{"id":440090,"date":"2026-01-31T03:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/440090\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T03:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:15:09","slug":"gleeman-twins-mutual-breakup-with-derek-falvey-is-latest-pohlad-created-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/440090\/","title":{"rendered":"Gleeman: Twins\u2019 \u2018mutual\u2019 breakup with Derek Falvey is latest Pohlad-created mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two hours after the Minnesota Twins announced<\/a> they \u201cmutually agreed to part ways\u201d with Derek Falvey, the team\u2019s longtime front-office boss joined a video call for an exit interview with shocked media members. Falvey was in remarkably good spirits given the circumstances of his abrupt departure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Falvey behaved as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, smiling and reminiscing and even telling the story of his awkward first interaction with the late Sid Hartman. He seemed at peace with the decision to leave the job he\u2019s held since October 2016, and do so two weeks before spring training.<\/p>\n

My sense is it\u2019s not necessarily that Falvey wanted to leave the job, which expanded last year to a dual team presidency covering both baseball and business operations, but rather that he\u2019d been pushed to a breaking point trying to do it well with shrinking resources and a new Pohlad at the helm.<\/p>\n

Falvey used a $165 million payroll in 2023 to build a division-winning team that snapped a two-decade playoff losing streak, the reward for which was ownership infuriatingly dropping payroll by $30 million the next year, and then cutting it by another $30 million this offseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a challenge at times,\u201d Falvey said. \u201cI\u2019d be lying to say anything else. Everyone is going to have different limitations or challenges they have to navigate through. I do think for us over the course of certainly the last 16 or 18 months, those were ratcheted up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now the Twins\u2019 payroll is hovering around $100 million, below Metrodome-era spending levels relative to the league as a whole. That left Falvey with few appealing options to improve a 92-loss team that needs all kinds of help following last year\u2019s trade-deadline fire sale and second-half ineptitude.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Pohlad family pushed out Joe Pohlad as the executive chair in December, replacing him with older brother Tom Pohlad<\/a>, who has since repeatedly made it clear he expects the Twins to be competitive this season without actually giving the front office the resources to add impact talent.<\/p>\n

Six months ago, Joe Pohlad approved and perhaps even encouraged a fire sale that stripped the roster of Carlos Correa and nearly the entire bullpen. And now Tom Pohlad is expecting a competitive team to be built from that rubble while simultaneously slashing payroll by another $30 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, our payroll is down from last year,\u201d Tom Pohlad said. \u201cI think there are still some investments to be made between now and Opening Day. I\u2019d also say, at some point, I\u2019d love to get off this payroll thing for a second. Let\u2019s judge the success of this year on wins and losses, and on whether we\u2019re playing meaningful baseball in September.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a big disconnect there that no doubt has been weighing on Falvey, whose strong reputation across the league suggests he\u2019ll have no trouble landing a similarly prominent front-office role once he\u2019s ready to take on another challenge, where the deck isn\u2019t quite so stacked against him.<\/p>\n

\"Derek<\/p>\n

\n Derek Falvey introduced Derek Shelton as the Twins\u2019 new manager less than three months ago. (David Berding \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think my baseball chapters are over,\u201d Falvey said. \u201cExactly what comes next, I want to actually give myself some time to think about what exists right now today. But I love this game of baseball, and I love building teams, and I love being part of a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

One high-ranking team official in a different MLB front office suggested to The Athletic that Falvey would be \u201cback in the big seat somewhere\u201d as soon as next season, a sentiment multiple Twins staffers also echoed in the wake of being blindsided by the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to have a good season in 2026,\u201d Pohlad said last week. \u201cJust because I say we\u2019re trying to build a team that can play a string of October seasons, that doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re not all in on 2026. Frankly, for us to be able to build a team and build a business that can invest in a team, we have to have a strong 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Pohlads were serious about putting a winning team on the field this season, they would have given the front office the means to add meaningful talent that can\u2019t be found shopping in the clearance aisle. To talk a big game about expectations and cut payroll by $30 million is detached from reality.<\/p>\n

FanGraphs\u2019 latest projections have the Twins at 77-85, fourth place in the American League Central. BetMGM\u2019s over\/under total for the Twins is 72 1\/2 wins, third-lowest in the American League.<\/p>\n

Falvey was far from a perfect front-office lead, whiffing on plenty of trades and signings. But no one will ever know what could have been possible had the 2023 success been followed by payroll stability, let alone by increased spending, because the Pohlads brought all momentum to a screeching halt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had that series against Toronto and I\u2019ll never forget the way the fans made me feel,\u201d Falvey said. \u201cJust the fact everyone could experience that in this ballpark. It was absolutely on fire. I\u2019ll never forget that. I wish we were able to carry that forward. I wish that momentum had continued.\u201d<\/p>\n

Falvey was a good soldier, which is why \u201cmutually parted ways\u201d is officially how the nine-year relationship ended. But if the breakup happened because Falvey was simply tired of fighting this increasingly unwinnable battle, it\u2019s yet another Pohlad-created mess in search of a new scapegoat to clean up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two hours after the Minnesota Twins announced they \u201cmutually agreed to part ways\u201d with Derek Falvey, the team\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2326,363,99],"class_list":["post-440090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}