The Twins are going through a major rebuild after a dismal season on the field, which led to the dumping of 11 players at the July trade deadline. In a continuation of that exodus, manager Rocco Baldelli was fired at the end of the season. 

While fans speculated about an internal or familiar face during the search for Baldelli’s replacement, many were not shocked that it turned out to be a familiar face from another floundering team. Derek Shelton comes to the Twins after being fired in the middle of the 2025 season and leaves with a .410 win percentage for his five-plus years as manager of the Pirates. 

But the upside of this acquisition is that Shelton is used to a rebuild. In fact, from 2022 to 2024, his Pittsburgh clubs began making improvements, but they weren’t enough.While Shelton was with the Pirates, the talent shortfall led to a mediocre on-field product. Hopefully, with the Twins’ talent already in place, he can start with a solid team capable of producing immediate results.

A deep dive into his statements about being a coach shows that his first concern is communication from the top down—something the Twins may have lacked in Baldelli’s latter days. Shelton’s approach has always centered on accountability and communication. Following a tough 5-1 loss to Oakland in August 2024, his message was blunt:

“No, we shouldn’t be in better spirits afterwards. We’ve got to get better. This is a situation where we need to focus and we need to get better.”

That was a few bruising years into the project. Right away, though, he made clear the nature of his expectations of players and their responsibilities to one another.

“It is crucial for players to consider how their daily actions affect their teammates,” Shelton said during his first spring training with Pittsburgh in 2020. “The focus should be on helping teammates and thinking about what each individual needs to do to help the team win.”

One major failure of his stint with the Pirates came in the form of trying but not always succeeding that very aspect. When asked Tuesday about what he learned from his sojourn to the Steel City, Shelton had a quick answer, and a plan for how to better execute the ideas he articulated in the past.

“I think the first and probably most important thing is, you have to have conversations, and you have to have the follow-up conversations,” he said. “Because what is heard, what is said and how it’s retained sometimes loses its place, and because of that, you don’t end up getting the best out of the situation or the player.”

Shelton comes across as direct, often unsatisfied, and focused on improvement. He wants players—and even the front office and coaches—to recognize that you can’t be a team unless individual actions impact everyone as a whole; everyone impacts the win or the loss. Shelton seems to recognize that a loss isn’t about blame, as much as it is a chance to improve and reflect on being better.

The Twins’ 2025 roster wasn’t short on talent. In fact, they have some of the best prospects in the league, but inconsistency has been a recurring theme. If Shelton’s passion and sincerity about accountability are transferable and accepted by the team, could he turn that into success?

In March 2025, after early-season defensive miscues, Shelton asserted (as relayed in an article by AP News’ Will Graves) that the players needed to be involved in the conversation for improvement to take root. 

“Fixing these issues will involve conversations with the players, as these are things the team worked on all spring that need to be cleaned up.” 

Shelton is no stranger to a rebuild. However, the Pirates under Shelton never had the luxury of depth. A front office still in transition left him trying to make progress with limited pieces. He can only work with what he’s got, and the Pirates didn’t give him much. 

The Twins have a stronger farm system, and in Byron Buxton, Pablo López and Joe Ryan, they arguably have more proven stars than Pittsburgh had. Shelton’s experience managing through chaos on the field in Pittsburgh may translate into more success in Minnesota.

Shelton shows that he wants growth and recognizes there is humanity involved, but he is really focused on fundamentals—proper process and everyone being on the same page to achieve the goal. On Dec. 4, 2019, as he came into the Pirates organization, he said,

“We’re going to be very process-driven,” he said. “The fact that we’re 100% aligned—front office, manager, and coaching staff—that’s where it starts.”

If Shelton continues to talk about processes, alignment, and growth, one area the Twins need help with is on-field fundamentals, from situational hitting to aggressive gameplay. That certainly was the focus when he was introduced Tuesday, too.

“There will be more attention to details, more to fundamentals—and that’s not talking about anything that happened before. It’s just talking about the lessons I’ve learned,” he said, when asked about his vision for the team’s play in 2026. “I think we saw in the World Series this year that three little plays and a matter of like three or four inches determined who was gonna win a World Series game, or who was gonna win the World Series. So the focus of that is going to be very important to me. And I think that’s something that I’ve learned over the course of years, that it’s really important—that there’s no detail that’s too small.”

One place where the Twins lack is aggression, on the field, at the plate, on the bases, and from the mound. Shelton has talked a lot about being more aggressive in post-game interviews, and fans would love to see a coach who really breeds that desire and implements a hunger for players to be active in situational hitting and base running. 

That relentless push for improvement (sometimes to the point of frustration) may be the jolt Minnesota needs. The Twins don’t require a rebuild; they need refinement, aggression, and sharper execution. When Shelton said, “It’s time to win,” it was a message meant for Pittsburgh. But it fits Minnesota perfectly now.

Shelton arrives in Minnesota not as a first-time manager, but as a leader shaped by mistakes, pressure, and growth. The Pirates never gave him the roster to showcase his full potential. The Twins might.

If his communication, accountability, and culture-first mindset take root, Minnesota may finally see what Shelton can do when talent and vision align.