How Rare Is This? The Weird Timing Of Falvey’s Departure

[bean5302]

30 minutes ago, bunsen82 said:

Then he should have been let go in November.  He wasn't.  

It appears Tom is a micromanager.   Quote - Joe had trust in Falvey would let him operate,  now with a new manager,  new scrutiny is necessary but it goes beyond that. Tom came in to pick a fight as you said to show the rest of the family he wasn't fit.   You can talk of the faults,  while ignoring his .520 winning percentage.  

If Tom says its the family's fault for pulling back on salaries and not investing that caused the underperformance,  I think you have to acknowledge the family/ownerships effect on the last 2 years.  If you want to parrot the family's case be my guest.  Its not say Falvey couldn't have done better,  but have the Pohlads been a positive impact on the Twins winning,  I think everyone will admit readily admit they have not.  

Falvey didn't get fired.   Period.   Was he on thin ice yes.  He said I am done I am not playing the game that Tom had set up.  I don't think you understand the term mutual decision. That is not a firing.     Falvey was willing to step away because most of the stink is not on him.  He can easily get another job.   Individuals like you and a couple others have disliked Falvey for years.  Fair enough.  Lets not create things,  or ignore the reporting that has occurred.   If Tom has set the Bar - you think Falvey failed to adapt or took his ball elsewhere - will Tom hold himself to the same bar he just set.   

Here's a bet then Bean,  will Twins have a winning record.  Since you are team Tom you seem to think they can win?    I will gladly take the bet they are under .500.   See this is the whole game,  Tom says they have to win yet no rational person,  no betting site, no baseball individual says this is a rational goal.   But you seem to be arguing that it is.  So if thats the bar a .500 season are you willing to take the bet.   @USAFChief  you can get on the bet as well if you wish.  

I'm not "team Tom" I'm team get Falvey the *(&^out of here. It's the team I've been on for several years.

Falvey is now gone so the biggest problem with the Twins has been removed from the situation. I'm happy about that. This Twins team doesn't resemble the "no half-measures" type of owner Tom says he wants to be.

[bunsen82]

18 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

I'm not "team Tom" I'm team get Falvey the *(&^out of here. It's the team I've been on for several years.

Falvey is now gone so the biggest problem with the Twins has been removed from the situation. I'm happy about that. This Twins team doesn't resemble the "no half-measures" type of owner Tom says he wants to be.

So you agree then Toms expectations is unreasonable.   Thats all I was asking for.   Thanks.  

As for half measure owner,  we now have an owner with no experience and a GM of baseball ops that has 1 year of experience.   Sure seems like a 1/2 measure.   An owner who has unrealistic expectations and Zoll who has been thrust into the roll after gaining his role last year.   

Another 1/2 measure,  what has Tom done about that bullpen? 

[The Great Hambino]

1 hour ago, bean5302 said:

Pohlad set the bar. Here's our strategy. Falvey failed to adapt and ran things business as usual. You know what you have to do when the owner says "here's our strategy"? You follow it. Falvey couldn't do it. Whether it was ego or lack of ability, Falvey didn't operate within the lines of the new strategy and he got fired for it. Falvey could have adapted and stuck around, instead he challenged the boss and lost.

I'm going to make a few assumptions here that could change my opinion of how this all went down if they aren't true:

1. Tom had no involvement in the trade deadline strategy.  I haven't seen anything to suggest that he did.

2. Falvey wasn't leaving meaningful budgeted money on the table in this offseason.  Comments from both Tom's camp and Falvey's camp seem to suggest there's room for another modestly-priced reliever, but nothing that would suggest a budget even approaching last year's budget

3. The decision to part ways happened a few weeks ago.  Again, this seems to have been suggested by both Tom and Falvey

4. Tom's strategy is insisting that the roster they had at the end of last season minus approx. $30MM in payroll budget will be competitive in 2026.

If all that is true, then there was no possible way for Falvey to execute ownership's strategy on the baseball side of things, and certainly not by mid-January.  The strategy is built upon the ideas that the team is good enough to compete as is with a drastically reduced budget, and that simply retaining players that were already a part of this failed roster constitutes giving the fans hope. That is an objectively terrible strategy.

If Falvey was failing on the business side of things (which he never should've been put in charge of to begin with, to be honest), then Tom could've relieved him of just that portion of his responsibilities.  If Falvey had left over that (plausible), then we're talking about a mutual parting, not a firing.

Ask yourselves this: if you are continuing to insist that the roster Falvey put together under the constraints listed above will be competitive, why would he need to be fired?  If you had already determined that he was going to be fired, why'd you trot him out front and center at TwinsFest?  If Falvey's vision was so unworkable, then why are you handing the reigns over to his inexperienced underling?  As far as I know, there's nothing interim about Zoll's current position.

This isn't to say that Falvey was doing a great job or anything.  There are strong arguments that he could've been justifiably fired at multiple points going back to at least the end of the 2024 season.  But to suggest that Tom had needed time to evaluate the direction of the organization as if he was some complete outsider isn't really accurate.  Tom hadn't been involved in all the day-to-day operations, but he wasn't completely out of the loop either.  He was already on the board of directors.  He'd been heavily involved in the sale process.  He should've been at least semi-aware of the operations and the direction the team had chosen at the deadline.  If he thought that Falvey's team outlook didn't align with his preferred strategy going forward, then he should've shown him the door at the same time as Joe.  It was reported that the decision to pull Joe out and replace thim with Tom happened about a month before the switch was announced.  These conversations about alignment on strategy should've been happening at that time.  But once you've decided to keep him, then you have to let Falvey's execution on the baseball side play out.  If/when the team shows that isn't competitive, you fire him then and have Zoll handle the trade deadline.  But to fire him now due to improper execution of a strategy implemented after last year's trade deadline makes no sense to me.

[bean5302]

21 minutes ago, bunsen82 said:

So you agree then Toms expectations is unreasonable.   Thats all I was asking for.   Thanks.  

As for half measure owner,  we now have an owner with no experience and a GM of baseball ops that has 1 year of experience.   Sure seems like a 1/2 measure.   An owner who has unrealistic expectations and Zoll who has been thrust into the roll after gaining his role last year.   

Another 1/2 measure,  what has Tom done about that bullpen? 

No, we don't. Tom set the expections he wasn't a half-measures guy. Falvey employed half-measures. We're almost to pitchers/catchers reporting so Falvey got fired for not meeting expectations. Not sure if there's enough time left in the offseason to change directions or make bold moves or whatever. 

I do think it's unreasonable to expect the current roster to be competitive. 

Tom Pohlad has substantial experience as a CEO and being the head of businesses. I'm not sure where you're going with this? You think the owners are lottery winners who just bought the franchise out of the blue? Jeremy Zoll has 15 years of front office experience starting in 2011 with the Reds, then moving on to being a scouting coordinator with the Angels before becoming the assistant director of player development with the Dodgers (similar to Falvey's role before the Twins hired him). The Twins brought Zoll in as director of MiLB operations, promoting him to assistant GM in 2020, operating as an assistant GM for 5 years, replacing Thad Levine as general manager for 2025.

What has Tom Pohlad done with the bullpen? He's the owner, not not the GM or president of baseball. If you're mad about the bullpen, that's on Falvey.

Owner role = provide sufficient resources to field a team which can meet ownership's expectations for on the field performance. Determine overall business vision and objectives. Hold the front office accountable for following through with strategies that align with business vision and objectives. If it's not inside that scope, it's not Tom Pohlad's wheel house.

 

[bean5302]

18 minutes ago, The Great Hambino said:

...4. Tom's strategy is insisting that the roster they had at the end of last season minus approx. $30MM in payroll budget will be competitive in 2026.

If all that is true, then there was no possible way for Falvey to execute ownership's strategy on the baseball side of things, and certainly not by mid-January.  The strategy is built upon the ideas that the team is good enough to compete as is with a drastically reduced budget, and that simply retaining players that were already a part of this failed roster constitutes giving the fans hope. That is an objectively terrible strategy...

I didn't read that at all. Tom has stated the Twins will be competitive in 2026. Falvey didn't change the team up. I'll go ahead and build the roster that you say is impossible in the offseason blueprint and put it here.

[The Great Hambino]

2 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

I didn't read that at all. Tom has stated the Twins will be competitive in 2026. Falvey didn't change the team up. I'll go ahead and build the roster that you say is impossible in the offseason blueprint and put it here.

Tom is still insisting that the team will be competitive in 2026.  He said that explicitly during is media rounds after they announced Falvey is leaving.  That is a completely unrealistic expectation

ETA: he also said this while begging reporters to "get off of payroll", meaning he is expecting this to be accomplished with diminished resources. 

[bean5302]

1 hour ago, The Great Hambino said:

Tom is still insisting that the team will be competitive in 2026.  He said that explicitly during is media rounds after they announced Falvey is leaving.  That is a completely unrealistic expectation

ETA: he also said this while begging reporters to "get off of payroll", meaning he is expecting this to be accomplished with diminished resources. 

...and he's also said there is time left in the offseason. Remains to be seen if there's enough to make major changes. We could be seeing a move of Lopez, etc. Who knows?

[The Great Hambino]

5 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

...and he's also said there is time left in the offseason. Remains to be seen if there's enough to make major changes. We could be seeing a move of Lopez, etc. Who knows?

He's on record that he's against trading any of their all-stars.  Keeping them is part of his strategy because he foolishly believes that constitutes doing something for the fans.  If I'm wrong - and to be clear, I hope I am because this roster is screaming for a rebuild and delaying moving Lopez/Ryan just serves to diminish their potential returns (especially Ryan) - then I would expect one or both to be moved before Opening Day.  If that happens, then I'll happily concede that it was Falvey going against ownership wishes in retaining those assets

[TheLeviathan]

14 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

...and he's also said there is time left in the offseason. Remains to be seen if there's enough to make major changes. We could be seeing a move of Lopez, etc. Who knows?

I don't even understand what you're arguing....Tom believes that in early February they're going to make blockbuster deals to make the team better immediately while dealing their best players?

Is that what you think Falvey was standing in the way of?  This non-existent trade idea?

[bunsen82]

14 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

I don't even understand what you're arguing....Tom believes that in early February they're going to make blockbuster deals to make the team better immediately while dealing their best players?

Is that what you think Falvey was standing in the way of?  This non-existent trade idea?

He thinks 95% of the problems were related to Falvey.  Thats at best what I can figure,  and that Falvey was holding up improving the team,  even though that was going to be the only way he could keep his job.  Its some pretty convoluted thinking.  It just shows how much Bean disliked Falvey.  

[TheLeviathan]

3 minutes ago, bunsen82 said:

He thinks 95% of the problems were related to Falvey.  Thats at best what I can figure,  and that Falvey was holding up improving the team,  even though that was going to be the only way he could keep his job.  Its some pretty convoluted thinking.  It just shows how much Bean disliked Falvey.  

I mean....I was happy to move on from Falvey.  However...if we're moving on because our current Russian Nesting Doll of Pohlads is on "Tom" and Tom looks at the 2025 Twins, with even less payroll, after a major sell-off, and sees a roster set to transform into a 2026 "contender".....then I'm not sure I can throw fault at the feet of Falvey for not being some kind of wizard to pull that off.

 

[The Great Hambino]

1 minute ago, TheLeviathan said:

I mean....I was happy to move on from Falvey.  However...if we're moving on because our current Russian Nesting Doll of Pohlads is on "Tom" and Tom looks at the 2025 Twins, with even less payroll, after a major sell-off, is going to transform into a 2026 "contender".....then I'm not sure I can throw fault at the feet of Falvey for not being some kind of wizard to pull that off.

 

If there's a silver lining to any of this, it means that Tom is much more concerned with their short-term prospects at the expense of long-term prospects (without any actual investment in terms of dollars), which could be an indication that they're looking to go back to market with the franchise post-CBA/TV rights renewals.   Why care about what happens past 2028 if you're looking to sell the team?  It's a flawed argument, but one you can see if you squint hard enough.

[TheLeviathan]

Just now, The Great Hambino said:

If there's a silver lining to any of this, it means that Tom is much more concerned with their short-term prospects at the expense of long-term prospects (without any actual investment in terms of dollars), which could be an indication that they're looking to go back to market with the franchise post-CBA/TV rights renewals.   Why care about what happens past 2028 if you're looking to sell the team?  It's a flawed argument, but one you can see if you squint hard enough.

[bean5302]

On 2/2/2026 at 11:30 AM, bean5302 said:

I didn't read that at all. Tom has stated the Twins will be competitive in 2026. Falvey didn't change the team up. I'll go ahead and build the roster that you say is impossible in the offseason blueprint and put it here.

 

Here's your blueprint.