Twins Hire Youngest Manager in MLB

By Ross Kelly October 25, 2018 at 3:26pm

Usually when teams make a coaching or managing change, they go with someone totally different from the person being replaced.

The Minnesota Twins are the latest example of that:

They replaced 62-year-old Hall of Famer, Paul Molitor, with 37-year-old Rocco Baldelli.

Rocco Baldelli will be named Twins manager

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) October 25, 2018

Baldelli will become MLB’s youngest current manager and this will be his first managing position, according to NBC Sports. He spent the last eight years with the Tampa Bay Rays and held various roles including first base coach and field coordinator, according to MLB.com.

He was introduced at Target Field on Thursday and becomes the 14th manager in franchise history.

“I’m absolutely ecstatic.”

Hear from new @Twins manager Rocco Baldelli pic.twitter.com/Gl6NEmuHgV

— FOX Sports North (@fsnorth) October 25, 2018

Do you like this trend of MLB teams hiring younger managers?

“To say I’m happy to be here, I think would be a huge understatement,” Baldelli said. “I embarked on this journey this offseason. A lot of things happened very quickly, and where I’ve landed, I’m absolutely ecstatic.”

Before becoming a coach with the Rays, Baldelli was one of the most popular players in the team’s history.

He was the sixth overall pick in 2000 by Tampa and spent nine seasons with the organization as a player. After finishing third in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2003, Baldelli was compared to Yankees legend Joe Dimaggio.

But he dealt with various injuries and illnesses during his playing days, including a torn ACL and Tommy John surgery that wiped out his entire 2005 season.

Just a couple of years later he was diagnosed with a rare “mitochondrial abnormality,” according to an ESPN report from 2008, and the condition led to numerous muscle problems and premature fatiguing.

After playing in 292 games during the first two seasons of his career, Baldelli played in just 227 games over the next six years before retiring and beginning his post-playing career with Tampa.

Baldelli being the Twins manager without managerial experience may have seemed a novelty years ago, but times have changed.

The five new managers during the 2018 season combined for just one year of managing experience before being hired — and that was because the Phillies’ Gabe Kapler had managed a Single A team.

Team are looking for managers who can relate to today’s players while also embracing the current age of analytics which has taken over the game.

Twins Executive Vice President Derek Falvey said that Baldelli checks all of the boxes of what the team was looking for to replace Molitor.

“We talked a lot about finding a partner who shared a vision, who looked at things in a way that would push us forward but also embodied everything about the Twins tradition,” Falvey said, according to MLB.com. “I don’t think we could have envisioned a scenario where we could have found a better [manager].”

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