Press Release Roulette

There are few jobs in baseball more thankless than working in a communications department during organizational chaos. The Minnesota Twins have managed to turn that chaos into a full-time endurance sport, and the team’s PR staff has been running wind sprints since last summer, with no hydration break in sight.

According to sources inside the organization, the communications department spent weeks training for last season’s trade deadline sell-off. This was not metaphorical training. This was real preparation. Long nights. Cold coffee. A shared Google Doc titled “Just In Case.” While the rest of baseball enjoyed the All-Star Break, the Twins PR staff sat hunched over laptops trying to pre-write press releases for half the roster.

“We treated it like spring training,” said Twins Communication Czar Dustin Morse, according to one internal email accidentally forwarded to everyone. “You stretch. You prepare. You hope no one pulls a hamstring while being traded for a Low-A reliever.”

The signs were everywhere: phones buzzing; executives whispering; and that familiar feeling that something big was coming, but no one knew exactly what. By the time the deadline arrived, the communications team had drafts ready for players who were traded, players who were rumored to be traded, and players who simply felt tradable in spirit. Then came the pivot.

Just as the PR staff had emotionally committed to the sell-off era, ownership shifted gears. The Pohlad group went from selling the entire franchise to selling minority shares, and suddenly, the communications department had to find positives in continuity. This proved tricky, after weeks of preparing statements that included phrases like “as part of a long-term retool” and “we thank him for his contributions during a challenging season.”

One unnamed staffer described the whiplash.

“We had to delete the word 'rebuild' from seventeen different drafts and replace it with 'strategic flexibility'," the source said. "I do not know what 'strategic flexibility' means anymore, but I can type it very fast.”

There was at least one moment of relief. When Rocco Baldelli was fired, the PR spin was easy. The Twins famously keep a pre-written Word document labeled: “Manager Firing Final Final Use This One.” Despite there being only three managers fired in recent memory—Ron Gardenhire, Paul Molitor, and Baldelli—the document remains a cherished artifact, lovingly updated every few years like a family recipe.

“That one was plug and play,” said another source. “Change the name. Change the year. Add a line about gratitude and culture. Done.”

This week’s news of Derek Falvey parting ways with the front office was a different beast entirely. No leaks. No whispers. No helpful heads-up to allow the communications department to prepare emotionally or grammatically. Falvey had been the public voice of the franchise, even appearing at TwinsFest days earlier, calmly explaining plans that were apparently already being archived.

The PR team went into high gear, tasked with making it seem as if the franchise was not quietly unraveling at the seams. Adjectives were debated. Verbs were scrutinized. 'Mutual' was workshopped for nearly an hour.

“'Mutual' is doing a lot of heavy lifting,” another source admitted. “We stared at that word like it might blink first.”

In the end, the release went out. Calm. Professional. Carefully constructed to suggest stability, vision, and intentionality. Inside the communications department, several people reportedly stared at the wall afterward, wondering how many more drafts they could delete before muscle memory took over completely.

The conclusion is unavoidable. While players come and go, and executives rotate through press conferences, the true iron men of the Minnesota Twins may be the communications staff. They are always ready. Always rewriting. Always finding optimism in the margins.

Somewhere in Target Field, a new folder has already been created. It is simply titled “Next One.”