Zoll moves into new role as Twins GM
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MINNEAPOLIS -- The Twins’ front office leadership has preferred to spread around the responsibility when it comes to decision-making and negotiations, with president of baseball operations Derek Falvey empowering his group to leverage their strengths and relationships around the sport.
With that in mind, he’s quick to point out that Jeremy Zoll was actually the lead negotiator on two of the Twins’ highest-profile recent trades -- the Sonny Gray deal with Cincinnati and the Jorge Polanco deal with Seattle -- and that’s the kind of background and culture within the organization that makes the Twins confident in handing Zoll an increased leadership role.
Zoll was formally named the seventh general manager in Minnesota Twins history on Tuesday, as part of the announcement that set into motion Dave St. Peter’s transition out of his long-held role as team president and CEO, along with Falvey’s move to assume St. Peter’s leadership responsibilities on the business side of the franchise.
“It's pretty clear to many people across our baseball operation how influential Jeremy has been in all of our decisions over the last couple of seasons,” Falvey said. “People are going to see that, in many, as a natural evolution. I know it's a little different externally. People don't get to see how much he's around, how much he's involved with Rocco [Baldelli, Twins manager], our staff and the rest of the organization.”
An assistant general manager under Falvey and the departed Thad Levine since 2020, the 34-year-old Zoll has been the front-office guru on all things related to player development, rooted in his baseball upbringing in that department as the Twins’ farm director from ’18-19 and, before that, as the Dodgers’ assistant farm director prior to his arrival in Minnesota.
“I've always tried to throw myself at whatever opportunity was in front of me to the best of my ability,” Zoll said. “When this all finally came to pass, it's in a real way a validation of a lot of hard work and being able to know that so many people around me have been able to help accomplish a lot of successes to put me in this position.”
Under the previous leadership structure with Falvey as president of baseball operations and Levine as general manager, Falvey was the final decision-maker. With Falvey now set to dive headfirst into relationships and learning on the business side as part of his transition away from managing certain aspects of baseball operations and into his new role as president of baseball and business operations, there may be the opportunity for a more prominent GM role for Zoll.
That’s the sort of balance that Falvey and Zoll will feel out over the coming weeks and months as all of these transitions get underway in earnest across the highest levels of the organization.
Zoll’s 14-year career in front offices has included stints with the Reds, Blue Jays, Angels, Dodgers and Twins, with one of his focuses in Minnesota having been to help elevate the Twins’ performance program with advanced resources in all phases of health, nutrition and wellness -- and that’s in addition to the relationships he’s forged around the sport in that time.
“It is so clear to me that agents have a tremendous amount of respect for Jeremy or they've worked with him,” Falvey said. “As a farm director, and as someone who runs player development, you have to work with agents more than the lead person in baseball ops does.”
With the majority of Zoll’s experience having come in player development, he said that he’s looking forward to digging in more deeply on the scouting side of the organization as part of this progression in his career, with Falvey indicating that Zoll will be involved in “everything across [the] Major League operation.”
Zoll indicated that he plans to continue with the Minnesota leadership team’s relative decentralization of decision-making and communication responsibilities -- and they’ll have a plenty busy offseason ahead of them.
“The goal is to lean into strengths and put people around me into positions to have as much input as possible and help impact us in as many ways as they can,” Zoll said.
The Twins are still in the midst of hiring an infield coach and at least one assistant hitting coach after they parted ways with four members of Baldelli’s field staff, with needs for first base, a right-handed bat and in the bullpen as they look to turn the page on a disappointing finish to a once-promising 2024 campaign.