If He's Fired, Rocco Baldelli Will Only Be Minnesota Twins' “Fall Guy”

I wonder if Baldelli holds his coaches to a certain standard or not.  He seems so uninvolved and/or unemotional in the dugout, does that carryover to his meetings with coaches and players.  If you seem disengaged when interacting with the staff the staff may get unenthused when carrying out the mission.

Because Kiersey can’t bunt doesn’t mean that can’t be done. Those were the first bunt attempts in a very long time.  Rocco can’t be blamed for Keirsey or anyone’s particular AB. 
What Rocco can do is work on bunting during BP. They should be working on fundamentals during ST and every day, based on the way this team performs. That is what Rocco can control. TK used to have infield drills during pre-game everyday to drive home fundamentals. 
As someone else said earlier, manager should be part of everyday work that the coaches plan with players, including BP. I read earlier this year that Rocco was sitting in on hitter meetings reviewing scouting reports and game planning for the first time ever! That tells me he is not managing the team completely. Leaving the coaching up to his staff isn’t working. Can you imagine Bellicheck leaving the game plan up to coaches? Manager has to be engaged and part of fixing the problems. Or he can shrug his shoulders and blame the players. 
This is his first job as manager and it shows. He clearly is overmatched during games and is not doing enough between games. 

3 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Blame per your comment is 80% FO & 20% Rocco……..

Miranda - Correa - Larnach  nearly zero results ……. Lewis hurt - Wallner hurt ……… Gasper - Kiersey - Vazquez nearly zero results (literally) ……… Jax & Alcala with ERA’s over 11.00 ………… Ryan, 3 HR’s in one outing …. Ober 8 runs in 1 2/3 innings…… Paddock’s first 2 starts. To me, the guys that are getting paid to actually PLAY the games and affect results have at least 70% of the blame, at a minimum. 

I get what you are saying but I assume they are trying to do their best. If they are just not good enough Thats is on the FO to find better players. 

This team has a starting rotation that can win games. Lopez, Ryan, Ober and get Matthews up here like yesterday is a top 1/3 rotation. Duran is a viable closer. The issue as everyone can see is there is zero team speed, terrible defense, awful plate approach and just the lack of fundamental baseball. Some of the issues are not on Rocco, but he sets the tone on pulling starting pitchers, using Duran in non closer situations, sitting players that may have finally broken their hitting slump, and like the article points out... treating games like wins aren't valued..... how many get away games does/ has he just thrown out lineups that are due to fail. He's not the only problem , he's just the biggest one. 

It's never all the managers fault. But different people have different ways of deploying the resources they're given. Meager as those may be, maybe someone can get more out of them than Rocco. Because it's pretty clear no one is going to upgrade this roster in any sort of significant way until the team gets a new owner. If then.

The Mariners were having the same issues. Too much swing and miss, no baserunning, etc. They had enough and hired on some previous players Dan Wilson and Edgar Maritinez. Since then they have risen in the ranks of hitting, baserunning and scoring. All of which takes pressure off pitchers which has them pitching their best. 

Tingler came from the Padres. Didn't they improve quite a bit after he was dismissed? I mean, they didn't change the players and the Manager..... Just the Manager..... And it led to improvement. Whoever the choice would be to replace Rocco in some unforseen circumstance that he'd actually be fired, please don't replace him with Tingler. He's already proven himself to be an ineffective Manager.

On 4/21/2025 at 10:14 AM, The Great Hambino said:

It seems like most, if not all, defenses of Baldelli run along the lines of "it's not his fault" or "he's not the problem."

If that's your position ( and there's certainly at least some truth to it), then ask yourself this:

Is Baldelli the solution to any of the team's issues?

I have a hard time coming up with a way in which he is.  So even if he'll get replaced by Tingler or someone else that will be a clone or continue following Falvey's marching orders or whatever, it's worth trying to see if someone else can be the solution, or part of the solution.  The status quo is not worth maintaining with the continuity Baldelli provides, so there isn't much risk in his replacement being worse.  The upside of his replacement being a solution is worth that risk.

Hesitate to make this comment as this site appears to be pro-Baldelli but my view from the nickle seats is this: Two important duties for a manager are running a pitching staff and ensuring his team plays sound fundamental baseball. Neither of those items would be considered a strength for Rocco.

Ok, I've read all the comments.  But what bothers me about the Twins is this;

1.  Striking out looking, especially with runners on base and in scoring position. (Julien sucks)

2. It seems there is a lack of hustle from some of our veterans.  Correa often does not run hard on infield ground balls.  That's not good leadership.

3. The Twins "can't" bunt.  Bunt to move up runners.

4. There are so many oppurtunities to score with runners in scoring position with less than two outs.  We fail, fail, fail.

5. Throwing erros on simple throws to first base.  What's with that?

6. And give me a break on this " The process matters more than the results".  Sorry, but that is total BS. When they figure out that winning matters, you will see more fans in the stands.

So, what does this all boil down to?  Management!  From the top down.  Rocco makes bad in game decisions(in my opinion).  Shoud he be fired?  Yes.  It's time for a new look.  New manager, new coaches, new front office and please new ownership.  There's my rant and I know it doesn't matter at all.  And many TD'rs will disagree.  But if this is how the Twins are going to continue, the team won't be around long.

3 hours ago, rv78 said:

Tingler came from the Padres. Didn't they improve quite a bit after he was dismissed? I mean, they didn't change the players and the Manager..... Just the Manager..... And it led to improvement. Whoever the choice would be to replace Rocco in some unforseen circumstance that he'd actually be fired, please don't replace him with Tingler. He's already proven himself to be an ineffective Manager.

A manager losing or losing the team doesn’t matter. They’re not players. There’s so much more than what you describe about Tingler. Joe Torre was fired by 3 teams before his Yankees run. Terry Francona was terrible for the Phillies before leading Boston to their 1st championships in years. Dusty Baker was fired from numerous teams before his Astros run. Tony Larussa was fired before Oakland and St. Louis. Bobby Cox was fired by the Braves in the early 80’s only to come back and become their all time winning manager. Doesn’t matter if they lost somewhere else. Maybe Tingler takes over and they win the World Series. Nobody knows. Joe Maddon was seen as a brilliant manager. Fired after like a year and a half with the angels. It literally doesn’t matter. The question is does the team respond? 

And...?

16 hours ago, Mark G said:

The manager's job is also to manage the coaches he is given.  And, considering the manager usually gets to select the coaches he wants working with him, he could very well be responsible for everything involving the coaching staff.  He can't ever just assign them a role and walk away assuming they will succeed; he must be reviewing everything all season long.  

That’s probably not the case either though. You don’t think a myriad of officials aren’t involved in making those decisions? We’re talking about a professional sports business with tons of people in every department. Nothing is decided by one guy ever. Does he deserve to be fired? Probably not but the manager is the first fall guy if the debacle continues. 
https://www.mlb.com/twins/team/front-office

21 hours ago, big dog said:

Did you look at that list of relievers? I’m not asking for $700 million. What about another $10 million? Or does money just not matter?

I’m not saying money doesn’t matter. It’s just not everything. It’s expensive to solve problems with FA’s. If you got $10M and it didn’t work out(aging FA player got hurt/ underperformed) would you want another $10M or would you be satisfied?

I can only say Rocco Ball doesn't work in the Majors. It might be fine in a beer league. Players have routines and aren't going to perform when they don't know what position or where in the lineup they are. The team's with winning records run the same players out game after game.

11 hours ago, FargoFanMan said:

A manager losing or losing the team doesn’t matter. They’re not players. There’s so much more than what you describe about Tingler. Joe Torre was fired by 3 teams before his Yankees run. Terry Francona was terrible for the Phillies before leading Boston to their 1st championships in years. Dusty Baker was fired from numerous teams before his Astros run. Tony Larussa was fired before Oakland and St. Louis. Bobby Cox was fired by the Braves in the early 80’s only to come back and become their all time winning manager. Doesn’t matter if they lost somewhere else. Maybe Tingler takes over and they win the World Series. Nobody knows. Joe Maddon was seen as a brilliant manager. Fired after like a year and a half with the angels. It literally doesn’t matter. The question is does the team respond? 

This may be true but since the addition of Tingler as a coach the Twins haven't improved. One could say they have gotten worse.

1 hour ago, rv78 said:

This may be true but since the addition of Tingler as a coach the Twins haven't improved. One could say they have gotten worse.

Agreed, I think Tingler should have went last year with the hitting coaches. I tend to think and maybe I’m wrong that he agrees with Rocco maybe too much and doesn’t provide any pushback or different ideas. Rocco’s style seemed to change after the older gentleman he had as bench coach in 2019 retired whenever that was. I can’t recall.