It’s nearly impossible for a team’s manager to survive in their current role when their club has missed the playoffs in four out of the last five years, and on the heels of back-to-back mid-season collapses.
This is the barrel that Rocco Baldelli finds himself staring into, at least for the next couple of days. Time will tell if the Minnesota Twins’ decision-makers feel that the coaching staff needs a change as they head into the offseason. There’s a very real possibility that stability is the appropriate path forward for this team in transition.
But when you look at the history of the game, you’d be hard-pressed to find a manager who weathered this type of storm and made it through to the other side.
The most straightforward options are for a painful, yet expected dismissal at season’s end, or to honor the fact that the Twins picked up Baldelli’s option for 2026 earlier this season. But what if there were a third option that kept Rocco in Minnesota, while still transitioning the club to new management in 2026?
What if Baldelli were to transition to a front office role with the Twins? Several factors would influence this, and multiple pros and cons for why it would or would not work.
Would Rocco accept this new role?
Derek Falvey brought Baldelli in to take over as Twins manager leading into the 2019 campaign. He was the result of the Falvey-led front office bringing in “their guy” after a couple of years with incumbent Paul Molitor at the helm. Being a team’s manager is usually seen as the highest position for someone in Rocco’s shoes, especially when you compare the paychecks.
In all likelihood, Baldelli would want to keep managing. There are bound to be a handful of job openings over the offseason, and he’s well-regarded around the league as a player-manager.
However, he has personal connections with his current organization, and his family has planted roots in Minnesota. All three of his young children were born here, and he has a good setup in a beautiful home in the undisputed best state in the country (sources say).
Baldelli also got his start post-playing career in a front office and scouting role with the Tampa Bay Rays. Guess who just eliminated four of the five members of their pro scouting department? That leads to the flip side of this coin.
Would the Twins want Baldelli in this role?
By all accounts, the Twins and their current manager have a great working relationship. They’re very much on the same wavelength, for better or worse, and they have keen familiarity with how the other side operates. That works really well when things are going right, but as we’ve seen in recent years, things can quickly go into a tailspin.
While it’s debatable whether Rocco can get the most out of his players, especially exciting young prospects who are getting their first crack in the big leagues, one strength is clear. From an on-paper standpoint, Rocco’s identification of talent is usually spot on.
He may not get to decide what the 26-man roster looks like, but he pulls the strings with what he’s given in a way that makes logical sense. It doesn’t necessarily lead to wins, but to me, that suggests the manager role is a tougher fit. Perhaps a player evaluation position would be a better fit for the former scout.
As stated, the Twins certainly have room to grow in their pro scouting and player evaluation department, and they’d be hard-pressed to find someone with more hands-on knowledge regarding what talent will and will not play at the big league level. Maybe he’s the missing piece in a front office that seems to be in a dizzying state of turmoil as things currently stand.
I’d say it currently looks like a longshot, but keeping Baldelli in the fold as a member of the front office could behoove the Twins. Falvey could transition into a President of Business Operations title rather than juggling both business and player operations responsibilities. Maybe Jeremy Zoll gets bumped up, or the club looks for another party to head the department, and Rocco slides in as an assistant general manager or something similar.
This could be a way to assign Baldelli to a role that better suits his strengths, or at the very least gets him away from the line of fire for a little while.
