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With the selection of Derek Shelton as the Minnesota Twins' next manager, the front office and ownership forgot one of their own publicly stated goals for the next manager of the Minnesota Twins. This manager was supposed to be a hire who would help address the struggles that have existed in player development.
Derek Falvey made that direction known at the press conference following Rocco Baldelli's official firing, specifically when addressing questions about payroll. Falvey said that, because the Twins are a mid-market team, a new manager needs to be “a partner in growth and development.”
""The most important thing, I think, always is that you want a good partner who cares about not just maybe that day, but does want to invest in the whole organization and wants to think about young players and how we get them better," Falvey stated. "If you’re in a market like ours, and you’re going to bring up players, you’re going to bring up young players and guys that aren’t quite there yet. They need to be given runway, need to be given development and need to grow at this level."
But Shelton didn’t seem to do particularly well in his previous stop in Pittsburgh. Yes, more recently, Paul Skenes and Oneil Cruz have thrived, but that doesn’t seem to be to the credit of anyone other than their otherworldly natural gifts.
Shelton had the opportunity to manage and introduce a few top-100 prospects to the big leagues, but the results the Pirates would have liked were not achieved. Henry Davis might headline that group as a catcher who has played in 186 MLB games over the past three seasons. In 2023 and 2024, when he would have played fully under Shelton, Davis posted a negative WAR and hit his major league best OPS at a mere .653 in 2023. Davis was touted as a top college bat in the 2021 class, but has not reached that standard to this point.
Nick Gonzales cracked the top 20 on the MLB.com prospect list and has also experienced underwhelming offensive production. His bat was coveted after a strong final year at New Mexico State, and he grabbed the honor of being Cape Cod League MVP in 2019, the premier wood bat league for college players. 2024 was maybe an acceptable production year at age 25 with a .709 OPS and 97 OPS+, but acceptable is quite the dirty word for a one-time top 20 prospect.
Endy Rodriguez, Nick Yorke, and Liover Peguero are other players who have yet to deliver on the potential ascribed to top-100 prospects. Joey Bart, acquired from the Giants, initially posted greatly improved production in 2024, posting a 2.2 bWAR and an OPS+ of 121. 2025 started well for Bart, but even before the catcher suffered a concussion, his production began to dip. As great as Cruz’s skills are, his production has been up and down, and there have been questions about his effort. To the credit of Shelton, Cruz’s two best seasons (2022 and 2024) were with Shelton at the helm.
Maybe this is something Shelton has reflected on and realizes he didn’t do as well as he did during his tenure as manager. Shelton did point to some unnamed areas of improvement he has identified in quotes in a recent Bob Nightengale article. Even if Shelton recognizes it as a weakness and wants to improve it, the reality is that there is currently no track record of his meeting this goal well. That means the Twins will need to turn to the rest of the coaching staff to address this glaring player development issue.
One could wonder whether the coaching approach outlined by LaTroy Hawkins might be part of what will be needed under Shelton to see an unproven Twins roster succeed. In a recent interview with Dan Hayes of The Athletic, Hawkins outlined how much of what many players need in their development isn’t related to the mechanics of baseball. Hawkins said, “We forget there’s a human element to it, the mental part of the game. The numbers don’t tell if you have an argument with your wife or your significant other on the way to the ballpark. They don’t care if your kid is in the hospital.”
It would seem strange that Baldelli would have struggled with that side of managing and coaching since he is considered a players' manager, but maybe something along these lines was missing. While there is currently no chatter about Hawkins being added to the staff, it may be that approach that is missing from a player development perspective in the Twins dugout.
Whether it is the approach of making sure a player's mind is right that is needed more, or something else, Falvey needs to find that right mix. The Shelton hire, on its own, doesn’t seem to address the original goal of improved player development, so it will be interesting to see what the Twins front office does as the offseason continues to address that issue.
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- glunn and nclahammer
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