Rocco Baldelli was shown the door on Monday and will not be returning to manage the Minnesota Twins in 2026. That leaves a whole staff of coaches in limbo. Most prominent on that list are pitching coach Pete Maki and hitting coach Matt Borgschulte.
The last time (and only other time) the Twins have been in this position under Derek Falvey’s leadership was at the end of the 2018 campaign, when the front office fired Paul Molitor and began the search that culminated in Baldelli being hired. At that time, the Twins did retain three coaches from Molitor’s staff: bench coach Derek Shelton, hitting coach James Rowson, and assistant hitting coach Rudy Hernandez.
The atmosphere around the club is slightly different today than it was at the end of 2018. Then, the team was a year removed from a playoff berth, and there was a group of hitters that had produced enough under Rowson to give hope for what was to come. That core included Mitch Garver, Jorge Polanco, Eddie Rosario (coming off an .803 OPS season), Max Kepler, a 24-year-old Byron Buxton, and Miguel Sanó. The front office was also new enough, in itself, that the general state of leadership and the trust therein from outside the organization was much different than it is now.
The moves to retain Rowson and Shelton paid off for the Twins, as both were recognized as contributors to the Twins’ success in the following season. Rowson would ultimately receive a promotion and move to the Miami Marlins. Shelton got the even bigger bump, as he was hired to manage the Pittsburgh Pirates.
By contrast, the current Twins club is at a low point in morale and performance. The question needs to be asked: Is there any part of the current Twins coaching culture that is worth retaining for the new manager, or is it best for the new manager to have a clean slate to work with?
“Obviously, the next manager [who] comes in will have quite a bit of say, as Rocco did,” Falvey said Tuesday, at the team’s end-of-season press conference. “We told the coaching staff that. We had to be as clear and as transparent with them as we could be, which is, we’ll work toward the next manager and then figure out exactly what the staff looks like.”
Borgschulte just completed his first season as the Twins’ hitting coach. He was welcomed as a returning hero after leaving the Twins to serve on the Orioles staff for a few years, but the Twins scored 678 runs (23rd in MLB) and ranked 18th in wRC+. For the entirety of 2025, the Twins consistently fell short when it came to scoring enough runs to win games.
Even when looking at individual players, the successes are few for the recently completed season on the offensive side. That list may begin and end with Byron Buxton—and “coaching” up an alreay-elite player who simply stayed healthy this time isn’t much to hang your hat, on as a coach. Yes, there were flashes for parts of 2025 for other players, but the failures of so many far outweighed any good found.
Borgschulte’s biggest hope for remaining on the 2026 staff is likely that the Twins front office realizes this isn’t a coaching problem, but a roster problem. Since the front office and ownership have already fired the manager, it seems unlikely that the upper-level leadership would view themselves and their roster construction as the problem, but rather, they would like to continue and shift blame elsewhere. We can quickly glance at David Popkins to realize the 2025 offense is likely a bigger issue than Borgschulte alone, but Baldelli has taken the initial fall, and unfortunately for Borgschulte, he may follow him out the door.
Maki has been around longer than Borgschulte, having been elevated from bullpen coach to pitching coach after Wes Johnson walked away mid-season in June 2022. Overall, the Twins pitching staff’s numbers were not great in 2025, as they allowed the 8th-most runs in MLB and ranked 24th in ERA. The difference between Maki and Borgschulte is that there were individual performances that can be pointed to as signs of forward progress.
Joe Ryan took a step forward and looked like the Twins’ number one starter for large parts of the season. Ryan reached 171 innings pitched, amassed 4.5 WAR, was named to the All-Star team, and had a 3.42 ERA. Zebby Matthews didn’t end the season with great overall numbers, but he had a stretch in August where he looked much more like the pitching prospect we had hoped to see when he was called up. Others, like Simeon Woods-Richardson, Bailey Ober, and Pablo López, have been steady, if not impressive, under Maki’s leadership.
While those were the positives, Maki also seemed to have more talent to work with than Borgschulte, and wasn’t able to help it all come together. The bullpen, although good enough to be largely traded away, was not as dominant as it looked on paper before the season began. The bullpen performance may be one of the most significant negative marks on Maki’s season. While Maki has a larger resume to stand on to be retained under a new manager, that same resume may be the reason he is also shown the door. Out of the two, Maki seems more likely to be around in 2026.
The fates of Maki and Borgschulte are situations that we will need to continue monitoring closely. Based on what has happened over the past year, both may be shown the door. What would you like to see the Twins do, and what do you think the Twins will actually do? Share in the comments below.