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

[howeda7]

On 1/30/2026 at 10:57 AM, I Never Bet On Sports said:

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.

 As far as I know, everything TV/streaming will be unchanged in 2026 from 2025. But I'm not sure why they don't have something promoting signing up for the streaming on their website. 

[howeda7]

On 1/30/2026 at 11:45 AM, bunsen82 said:

Just to clarify,  you are saying Zoll was the decision maker on the tear down and not Falvey or Joe Pohlad?   the Pohlads are giving constant mixed signals.   Tear down,  telling front office they can't even have budget and start to plan trading off Ryan and Pablo,  then give them updated guidance the day before winter meetings.   To now all of sudden firing Falvey.  What is the advantage of firing Falvey now,  what was the necessity of firing him now.  

Does Tom think he can sell more tickets with Falvey fired.  Was Falvey unwilling to step aside from the business operations roll.   What has changed in 2 months if you didn't fire him after the season.  They have to have something suddenly that shows he was in violation of team policies,  over stepped with another organization or incompetence became so apparent they decided they couldn't move on.  Otherwise Tom appears just as herky jerky as previous iterations of Pohlad management.  

The Pohlad's certainly approved the Correa trade and may even have requested it. I seriously doubt they ordered Falvey to make the rest of the trades. None of the players traded had large salaries so they were not salary dumps. Falvey did those on his own. 

[bunsen82]

Just now, howeda7 said:

The Pohlad's certainly approved the Correa trade and may even have requested it. I seriously doubt they ordered Falvey to make the rest of the trades. None of the players traded had large salaries so they were not salary dumps. Falvey did those on his own. 

The decision to tear it down was the Pohlads,  now was it just Joe saying yes to Falvey or was the family in agreement at the time.  I think the family agreed with it.  Then they got eviscerated for it and couldn't handle the heat coming from the kitchen.  So they fired the owner (Joe) - replaced with (Tom) - Fired the cook (Falvey) - Fired the Maitre d -  Baldelli (replaced with Shelton - worse historical record).    The Sous Chef with no personality is now the chef (Zoll)   and we are told there is no fire and everything will be great.   

[howeda7]

1 hour ago, bean5302 said:

The Pohlads have always been hands off owners when it comes to roster construction. I don't know why people continue to dream they're leading scouting meetings and doing contract negotitions. The Pohlads were a totally different leadership group last year. Now with new minority owners and Tom not buddy-buddy like Joe was with Falvey, it feels obvious what's happening.

Tom and minority owners aren't impressed with what Falvey's accomplished, and they shouldn't be. Falvey did make sweeping changes at the trade deadline to gut the bullpen. The MLB talent Falvey brought back to replace outgoing MLB talent is of questionable value moving forward, largely redundant, and they players were not productive. Despite assurances the team was not going to use half measures, Falvey has once again entered into 2026 with the philosophy of signing ten quad-A type of players while re-arranging deck chairs because he can't help himself.

Watching serious talent come back from recent rotation arm trades in the past couple weeks had to push Tom to the boiling point since Falvey refused to move similar talent. The message is crystal clear. Falvey doesn't believe in his pitching pipeline and Falvey isn't going to operate like the teams the Pohlads have repeatedly mentioned as successful models for mid and small market franchises.

I don't know as Zoll is the answer, but Falvey was the big problem.

We know the front office's hand are tied a bit this off-season. But even within that, they had ~$20-$25 million to spend and almost all of it should have been spent on the bullpen. Instead they've spent $14 million on catchers and 1B they didn't really need and $2 million on the bullpen and that's it. 

[howeda7]

9 minutes ago, bunsen82 said:

The decision to tear it down was the Pohlads,  now was it just Joe saying yes to Falvey or was the family in agreement at the time.  I think the family agreed with it.  Then they got eviscerated for it and couldn't handle the heat coming from the kitchen.  So they fired the owner (Joe) - replaced with (Tom) - Fired the cook (Falvey) - Fired the Maitre d -  Baldelli (replaced with Shelton - worse historical record).    The Sous Chef with no personality is now the chef (Zoll)   and we are told there is no fire and everything will be great.   

Joe Pohlad was completely incompetent and rightfully "moved aside" by the family. Derek was failing at both sides of his job and has rightfully been fired. It doesn't mean the Pohlad's are now good owners or that Jeremy Zoll deserves the GM job, but at least it's a start. 

[Danchat]

I had been hoping for this for multiple years now, but given everything that has happened with this franchise since the 2025 season has ended has made it so that I cannot be excited about Falvey's departure. Ownership has obviously thrown a wrench in things and made it harder to put a good team together the past 2 seasons, but I wonder if we are making an incorrect assessment that 2023 wasn't a fluke when it was surrounded by the disappointments that are the 2021, 2022, 2024, and 2025 seasons. The organization has seen a dearth of developing talent in the farm system, especially on the hitting side as the team has been unable to develop hitters and certainly fielders to the level of their opponents. For all the talk of a pitching pipeline, the team has been reliant on trades to fill out the rotation and the bullpen has fluctuated from weakness to strength during their tenure. Very few successful MLB pitchers have originated from this organization... and don't get me started on the complete lack of contributions from our international prospects.

So it's hard to be excited about Zoll managing things when I was hoping for more organizational upheaval. Is there much reason to think Zoll/Shelton will be any better than Falvey/Baldelli? I see little to be hopeful about, but all in all moving on from Falvey is absolutely the right move. I just wish this would have happened earlier.

[bean5302]

21 hours ago, howeda7 said:

We know the front office's hand are tied a bit this off-season. But even within that, they had ~$20-$25 million to spend and almost all of it should have been spent on the bullpen. Instead they've spent $14 million on catchers and 1B they didn't really need and $2 million on the bullpen and that's it. 

Same thing in 2024. While cutting payroll was a massively stupid move from ownership, the Twins didn't roll out a bare bones payroll. Falvey had $130MM to use responsibly. Instead, he burned $35MM on Vazquez, DeSclafani, Margot, Farmer, and Paddack. Falvey had an obvious need to make tough decisions on where the payroll was going to come from, but he refused to make those choices. It's not Falvey fault if he makes some bold moves designed to make payroll and field a winning team without the depth needed to absorb injuries. That's on ownership and he can make that clear when he's handed the payroll. Instead, time and time again, Falvey has demonstrated an inability to make moves when it's clear he needs to make them.

[stringer bell]

7 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Same thing in 2024. While cutting payroll was a massively stupid move from ownership, the Twins didn't roll out a bare bones payroll. Falvey had $130MM to use responsibly. Instead, he burned $35MM on Vazquez, DeSclafani, Margot, Farmer, and Paddack. Falvey had an obvious need to make tough decisions on where the payroll was going to come from, but he refused to make those choices. It's not Falvey fault if he makes some bold moves designed to make payroll and field a winning team without the depth needed to absorb injuries. That's on ownership and he can make that clear when he's handed the payroll. Instead, time and time again, Falvey has demonstrated an inability to make moves when it's clear he needs to make them.

There was plenty of sentiment that Vazquez and Farmer should return. They had been members of the '23 team  that was considered a success The Margot and DeSclafani moves didn't work out because of poor performance (Margot) and injury (DeSclafani and Paddack as well). Given the reduction in payroll, Falvey had to thread the needle with no errors and the players he acquired didn't measure up. It is easy with 20-20 hindsight to say Falvey should have acquired X, Y, and Z. 

It seems that Falvey mishandled the business side, perhaps assuming that he was repping a winning team with a chance to have postseason success. The vicious cycle of losing too much and then having less revenue to make the team competitive seems to have exacerbated their losses.

My mind's eye sees a bunch of Dilberts in a Pohlad board meeting--throw out a buzzword and figure that will bring success. Just say you expect wins and they will magically occur instead of building a better franchise. Now Tom Pohlad is going with we'll cut payroll moderately and they should compete because he says so. After all they signed two seven million dollar players. It is betting big on hope and low percentages.

Big picture (IMHO) the franchise is in a bit better spot than they were after the 2016 season when Falvey took over, but it isn't anywhere near a smashing success. Most of the success was in the early years of his tenure and the disappointments in 2024 and 2025 are fresh.