The Twins’ list of reported managerial candidates includes five names. Together they have combined to manage 746 big-league games — all of them belonging to former Pirates manager Derek Shelton.
Otherwise, former Twin Nick Punto; Yankees hitting coach James Rowson; Red Sox bench coach Ramón Vázquez; and Royals third base coach Vance Wilson have never run a major league team.
Punto, Rowson, Vázquez and Wilson all might deserve the opportunity, but the Twins’ lack of stability makes this a job that should go to someone with experience. Shelton has the experience but he was a bench under for the recently fired Rocco Baldelli, and Rowson was Baldelli’s hitting coach from 2017 to 2019.
The Twins need a reset and bringing in a guy who worked for Baldelli and Falvey is far from a reset.
I doubt the Pohlad family will have any real involvement in this hire — other than rubber stamping it — but they should. They should realize that Falvey’s first year of running baseball and business operations was a disaster. They also should realize that Falvey’s title doesn’t mean he doesn’t need guidance.
And that is why the Twins need to hire a manager with experience. A manager who can connect with players and help a struggling front office that has received no favors from cost-cutting owners.
This is why the Twins should hire Joe Maddon.
Maddon, 71, hasn’t managed since being fired by the Los Angeles Angels in June 2022, but he expressed a desire to return in April during an appearance on the MLB Network podcast. Maddon, however, isn’t interested in just any situation. He wants one that would give him more control — and that would be ideal for the Twins.
“I’m not going to go out right now and politic for the job necessarily,” Maddon said during the interview. “But it would be somebody that has the same set of sensibilities, feels the game, and the game itself and the clubhouse and the team organization should be run in a way that’s balanced.
“Meaning that coaches still have power. Your people that you hire have to feel empowered to do their job. And when they show up every day that they have an opportunity to make a difference. those are the kind of things that I’d like to see and I would love to be part of that.”