Rocco Baldelli is in his seventh season as Minnesota’s manager. It was unclear whether his deal ran beyond this season, but the 43-year-old skipper is apparently signed for another year. Dan Hayes of The Athletic reports that the Twins have exercised their 2026 club option on Baldelli, though it’s unclear when they did so.
Minnesota did not make any kind of formal announcement at the time. Many teams do not publicly reveal the length of the contracts for their non-playing personnel, so that’s not a huge surprise. Baldelli being under contract for next season doesn’t mean the Twins couldn’t make a change before then. Still, president of baseball operations Derek Falvey has been steadfast in his support for his longtime manager throughout their tenures in the Twin Cities.
Falvey again expressed confidence in Baldelli’s leadership today, ruling out the possibility of making a change at the moment. “It’s just making sure no one runs away from the work that is right in front of him, and Rocco is not running away from any of the work. … We’re all side by side with him, as is the staff and as our core players,” Falvey told Hayes. “We’re trying to figure it out together.”
The Twins have made the postseason in three of Baldelli’s six full seasons. They won the AL Central in each of 2019, ’20 and ’23 but only won one playoff series in that time. They’re 3-8 in the postseason since Baldelli was hired. They looked on track for another playoff berth late last season, peaking at 17 games above .500 in the middle of August. They collapsed to a 12-27 finish over the final six weeks, ultimately landing at 82-80 and on the outside looking in.
That dreadful run carried into this April, as the Twins won only seven of their first 22 games. They picked things up in the second half of the month and ripped off a 13-game win streak — which remains easily the longest by any team this year — in the middle of May. They climbed as high as seven games over .500 earlier this month, but June has been a disaster.
Injuries to Pablo López and Zebby Matthews have dealt a huge hit to the rotation, and none of their starters have pitched well in recent weeks. The bullpen has been even worse, allowing more than seven earned runs per nine innings this month. They entered play tonight with an MLB-worst 6.59 ERA overall in June. That’ll climb even more after Bailey Ober and Joey Wentz were torched for 11 runs by the Mariners tonight. They just wrapped up a defeat that drops them to 37-41 on the season. They have lost 14 of their last 18 games.
Baldelli is popular with the players.
On the other hand, even in his seventh season, he’s still very challenged as an in-game manager and his teams perform very inconsistently.
He has zero feel for a baseball game. This team is a joke from top down. To extend him and then team saying they feel this is a championship team is an utter joke. Rockies are more poorly run but twins a very close 2nd.
Well having Vazquez as their primary catcher is just kinda sad. I was looking at Cal Raleigh and then looking at Vazquez and I was having cognitive dissonance. Do the Twins have a catching pipeline coming on board or anything to that effect?
Jeffers does start a few more games at C than Vazquez, but yeah, Baldelli continues to play Vazquez close to a 50/50 split.
Paul Molitor was in the same position. Got an extra year, faltered and was gone. If the Twins suck next year they have to go in a new direction.
Molitor wasn’t wanted by Falvey. Falvey was point blank told he was keeping Molitor for at least one season. Then the team went to the playoffs in 2017 and Falvey was pressured to keep Molitor for 2018.
Totally different situation. Falvey wanted to fire Molitor from day 1. Falvey will toss Baldelli out as a scapegoat the moment it’s necessary, but the Pohlads know the options are limited for a franchise they’re trying to sell anyway.
Rye Rye Rocco!
Hiring a new manager would mean at least a more expensive 3yr contract, this must mean they’re close to selling the team.
Baldelli has zero leadership ability. Twins lost Pablo Lopez and have gone into free fall mode ever since .Losing one player shouldn’t take you from 20-7 one month to instantly going 3-14.
And the twins respond by extending him…
Not a Baldelli fan, at all. I don’t think he makes good decisions, I don’t think his players are well prepared, and I don’t think he helps players develop or grow value well.
Is it just me or is the new M hats the Twins wear way too close to the marlins M?
It is not just you, they are dreadfully bad.
2023 called, it wants its hot take back.
It screams Mariners to me. North Star above the M for the “North Star State” of Minnesota just also happens to be the star that mariners have used for navigation for thousands of years.
It was nepo-baby Joe Pohlad’s contribution to the franchise when he was promoted to an executive position due to his brand management genius.
All the good managers get fired and all the bad be managers never get fired.
Baldelli is toast. This is just a smokescreen.
He’ll be toast if new ownership comes in. Otherwise, he’ll stay right where he is no matter what IMHO.