The Twins’ search for a new manager has taken them to a familiar name, as The Athletic’s Dan Hayes and Dennis Lin report that the club will be speaking with former utilityman Nick Punto. The Padres currently employ Punto as a coach on their big league staff, and granted the Twins permission for an interview with the 14-year MLB veteran.
Seven of Punto’s seasons (2004-10) were spent in a Twins uniform, and his nickname of “the Shredder” sums up Punto’s style of play. Despite below-average hitting numbers for his entire career, Punto enjoyed a long career based on defensive versatility, speed, and a focus on solid fundamentals. As Hayes/Lin note, Minnesota team president Derek Falvey stressed that the next version of the Twins is “going to be a really good base running team, we’re going to be on the details, we’re going to be leaning into the fundamentals.”
On paper, this would seemingly make Punto an ideal match, plus his past ties to the Twins organization certainly help. What Punto (who turns 48 next month) lacks in comparison to other candidates is a lot of coaching or managerial experience, certainly at the big league level. Punto was a manager in MLB’s Prospect Development Pipeline League in 2021 and he coached at the high school level in 2023-24 before taking the job on San Diego’s staff. Punto didn’t have a defined role with the Padres, but Hayes and Lin wrote that his duties included “working with the team’s infielders.”
Punto is the fourth candidate publicly linked to the Twins’ search for Rocco Baldelli’s successor. Former Pirates skipper Derek Shelton is the only known candidate with MLB managerial experience, as Punto, Yankees hitting coach James Rowson, and Red Sox bench coach Ramon Vazquez would all be first-time managers (apart from Vazquez’s single game as a fill-in for Alex Cora when Cora was attending his daughter’s graduation this past May).
“Another hot name internally” for the Twins is Cubs bench coach Ryan Flaherty, according to Hayes and Lin, but it isn’t known if the Twins have yet been given permission to speak with Flaherty. Already a popular name amidst the many managerial vacancies around baseball this fall, Flaherty has been cited as a likely candidate for the Padres and Orioles jobs. Flaherty has bench coaching experience with the Cubs and Padres but would be another first-time skipper at the MLB level.
I like Punto. A former player from Minnesota again would be fun.
Hope – He should have Adrian Gonzalez as his hitting coach, Josh Beckett as his pitching coach, and Carl Crawford as his baserunning coach.
It could be the famous “Punto Trade” all over again.
Isn’t that Spanish for…
No that’s puto
LNP does nothing for me.
Seems like there have been quite a few former players being considered for Manager jobs, more than usual.
There’s more openings than usual right now but yeah.
Not necessarily more former players than usual, just more first time manager candidates than usual. Most of the league’s managers are former players, they’ve just been managers before so we forget.
It comes from the fact that the “old guard” of managers are getting old. There is also something to be said about necessarily retreading the same old group (say, Girardi, Mattingly, Matheny) and hoping for better results
Managing is different from playing. Punto has to show that he can handle the incredibly difficult job of MLB managing. He has to handle the media, young player psyches, toe the line when payroll gets slashed, and then be good at leading a young team through all the on-field stuff that’s changing year by year.
This particular team has to fashion a bullpen from nothing, try to revive the careers of a bunch of fading prospects (Lewis for sure, also Julien and Miranda and Outman and who knows who else is left by Feb) and maybe catch DET and CLE with an indifferent budget and little ownership buy-in.
“It’s not that hard. Tell ’em, Wash.”
“It’s incredibly hard.”
Most of these former players were clubhouse leaders of sorts. They know the culture of.clubhouses and they have been to countless press conferences and have dealt with the media.
The fact we are hearing these names being considered tells you teams think or know they can handle those aspects.
As far as calling the game, many teams are going by analytics anyways. Other than that new managers arent coming in reinvent the wheel.
Id say the bigger concern should be who rounds out the staff of.managers new or old. They are the ones help players maintain or repair swings. They are the ones really knowing a pitchers mechanics.
Nick Punto, 2011 World Series champion. 1.6 WAR in only 133 AB and a huge clubhouse presence. I loved the hijinks he’d get up to Jimmy “the Cat” Hayes.
“Twins aim to lead the league in idiotic head first slides into 1B”
And being picked off at 3B in do or die games
Borgy their hitting coach
First Baldelli, then Ramon Vazquez, now Nick Punto? Are the Red Sox going to just continue to cower while the Twins poach our legends???
A piece of the legendary salary-dump trade.
Looking at these candidates, I can understand why Twins fan started drinking already regarding next year.
Ohhhhh, ok
Cornering the market on punch and Judy are the weird as Twins
Those calves though…
how about “no”
Godd luck on getting the job Danny D.
This guy used to drive me nuts when he played for the Dodgers. Used to slide into 1B to make it look like he was doing something when in reality he was just grounding out lol
Should’ve used a photo of him in a Twin’s uni rather than A’s!