World Series Execs Give Minnesota Twins Hope
In September, the Minnesota Twins made a move to hire Derek Falvey as their new chief baseball officer. Falvey was an assistant general manager for the Cleveland Indians.
The new chief baseball officer of the Minnesota Twins came one game shy of winning the World Series. The Cleveland Indians upset both the Blue Jays and the Red Sox on their way to game seven of the World Series against the Cubs.
The hope for the Minnesota Twins is that Falvey had something to do with that success. In September, this was a hopeful hire of an analytics assistant GM of a playoff team. Now, this looks like a genius pick for the Twins as the aforementioned Indians exceeded expectations in the postseason.
In addition to Derek Falvey, the Minnesota Twins just announced that another assistant GM in the playoffs joined the staff. Thad Levine, named the new Twins general manager, was part of a similar unlikely run with the Rangers. For Levine, unfortunately, his playoff run ended in an ALDS sweep.
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Levine was part of a team that led the Texas Rangers to back-to-back World Series trips in 2010-11. Similar to the view on Falvey, Levine is known for his saber metrics and analytics expertise mixed with an old school scouting approach.
The additions of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine mark a new chapter for the Minnesota Twins. Finally may be the appropriate word to describe how the Twins seemingly took to long to incorporate a very successful method into personnel and scouting.
After going through a historically-bad 103 loss season, the Minnesota Twins desperately needed change. Just hours removed from his World Series loss, Derek Falvey went to work and hired Levine. Falvey, just 33, may provide the young hungry spark the Twins need to make real change.
That being said, Falvey and Levine have their work cut out for them. The Twins were worst in the league in opponent batting average and second worst in earned run average in 2016.
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Perhaps the largest priority on everyone’s mind is the pitching for the Minnesota Twins. If Falvey and Levine can turn that problem around, the Twins may actually have hope from these two World Series executives.