Did Derek Falvey Complete the Twins Pitching Pipeline?

[Cody Christie]

Image courtesy of © Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports (Stewart), Dale Zanine-Imagn Images (Ryan)

The Minnesota Twins and Derek Falvey mutually agreed to part ways last week, bringing an end to an era defined equally by long-term vision and by uneven results. Falvey arrived with a reputation as a process-driven executive who believed in infrastructure, development, and patience. His departure opens the door to reflection on what actually changed during his tenure, especially in the area most closely tied to his reputation when he was hired.

When the Twins brought in Falvey prior to the 2017 season, they were not just hiring a new voice: they were hiring a philosophy. Falvey came from Cleveland’s front office, where he was widely viewed as one of the architects of a pitching pipeline that seemed to endlessly produce big-league-caliber starters. Cleveland stayed perennially competitive by developing arms internally, turning mid-round draft picks and overlooked prospects into reliable rotation pieces.

Meanwhile, the Twins were seen as an organization lagging behind in player development, particularly when it came to pitching. Years of conservative approaches, limited data use, and inconsistent development plans left the organization scraping by with soft-tossers and mid-level veteran pickups. Falvey was charged with modernizing the system and building something sustainable, from overhauling coaching philosophies to investing in technology and process at every level of the minors. The goal was not quick fixes, but a pipeline that could consistently supply the major-league roster.

Understanding where the pitching pipeline started is critical to evaluating where it ended. When Falvey arrived, leading into the 2017 season, the Twins' top pitching prospects included Stephen Gonsalves, Fernando Romero, Tyler Jay, Kohl Stewart, and Felix Jorge. That group generated some optimism in ranking circles, but had very little lasting impact at the major-league level. None of them became long-term contributors, and several struggled just to reach the big leagues. The cupboard was bare, and that reality meant any meaningful pitching pipeline would take years to build.

There were legitimate successes in player development during the Falvey era. Bailey Ober emerged as a mid-round pick who added velocity and refined his command to become a dependable starter. David Festa and Zebby Matthews followed similar paths, pushing themselves into the team’s future plans after entering pro ball without much fanfare. The Twins also showed an ability to creatively deploy arms. Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, and Louis Varland all transitioned to bullpen roles and became dominant late-inning options.

Joe Ryan may ultimately stand as the biggest success story of the Falvey regime, even though he was not drafted by the organization. When the Twins acquired him for Nelson Cruz’s expiring contract, few evaluators saw more than a potential mid-rotation starter. Minnesota refined his pitch usage, helped him better understand how to attack hitters, and put him in a position to maximize his strengths. The result was an All-Star-caliber arm and a pitcher who became a rotation anchor, highlighting how the organization could add outside talent and still meaningfully elevate it through development.

The story of the pitching pipeline may not be finished yet. Minnesota’s 2025 trade deadline sell-off brought a wave of new arms into the organization, including Kendry Rojas, Mick Abel, Ryan Gallagher, Sam Armstrong, Garrett Horn, Taj Bradley, and Geremy Villoria. Some of these pitchers could play a role as soon as 2026, while others represent longer-term bets that will take years to fully evaluate. Falvey’s lasting legacy in Minnesota may forever be tied to the results of the 2025 trade deadline selloff.

That depth is also reflected in the current prospect rankings. Minnesota’s system is now crowded with pitching talent such as Connor Prielipp, Dasan Hill, Andrew Morris, Charlee Soto, Riley Quick, Marco Raya, James Ellwanger, and C.J. Culpepper. Some of these arms will develop into starters, some will thrive in relief, and others will never make it out of the minors. That uncertainty is the nature of pitching development, but the volume of talent is notable compared to where things stood when Falvey arrived.

In the end, Derek Falvey’s pitching legacy with the Twins is less about a finished product and more about a transformation in progress. The organization he inherited had little margin for error and almost no internal pitching depth. By the time he exited, Minnesota had reshaped how it identifies, develops, and deploys arms throughout the system. That shift represents meaningful progress, even if the results did not always align with expectations.

The difficulty with judging a pitching pipeline is that timelines rarely cooperate. Arms take years to develop, and many of the pitchers most closely tied to Falvey’s vision are still working their way through the minors. Some will become contributors, others will not, but the volume of talent and variety of profiles now in the system suggest a healthier foundation than what existed a decade ago. If nothing else, they've had more ammunition to make trades over the last handful of years, as Falvey's pipeline has produced pitchers other teams want. That Falvey's conservatism in the trade market left some of that value untapped is a strike against him, but at least he created those opportunities. Duran, Jax and Varland were key pieces of the 2025 fire sale and brought back much of the young talent mentioned above. The team's work to identify and begin the development of Chase Petty allowed them to swap him for Sonny Gray in the 2021-22 offseason.

Whether Falvey ultimately succeeded may depend on what happens next. If the Twins begin to regularly graduate starters and high-leverage relievers from the current crop of prospects, his tenure will look far more favorable in hindsight. If those arms stall or flame out, the criticism will remain that the pipeline was never fully delivered. For now, Falvey leaves behind a system that is better positioned than the one he found, even if the final verdict on his pitching legacy is still years away.

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So did Falvey complete the Twins’ pitching pipeline, or did he simply lay the foundation for someone else to finish the job? Add a comment and start the discussion.

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[mikelink45]

When we bring an Ace from the minors, when we fill the rotation with results we can reflect on a pipeline.

[dxpavelka]

The last 8 years have seen a lot of talented pitchers brought into the organization.  Maybe the biggest problem is that they do too good a job of selling the hype.  And then when the hype outpaces the performance we're disappointed.  

[EGFTShaw]

I think the pipeline was transformed.

It won't do any good if they regress to Old Ways.

Now about the hitter pipeline.

And for the Love of the Hamm's Bear, teach, preach and demand defensive.  You may be limited talent-wise, (the 80s, 90s and 00s certainly were), but defensively they weren't making fundamental mistakes.

Piranhas 2.0 need to become a thing.

[TopGunn#22]

As you pointed out Cody, "pipelines" rarely have a linear progression, making them easy to evaluate.  Are there more talented pitchers in the Twins organization NOW than before Derek Falvey arrived.  Absolutely.  But there has been little to hang your hat on from a "development" standpoint in the rotation.

Ryan, Lopez, Gray...all traded for.  Guys like Bradley, Mick Abel, Rojas...all traded for and still developing.  Matthews, SWR, Festa, Prielipp, Dasan Hill, Charley Soto...all still developing.  What the Falvey era WAS able to do quite effectively, was identify SP prospects who, for whatever reason, health, limited pitch repertoire, stamina, were deemed not going to cut it as a SP and who became excellent bullpen arms, led by Duran and Jax and most recently, Varland. 

So the Falvey era has to be given an incomplete just due to the nature of "pipelines."  Ryan and Ober get some credit as being primarily developed by the Twins.  But until Matthews, SWR, Festa or guys like Prielipp, Dasan Hill and Charlie Soto rocket their way into the rotation as purely homegrown pitchers it will remain "incomplete" even if polishing up Bradley, Abel and Rojas works out.    

A pitching pipeline is ultimately judged on the pitchers that crack a starting rotation and produce.  Having success with bullpen transformations is nice, but the rotation is where success or failure is defined.  

[Otaknam]

The one thing that makes me somewhat optimistic about the Twins is their young starters working towards the big leagues. It’s always good to have a lot of high potential arms because, as mentioned, some will fail and some will get injured. The Twins do have a lot of potential starters, but they need an ace to emerge. To compete for a strong playoff run you better have a real ace like a Francisco Liriano, Roger Clemens, Viola or a Verlander, someone who can be counted on to stop a losing streak and win 20 games. It seems like strong mid rotation or traditional number two starters are being elevated these days to ace status by some. 

[Ricky Vaughn]

Under Falvey pitching development was better. However position player development fell off a cliff.

[FlyingFinn]

Falvey may have completed the pitching pipeline. The trouble is we will find out in the future. If he did complete it, it took too long. But, if he indeed did, the current administration better not clog the pipeline back up.

[ziggy]

Baseball is a funny game. Especially if you're going to try to project the future.

 

Who knows, in 3 years we may wish Falvey was still leading the Twins.

A small nit pick, Joe Ryan gave a lot of credit for his improvements on the mound to Driveline, not just the Twins staff.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

3 minutes ago, FlyingFinn said:

Falvey may have completed the pitching pipeline. The trouble is we will find out in the future. If he did complete it, it took too long. But, if he indeed did, the current administration better not clog the pipeline back up.

Correct! The value comes from what flows through not the pipes themselves.

[Cris E]

This word pipeline is a bunch of distracting crap. it's a bad metaphor that doesn't reflect how staffing any organization really works.  You get the best people you can from where ever you can, and if you can teach them things to get better that's good too. Forcibly remove the image of raw materials being manufactured into hall of fame pitchers because that mostly doesn't happen for anyone. Sure, you see a Cy Young grade Skubal or Skenes every once in a while, but the best most teams hope for is Joe Ryan. Hey look, we got Joe Ryan. 

To evaluate an organization's strength in procuring pitching you have to weigh drafting AND trading AND dumpster diving AND instruction AND preventing injuries AND recovering from injuries AND proper usage/roles and finally if they spend the money to maintain what they build. That's a lot of people doing a lot of different things, it's not a pipe with an In and an Out end. 

The organization is much better at this than it used to be. I don't believe you need a True Ace to be successful because there are a very finite number of them, but our rotation has been highly ranked at the MLB level for years (and it's been led by Lopez and Grey and Ryan -- good pitchers), we built an excellent bullpen without spending much on free agents (and they're going to try it again), and our guys miss time with injuries but not nearly at the rate of someone like the Dodgers. We even usually spend our big dollars on our top arm, Correa notwithstanding.  Anyway, it's not something that you complete. 

[David Maro]

It doesn't matter what system you bring in to develop pitchers or players its all about coaching. Falvey coming from Cleveland with a system is fine,but I see their success in pitching is Carl Willis. He is someone who has been there done that. A suit and tie's job should be get the best coaching possible. The teams with strong SP seem to have coaching that pitched in the majors. It's kind of like they say catchers seem to make good managers.

[TJSweens]

The heart and soul of a pipeline is scouting, drafting and developing. The Falvey pipeline is a trickle in this area. Ober stands as the lone starting success. You can't count Festa and Matthews as successes as they figure to start the year in AAA behind Abel and Bradley. Griffin Jax is another success as an elite reliever. Sands and Varland are successes to a lesser degree. 

Personally, I don't see this as a successful pipeline. The Falvey regime has done a decent job of acquiring pitchers that other teams scouted, drafted and started to develop. The problem is that these acquisitions should supplement your in house core, not be the core. The Twins continually move assets to acquire what they fail to draft and develop.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

31 minutes ago, Cris E said:

This word pipeline is a bunch of distracting crap. it's a bad metaphor that doesn't reflect how staffing any organization really works.  You get the best people you can from where ever you can, and if you can teach them things to get better that's good too. Forcibly remove the image of raw materials being manufactured into hall of fame pitchers because that mostly doesn't happen for anyone. Sure, you see a Cy Young grade Skubal or Skenes every once in a while, but the best most teams hope for is Joe Ryan. Hey look, we got Joe Ryan. 

To evaluate an organization's strength in procuring pitching you have to weigh drafting AND trading AND dumpster diving AND instruction AND preventing injuries AND recovering from injuries AND proper usage/roles and finally if they spend the money to maintain what they build. That's a lot of people doing a lot of different things, it's not a pipe with an In and an Out end. 

The organization is much better at this than it used to be. I don't believe you need a True Ace to be successful because there are a very finite number of them, but our rotation has been highly ranked at the MLB level for years (and it's been led by Lopez and Grey and Ryan -- good pitchers), we built an excellent bullpen without spending much on free agents (and they're going to try it again), and our guys miss time with injuries but not nearly at the rate of someone like the Dodgers. We even usually spend our big dollars on our top arm, Correa notwithstanding.  Anyway, it's not something that you complete. 

I completely agree with this assessment.  It’s not very instructive to say pitching pipeline.  What Falvey and company did do was put a stronger emphasis on the pitching side of the equation, and it could certainly be argued that they were fairly successful.  They went after players in every way possible — trade, draft, waiver wire, develop, convert, etc. — in order to assemble a bevy of good arms.  Some of them have already arrived and done well, others are likely still to come.  

Unfortunately, the offensive and defensive side of things haven’t gotten the same attention or experienced the same success.  You could probably make a good case that traditionally/historically the Twins have focused more on the hitting side than the pitching side.  This definitely represented a departure from that.  

[Cris E]

23 minutes ago, TJSweens said:

The problem is that these acquisitions should supplement your in house core, not be the core. The Twins continually move assets to acquire what they fail to draft and develop.

Bonkers. You measure the outcomes from all sources because people don't develop on schedules and injuries happen when they happen and you still need to field a team year after year. There's no trophy for best minor league pitching pipeline except among the prospect hounds, and no one cares about it anyway.  Quick, without looking it up, who had the best minor league pitching pipeline in 2022?  2012?  

[GNess]

There are three components to examine:

1. Acquiring talent via Draft Free Agency, Trades etc. Never brought in a true # 1 but had a good number of successes. (And some flops.)

2. Development is bringing young pitchers along in the system and getting them ready to produce at the MLB level. Solid here, but no one would mistake the Twins' development track record with that of Cleveland's.

3. Refinement and consistency. This falls more to the pitching coaches, but Falvey had a definite hand in this as well. A so so record here at best.

It's tough to develop a high end pipeline in the uber competitive environment of MLB, but that's what Falvey signed up for. Bottom line: He did some good things, but in the end he didn't produce championship level staffs and that's the bar he had to jump.

[NYCTK]

Very obviously not. 

Eight years into his pipeline, one year ago, the TwinsDaily staff chose Marco Raya as the Twins 5th best overall prospect. 

And today, with Falvey's departure, the highest regarded pitching prospect for the Twins, Prielipp, ranks outside the top 50 prospects in the league, completely outside the top 100 by most prospect evaluators. 

This system is probably somewhat better than when Falvey took it over. But funny enough, Keith Law ranked the Twins farm #21 going into the 2017 season, and now, at the end of Falvey's reign, Law recently ranked them....#21. 

[farmerguychris]

It was a work in progress when they parted ways with him.  But - our pitching has been doing better than our hitting the past few years, so I'd have to say it had more potential than the offensive side of things.

[Blyleven2011]

Falvey , just glad he's gone and his plan gone hopefully  , he's rubbed me the wrong way ever since he was hired  , his persona of always trying to be the smartest person in the room , never seemed loyal to the fan base . , but was definitely loyal to Rocco and the players he should have DFA'd ...

I dont know if the next operations manager and their plan will be any better but they should only have one way to go , UP ...

Play baseball with quality pitching offense and defense , get these players the development they need  , if it's outside the organization as one poster mentioned Ryan going to driveline helped him develop from a 2 pitch pitcher ...

Everyone wants a good game to watch,  not a sloppy game of giving extra outs to the opponents and under Falvey and Rocco that is exactly what the offense and defense did with no change , some change came with the offense towards the end of 2025 ...

Some will say it's the owners fault and I would agree to a certain extent  , but they put there trust in the personal they hire and Falvey wasn't good at getting a big bang for the buck ...

 

[NYCTK]

With the updated Baseball Prospectus 101 released today it's worth pointing out there are no Twins pitching prospects on the list. 

Walker Jenkins - #19
Emmanuel Rodriguez - #48
Eduardo Tait - #54
Kaelen Culpepper - #71

[CRF]

Is this a trick question?

[rdehring]

Great post and loved the comments.

I don't believe he achieved what we hoped for when hired.  That was the development of a Cleveland like pipeline.  The pitching pipeline for the Twins is better, maybe even Cleveland light.  But it seemed every time Cleveland had a guy go down with an injury, some kid most of us never heard of came up and went 6 innings against the Twins leaving with the Tribe up 4-1 or 3-0, or something like that.  Did we know who Bieber was when he came up?  Or several of the guys pitching there the last few years?  That has yet to happen for the Twins, although he has found some good ones in trades.

So I see him as doing a good job on the pitching side.  But not great, at least until some of these current kids come up and get votes for the Cy.  A lot of votes.  But as many of you said he failed on the hitting side and the defense for the Twins has been just plain awful.

Why Falvey is gone is another interesting question?  I keep wondering if it is more related to the fact he was given total control of both the business and baseball side of the organization.  Don't see that often in sports and maybe, or probably, is why he is gone.

[nicksaviking]

Still 10 years later, I'm not sure who supposedly promised a pitching pipeline. Falvey came from Cleveland, they didn't develop a bunch of pitchers, it was like Danny Salazar and that was pretty much it. Just about all of their pitchers of note were traded for either when they were knocking at the door in AAA or already at the MLB level. And the Twins did some of that with Joe Ryan and now Abel, Bradley and Rojas, but then one upped Cleveland by not just trading for cheap young pitchers, but more expensive excellent starters like Lopez, Gray, Maeda and Odorizzi.

Falvey got a lot wrong, there's obviously something systematically damaged with the offensive evaluation and development. But he did well on the pitching end, and with how unpredictable pitching prospects are, (TNSTASAP) yeah, this method works fine by me.

[big dog]

Well, this article pointed out one thing that is indisputable- our minor-league pitchers are a lot better prospects than when the top names were Gonsalves, Romero, Jay, Stewart, and Jorge. Stewart was the #4 overall pick, Jay was the #6 pick,  Eep.  Even with all the legitimate concerns about his future, Brooks Lee has already had a better major league career than all of those guys combined.

[jmlease1]

1 hour ago, NYCTK said:

With the updated Baseball Prospectus 101 released today it's worth pointing out there are no Twins pitching prospects on the list. 

Walker Jenkins - #19
Emmanuel Rodriguez - #48
Eduardo Tait - #54
Kaelen Culpepper - #71

Sure, but almost every prospect evaluator gives extra credit to age and projection, and the Twins have heavily invested in college starters on their pitching side and when someone like Andrew Morris or Zebby Matthews emerges as a real prospect to become an MLB starter, he's already 22-25 and those guys never make a Top 100 for being "too old".

I don't have a BP subscription, but I'd be curious how many starting pitchers are on there that are older than 23 and/or are more than 2 years removed from college?

Festa & Morris have never made the list; Morris had a breakout season at 22 in a season he started in High A; Festa was a bit similar in rising at 23. Zebby was last season, but graduated though we'd still see him as a "prospect", Taj Bradley & Mick Abel stopped appearing on lists after their Age 22 season...

[HerbieFan]

5 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

When we bring an Ace from the minors, when we fill the rotation with results we can reflect on a pipeline.

Precisely.  Developing a bunch Simeon Woods-Richardsons does not constitute a "pipeline".  Hopefully there is some better arms coming...

[NYCTK]

40 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

Andrew Morris or Zebby Matthews emerges as a real prospect to become an MLB starter, he's already 22-25 and those guys never make a Top 100 for being "too old".

Andrew Morris didn't make top 100 because he's never been highly regarded as a prospect. Zebby DID make Top 100 lists. 

41 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

I don't have a BP subscription, but I'd be curious how many starting pitchers are on there that are older than 23 and/or are more than 2 years removed from college?

Their #4 overall prospect is a pitcher older than 23 more than 2 years removed from college. 

[big dog]

The ESPN rankings for top 100 include Prielipp at #54 and Soto at #97.

FWIW.

[arby58]

5 hours ago, Otaknam said:

To compete for a strong playoff run you better have a real ace like a Francisco Liriano, Roger Clemens, Viola or a Verlander, someone who can be counted on to stop a losing streak and win 20 games. It seems like strong mid rotation or traditional number two starters are being elevated these days to ace status by some. 

20 game winners these days are rare, and not that relevant for a variety of reasons. Last year, Joe Ryan ranked 11th in MLB in WAR, 9th in WHIP, 18th in ERA, 12th in wins (if that still matters to you), 15th in Ks and 12th in K/9 innings. Given that there are 30 MLB teams, those rankings sound a lot closer to Ace than 'traditional number two starters.' 

[Cris E]

3 hours ago, NYCTK said:

This system is probably somewhat better than when Falvey took it over. But funny enough, Keith Law ranked the Twins farm #21 going into the 2017 season, and now, at the end of Falvey's reign, Law recently ranked them....#21. 

So what? A one year grade of the farm teams is no measure for nine years of history. Many of the best pitching moves Falvey made were never prospects (eg Grey, Stewart, Lopez) plus Law is talking about 2025 so that excludes everyone that's ever graduated to the majors (Ryan, Duran, Jax, Ober, etc.)