this opportunity. 

With no one but Falvey leaving, the baseball side doesn't look any different. That's why this move has to be due to the operations side. $orry, I mean the operation$ $ide.

Hmmm, those dollar signs don't pop like I thought they would.

[nicksaviking]

22 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Maybe the Dodgers are in the market for another assistant executive and Rocco can put in a good word for him.

You mean assistant To the exectutive?

[JD-TWINS]

Falvey probably lost his mind one day when Tom asked why ticket sales were down again……..that or he was tired of waking up and wanting to puke every morning because ownership and the fanbase don’t like the Roster, even though Team is spending 65-70% as much as they did in 2023.

The fact that spending was cut/has been cut at the severe level we’ve seen & then to bitch about the FO’s inability to have an effective roster is nuts! Reducing spending to match revenues is business and essentially understandable BUT not after OWNERSHIP approves of a long-term signing of One guy at $35M/year.

I’m not in love with Falvey or anyone else in the FO but the attacks for franchise current status being anywhere but on Ownership makes no sense to me.

[adjacent]

57 minutes ago, Twodogs said:

Thank God!  It is going to be a mess with the timing, but the Twins needed a new direction, might as well be sooner rather than later.  Hopefully, they will be able to still sign a relief pitcher or something before spring training.

The new direction needed is a new owner, not an owner that makes the job impossible

[I Never Bet On Sports]

Last summer when the Twiins announced they were no longer selling the team I cancelled my Twins TV renewal. Went to Twins home page today to see how to sign up for this year. Nothing, Broadcast FAQ? blank, From a business standpoint, which Falvey was running, it seems ridiculoous that this late they don't have a plan you can sign up for advertised yet or at least an announcement date teaser.

Falvine was a welcome new direction 9 years ago, I appreciate what he and Thad did then, but it seems like it was time for him to go - I could never figure out what the strategy was other than - let's wait to see what falls in our lap.

[Cris E]

Guessing here:
Falvey probably isn't as good at business as he is at baseball, but the financial malfeasance predates him.  He didn't get that job until 2024, after the fire sale and $400m hole was dug.

Tom P is the new face of ownership, but I bet the new financial partners are getting far enough into ops to start offering some "advice". They may have offered him some money to put some lipstick on this pig at the time of transition, but after seeing the ticket sales "bounce" and the anticipated streaming revenue it might have been reeled back just as Derek was going into his last weeks of winter rag picking. 

Not getting the promised money right now probably initiated a hard discussion about 2026 resources, separating the business role, and maybe some "then this really can't work, can't it?" and a mutual reset. They may not actually know what their next step is right now, beyond playing kids and sorting bullpen arms. 

Again, I'm betting this goes back to wavering, indecisive ownership changing direction, changing budget, changing commitment. Cannot wait for them to sell.

[LewFordLives]

1 minute ago, nicksaviking said:

With no one but Falvey leaving, the baseball side doesn't look any different. That's why this move has to be due to the operations side. $orry, I mean the operation$ $ide.

Hmmm, those dollar signs don't pop like I thought they would.

But that doesn't really make sense either. I always just assumed Falvey taking over the business side was a temporary thing because of the uncertain ownership situation. That's now resolved, for now.   Why would Falvey want to continue on the business side. You would think he'd be uncomfortable in a job for which he has zero qualifications.