Falvey, Levine and the Minnesota Twins front office: An interim grade

Under team president Derek Falvey and general manager Thad Levine, the Minnesota Twins sit in first place of the American League Central at the team’s 81-game mark. On the other hand, the team is 40-41 (a game below .500), so their playoff position has more to do with the weak division than the team’s strength.

How much of the credit for the fairly upbeat first half do Falvey and Levine deserve? Did they make all the right personnel moves over the winter, or has Minnesota’s turnaround been more a product of natural evolution, possibly with a little luck thrown in?

What follows is a mid-term assessment of the front office personnel decisions since the conclusion of the 2022 World Series with a particular focus on the extent to which those decisions have helped or hindered the Twins’ performance.

Grading the Minnesota Twins at the halfway point of the 2023 season

The standard of measurement in Wins Above Average (WAA), a variant of Wins Above Replacement (WAR). For this purpose, WAA is preferable because unlike WAR, it is zero-based. That means the sum of all the decisions made by the Twins front office impacting the 2023 team gives at least a good estimate of the number of games those moves have improved (or worsened) the team’s status this season.

A team’s front office impacts that team’s standing in five ways. Those five are:

1.       By the impact of players it acquires from other teams via trade, purchase or waiver claim.

2.       By the impact of players it surrenders to other teams in those same transactions.

3.       By the impact of players it signs at free agency or extends.

4.       By the impact of players it loses to free agency or releases.

5.       By the impact of players it promotes from its own farm system.

Here’s how the team of Falvey and Levine stack up by those five yardsticks.

Free agency

The big offseason drama in Minneapolis-St. Paul involved the winding process by which Falvey and Levine negotiated a contract extension with shortstop Carlos Correa. Correa’s record demonstrates that he is a quality player, but he’s had a bad start to 2023, his WAA sitting at -0.3 as of the halfway point.

Joey Gallo was another prominent signing, and he’s also produced a disappointing -0.3 WAA. When your two big free agent moves both come up negative and you’re still in first place in your division, fortune is smiling on you.

Overall, Falvey and Levine have made nine free agent signings or extensions since the end of 2022, and the two unmitigated successes may have been the two least likely to hit.

In December, the Twins signed Willi Castro as a filler in the event they lost Correa. Castro is a career .245 hitter, and he’s not doing a lot better in 66 games with the Twins. But throw 14 stolen bases into the mix and his numbers work out to a +1.0 WAA.

Brock Stewart hadn’t pitched in a major league game since 2019 when the Twins signed him last July. Called up in late April, he’s 2-0 with a 2.70 in 25 relief appearances, good for a +1.1 WAA.

Farm system

Falvey and Levine have called on seven first-year players to greater or lesser extents this season. Two have worked their way into regular duty.

Second baseman Edouard Julien is covering for Jorge Polanco while the latter rests a hamstring. Julien is batting .265 in 34 games, good for a -0.1 WAA.

Third baseman Royce Lewis benefitted from the demotion of Jose Miranda to Triple-A. In his place, Lewis is hitting .333 in 23 games with a +0.5 WAA.

Only one Twins rookie has a higher WAA to date, that being outfielder Matt Wallner. Shuttling between Minneapolis and the St. Paul Triple-A team, Wallner has a .368 average in 25 at-bats, good for a +0.6 WAA that he’s likely to improve if he gets another chance.

With half a season remaining, this is shaping up as a productive rookie class by the standards of Falvey-Levine classes. Since Levine took over as general manager following the 2016 season, Twins rookie classes have averaged -2.4 WAA, so by comparison the cumulative +0.8 WAA thus far looks pretty decent.

Still it will be a historical precedent of Julien or any of the other 2023 rookies establishes himself as a star in the Twins’ firmament, or anybody else’s for that matter. To date, that distinction probably belongs to Mitch Garver or Ryan Jeffers, and that is written with the notation that Byron Buxton arrived under the team’s previous administration.

Overall grade

Given Minnesota’s first-place standing, you’d expect Falvey and Levine to at least rate decently for their impact on the 2023 team … but Minnesota’s standing looks like more of a product of the AL Central’s mediocrity. The numbers say Falvey and Levine have actually hurt, not helped the Twins so far this season.

Here’s the first-half report card on the Twins’ front office. Note that grades for players departing the organization are based on the reverse of those players’ WAAs with their new teams.

Mode                    WAA                  Grade

Acquired              + 0.1                      C

Traded                  +2.6                       D

Signed                  +0.9                       C

FA Lost                 – 0.1                      C

Rookies                +0.8                       C

Overall                 – 0.7                      C

Overall, Falvey and Levine have made 30 personnel moves since the end of the 2022 season impacting the fortunes of the 2023 Twins. Only 12 of those moves yielded a positive impact on the team’s 2023 fortunes; 14 were negative and four have been neutral.

The Arraez departure is far and away the most impactful move. But for the most part it has been a quiet front office season. The only two other moves that generated impacts of at least 1.0 WAA in either direction both involved signings of second-tier players (Brock Stewart and Willie Castro) who have played above the backs of their baseball cards.

That means the Twins hold first place in their division in spite of, not due to, their front office leadership.