In a move that left Twins employees “blindsided” 13 days before the start of spring training, team president Derek Falvey and the club mutually agreed to part ways on Friday.
The decision to separate comes six weeks into the tenure of new executive chair Tom Pohlad, who is insistent the team will compete in 2026 to win back fans, in spite of payroll limitations and a bullpen still in disarray after it was ripped apart at the 2025 trade deadline.
Recognizing their personalities were clashing, Falvey and Pohlad — who was named the team’s executive chair Dec. 17 after the club’s partial sale closed — agreed on the departure a little more than nine years after Falvey was hired to usher the Twins into the 21st century.
Though the Twins announced general manager Jeremy Zoll would continue to lead baseball operations and Pohlad would oversee the business side on an interim basis, multiple sources said the organization is scrambling to reorganize only 14 months after Falvey was promoted to team president, a move originally intended to help the club’s transition to a new ownership group in case the Twins were sold. As they look to replace Falvey, Pohlad said the Twins are only seeking a new head of business operations.
“It was two people that were suddenly thrust into working together,” Tom Pohlad said. “We just came to the conclusion, collectively, that the needs of the organization are evolving. The vision is probably a little bit different than what it was before, the landscape is different and it’s best for both of us if we make a change, and best for the Minnesota Twins.”
Though Tom Pohlad took over in December after assuming control from his brother, Joe Pohlad, his involvement with the Twins began 14 months earlier. Previously involved in outside Pohlad businesses, Tom Pohlad began participating in sales calls after his family announced it would explore a sale of the Twins in October 2024, a role that steadily increased as he negotiated with potential limited partnership groups last August following an announcement of the partial sale.
Hired originally by Jim Pohlad and considered close with Joe Pohlad after he was named executive chair in November 2022, Falvey had limited history with Tom Pohlad. From the outset, Twins sources said Falvey and Pohlad’s styles weren’t in sync.
Whereas Jim and Joe Pohlad were laid back, Tom Pohlad intends to be more hands-on than his predecessors in trying to win back disillusioned fans. At TwinsFest last Friday, Tom Pohlad acknowledged that several recent missteps made by the ownership group played a role in the team accruing $500 million in debt, including a decision to cut payroll by $30 million after the conclusion of a successful 2023 season.
Saying the family “tripped over ourselves,” Pohlad described the 2026 season as critical. To regain fans’ trust, Pohlad perhaps naively is insisting the Twins will contend even though the bullpen is only minimally rebuilt after the trades of Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Louis Varland and Brock Stewart. The club’s estimated payroll is $109 million, down from $142 million in 2025. Pohlad said he believes there’s still “room for investment” into the roster between now and Opening Day.
Faced with another change of direction from ownership after the front office was implored to rip apart the roster before the Aug. 1 trade deadline, Falvey and Pohlad instead began discussions over the past two weeks about the team president’s exit strategy.
“Joe and I had a different plan and working dynamic,” Falvey said. “Tom wants to run it a little differently. … Sometimes it’s just a feel that you get where both sides kind of sit there and say, ‘OK, is this the right match for what we need going forward?’ And if you get to a place where you don’t think it (fits) perfectly, you have to have really honest conversations and dialogue about it and we did.”
Twins employees were left stunned by the news delivered during an early morning all-staff meeting. Though Falvey, Pohlad and others said the decision was several days in the making, staffers were caught off guard, their descriptions ranging from a “haymaker“ to “very surprising” to one that resulted in an audible gasp.
That the separation comes less than two weeks before Twins pitchers and catchers report for such an important season was met with equal shock throughout the industry.
“There’s never a good time,” Tom Pohlad said. “Whenever you get to that point, you always look back and say, ‘Oh, you know what? We should have done something about this earlier rather than later.’ I think Derek shared that same thought, way of thinking, that if we’re not 100 percent aligned, if we don’t think that this structure and this partnership and all those kinds of things are in the best interest of the Twins, then we should both do something about it and that’s what we’ve done.”
One source said Falvey, sensing future complications, thought an immediate departure would give a personnel group he’s built over the past nine seasons a better chance to create its own history with Pohlad. Despite their limitations, Falvey believes the Twins can compete in a watered-down American League Central as long as a number of young talents perform.
Currently, BetMGM has the Twins’ over/under for wins listed at 71.5, 15 behind the Detroit Tigers.
“When you get to a place where you realize this is what you won’t want going forward, you’re kind of living in a world where you’re delaying an inevitable,” Falvey said. “That’s not good, either. … I believe in the ’26 team and in the people that were working for me that they can keep carrying it forward. I know Tom envisions leaning in further as he already has on a lot of things in our business. There’s a lot of people inside these walls that are going to keep the business moving forward.”
Said Pohlad: “I’m confident we will not lose motivation or momentum.”
Falvey’s departure continues a tumultuous 27-month cycle for the organization, one that began in the aftermath of its first playoff success in 21 years. One month after the 2023 Twins snapped an 18-game postseason losing streak and the franchise won its first playoff series since 2002, club officials signaled they needed to reduce payroll by $30 million, which would later be explained by Joe Pohlad as a business decision required to counter mounting financial losses as the team’s contract with its regional sports network ended.
Despite working with those severe payroll restrictions amid a three-month local broadcast blackout as a result of a dispute between Comcast and Diamond Sports, the Twins overcame a horrendous start to the 2024 season and headed into the stretch run with a 70-53 record and greater than a 95 percent chance of reaching the playoffs.
But key injuries to Joe Ryan, Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa, along with underperformance by the team’s young core, crushed the Twins. The team finished 12-27 and missed the playoffs, leading to the dismissal of general manager Thad Levine and popular hitting coach David Popkins, among others.
A week after the 2024 season ended, the Pohlad family announced it would explore a sale of the team it has owned since 1984, a potential transaction that left the club’s finances further in question, especially after multiple sources revealed the club’s mounting debt, a figure that reached $500 million by October.
The Twins added $15 million in payroll for the 2025 season even after switching their broadcast partnerships to MLB.TV, a move that resulted in additional revenue lost. Believing the same players with good health and a few upgrades could compete, the Twins largely brought back the same roster and manager Rocco Baldelli, along with a strategy designed to help the team start strong.
Instead, the Twins struggled out of the gate once again, leading to rumors of Baldelli’s dismissal in April. Bolstered by a strong starting rotation, the Twins recovered enough to sit three games above .500 in early June. But the loss of starting pitcher Pablo López to injury, along with underperformance from other starters, sunk the team and ultimately led to its breakup at the deadline.
In a span of four days, the Twins made eight trades involving 10 big-league players, including five relievers, bringing back a plethora of young talent while also shedding Correa’s gargantuan salary in a salary dump with the Houston Astros.
Less than two weeks after the deadline, Joe Pohlad announced his family would remain in power after a partial sale of the club to several limited partnership groups provided the team with enough capital to pay down the organization’s ballooning debt.
With a young team in place and minimal bullpen experience, the Twins went 19-35 after the deadline to finish 70-92 overall and in fourth place in the AL Central. Two days after the season ended, Falvey fired Rocco Baldelli, who’d led the team to three playoff appearances in seven seasons as the club’s manager. Falvey oversaw the hire of former bench coach Derek Shelton in early November and seemed excited about the direction of the club even as there were questions about whether or not the Twins would hang onto López, Ryan and Buxton this offseason.
“It’s been a challenge at times,” Falvey said. “I’d be lying to say anything else. … Over the course of certainly the last 16 or 18 months, those were ratcheted up. You go through a sales process, some different changes organizationally, that just adds a different layer of stress because you don’t know what the future is going to hold and there’s some uncertainty for a period of time.”
Hired in October 2016 to modernize the organization’s baseball operations department, Falvey spent the next few seasons revamping the team’s front office by upgrading its technological infrastructure, building out its information systems, research and development and overhauling player development.
Knowing what work was needed to bring the team’s operations up to speed in an ever-changing baseball landscape, Falvey quickly hired Levine as GM to handle the day-to-day dealings of the club. Together, “Falvine” helped bring a previously tiny baseball ops department into the 21st century with the addition of myriad new employees and by retooling the information the entire group used.
Under Falvey’s leadership, the Twins reached the postseason four times, earning a wild-card spot in 2017 and winning the division in 2019, 2020 and 2023.
“We’ve got an amazing opportunity in front of us here at this organization that, frankly, would not have been possible without Derek Falvey’s many contributions,” Pohlad said.