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The Twins are struggling. In the last week, they’ve lost three games in which their win probability was 85% or higher at some point. The team seems to be running into a confluence of challenges at the worst possible time. Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton remain sidelined, with the trio of Correa, Buxton, and Royce Lewis having only played 17 games together all season. The back half of the rotation is comprised of three rookies. The bullpen looks thin and exposed, with Brock Stewart’s season-ending injury leaving the Twins short of high-leverage arms and Jhoan Durán proving, shockingly, to be human. Despite all that, the resilient Twins are still roughly 86% likely to make the playoffs, and 23% likely to win the AL Central, per FanGraphs. Impressive fortitude, indeed.
Amid that state of affairs, especially given that they're coming off an AL Central championship and a very important playoff breakthrough, it's peculiar that we have no official news of an extension with either of their top baseball executives, Derek Falvey and Thad Levine.
It’s possible that the Twins have engaged Falvey and Levine in contract talks already. In May 2023, Ken Rosenthal reported that the organization ‘quietly’ extended Rocco Baldelli until at least the end of the 2025 season. Regardless of which Pohlad is running the show, the Twins organization has typically been one that prizes consistency and continuity, if we’re to judge by the tenures of previous managers and front office staff.
Furthermore, as best Twins Daily has been able to discern in discussions with several sources around and within the team, Falvey is happy with his situation in Minnesota, and the Pohlads are happy with the way Falvey and Levine have done their jobs of late.
Asked for an official comment, the Twins declined.
"A few years back as a matter of policy, we decided not to comment on contract specifics during the season for any of our staff, including Rocco, the coaching staff, or our executive leadership," said a spokesperson.
That jibes with the lack of an announcement from the team when Baldelli signed his aforementioned extension, and it leaves wide open the possibility that Falvey and Levine have already agreed to deals to stick around beyond 2024. By all indications, both executives would be welcomed back, and a significant change in leadership is unlikely.
If that's how it plays out, we should regard it as very good news. Since 2019, the Twins have won the AL Central in three out of five seasons. They’re on track to make the playoffs for the fourth time in six seasons. In 2023, they broke a playoff drought of over 20 years by sweeping the Wild Card series against the Toronto Blue Jays, before eventually crashing out to the Houston Astros. All you can do is get there as close to every year as possible. The last five years on the field have been good for the Twins.
In Falvey’s initial remarks on taking the job in Minnesota, he stated a desire to build a team that could win sustainably. For a mid-market team like the Twins, that means drafting and development. Things could hardly be going better in that arena. Entering the season, the Twins had three consensus top-100 prospects (Walker Jenkins, Brooks Lee, Emmanuel Rodriguez). Lee and Jenkins were high draft picks; they began their professional careers with the top prospect label. This season, the organization has added three more premium dudes: David Festa (13th round), Zebby Matthews (8th round), and Luke Keaschall (2nd round) all now appear on top-100 prospect lists. None of them were ranked entering 2024.
This speaks to the systems and structures the Twins have built around player development. The organization knows what it does well, whether that’s improving swing decisions or adding velocity to a fastball. Increasingly, the developmental leaps taken by drafted prospects are becoming more pronounced. It’s not difficult to imagine a future in 2025 wherein the likes of Kaelen Culpepper or Charlee Soto enter top-100 consideration. At various points this season, the Twins have used four homegrown starting pitchers in their rotation (Ober, Varland, Festa, Matthews).
I don’t think the front office is above criticism. There have been poor free-agent signings, trades that didn’t work out (Tyler Mahle, Jorge López), and underwhelming trade deadline returns (2023, 2024). That’s not exclusive to this front office, though, and to me, it’s clear that they have gotten more of the big decisions and tests right than wrong. Whether it’s the Pablo López trade, re-signing Carlos Correa, or extending Byron Buxton, the front office has usually nailed the big moments.
Too often, organizational weaknesses are foisted on the front office. Whether it’s broadcast access or diminishing payroll, let’s not conflate the front office with ownership just because they are the mouthpiece of the organization.
That brings us back around to the real question about retaining Falvey and Levine, which seems to be less about whether the Twins would want them than about whether they would want to stay. To reiterate, we have some reason to believe the answer to both questions is yes, but we must take note of the lack of an announcement of extensions for either last fall. That wouldn't have violated their convenient organizational policy, after all. It also would have forestalled a lot of potential speculation and uncertainty, including and especially for fans--who already must contend with a lack of clarity about the team's commitment to winning (in the form of spending on payroll) and about the future of access to the team via TV broadcasts.
It does seem safe to assume that, as of the start of spring training, both Falvey and Levine were de facto impending free agents. Even if both, or just Falvey, have reupped since, the diminished transparency here--the twin extensions the two signed after 2019 were made public in short order--invites some unease that feels unnecessary, except as a means of preserving a policy they instituted both silently and voluntarily.
On balance, it’s clear that the Twins should extend Falvey and Levine immediately--if not sooner, as is actually possible in this case. They’ve restored consistent competitiveness to the Twin Cities, and spearheaded the development of a top-five farm system in baseball. There’s a young, exciting core in place who, despite the miserliness of the ownership group, gives the team a chance to win sustainably for the next half-decade. A bit more clarity about the situation would probably do more good than harm, but while the team remains mum, it sounds like both sides are interested in keeping the Falvey Pipeline flowing for years to come.
What is your assessment of the Twins front office pair of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine? Should they be extended? What stand out as the successes and challenges of their tenure in Minnesota?
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