MLB: Rating the front offices of the AL Central
By Bill Felber
Minnesota Twins
Derek Falvey, president of baseball operations; Thad Levine, senior VP and general manager
+2.3 games
Falvey and Levine have functioned as a tandem in the Twins front office since Falvey was hired away from Cleveland and installed Levine to head the operations office prior to the 2017 season.
They made 35 roster adjustments since the end of the 2019 season, netting those 2.3 games of improvement in the process. For the most part, Falvey and Levine worked at the margins to improve a team that was pretty well set entering the season.
Their one big move was supposed to be the signing of slugging third baseman Josh Donaldson to a four-year, $92 million deal. But Donaldson came up small, batting just .222 with only six home runs. That translated to a +0.2 WAA, far less than what Donaldson had been expected to deliver.
Instead, Falvey and Levine hit on the acquisition of pitcher Kenta Maeda in a trade with the Dodgers. Maeda was 6-1 with a 2.70 ERA in his half dozen starts, producing a 1.0 WAA.
Discounting the Donaldson signing, Falvey and Levine kept their mistakes modest. The largest was probably their decision to re-sign Miguel Sano for three years at $30 million. That may work out over time, but Sano hit just .204 and delivered a -0.9 WAA. It was the team’s worst.
Here is the annual short-term performance rating of the Twins front office since Falvey and Levine took over:
2017: – 5.1
2018: – 5.2
2019: +11.5*
2020: + 2.3
*This was a greater improvement than the margin by which the Twins qualified for post-season play.