Levine, Twins' senior VP/GM, departs team after 8 seasons

MINNEAPOLIS -- Twins general manager Thad Levine will not return for the 2025 season, the club announced Friday, as he and the organization parted ways not in response to the specifics of the ‘24 campaign, but in a move that both sides characterized as having been at least a topic of conversation for months due to the continued evolution of the club’s baseball leadership.

“I’m wishing the Twins exceptional success moving forward,” Levine said. “I’m hoping that Derek [Falvey] finds the next, right partner for him as he’s excelling through the next phase of his career, and similarly, I’m really excited about what the next challenge may hold for me because I feel as if I’ve found real, substantive fulfillment throughout my career in working in conjunction with senior leaders and helping in any way that I can.”

The club had already announced four departures from manager Rocco Baldelli’s coaching staff earlier in the week, encompassing all three hitting coaches -- David Popkins, Derek Shomon and Rudy Hernandez -- and assistant bench coach Tony Diaz. All of these moves will likely constitute the organization’s significant departures, Falvey said on Friday.

Falvey did not yet have any indication of how the Twins’ staffing would accommodate Levine’s departure, nor did he express any sense for any potential timeline to resolve that question.

“I believe in the group we have, but we have to stay open-minded ourselves, always, to think about how we can bring in different ideas and perspectives,” Falvey said. “I never want to get stale in that way. That may come in different roles across different aspects of our baseball operation.”

Levine spent eight seasons with the Twins’ organization after he had been hired as senior vice president and general manager in November 2016 as part of the rebuild of Minnesota’s baseball operations department under Falvey -- now the club’s president of baseball operations -- after the organization transitioned away from the Terry Ryan regime.

Though Levine, who previously spent 11 years as assistant GM of the Rangers following six years with the Rockies, carried the “general manager” title that historically indicated the leadership role in baseball operations, modern retitling has typically left baseball operations departments under the purview of the president of baseball operations -- which is, in this case, Falvey.

“He's been a tremendous partner and leader here in the organization over the course of eight years and has continued to impact me personally,” Falvey said. “I look forward to supporting him personally in the next phase of his development journey and his leadership journey.”

Falvey and Levine had initially presented as a forward-facing partnership with both representing the baseball operations department in the public eye for the first several years of their leadership, but Falvey took more of the primary role in the most recent years.

With Levine’s contract set to expire and Falvey’s continued development as a leader likely changing what best suited him as a complement to that leadership, Levine decided to seek his next challenge -- though he’s not yet sure where that will take him, he said.

“One thing I hope I’ve done throughout my career is had good feel and awareness, and you want to be the pitcher who is taken out one inning too early rather than one batter too late,” Levine said. “I think that’s kind of what this is.

“We all kind of recognize the path that Derek was going on and the needs that he had to complement him moving forward relative to, candidly, things that I find supremely fulfilling.”

The Twins had already indicated on Sunday that Falvey will remain the leader of the organization’s baseball operations department moving forward -- and Baldelli will remain the manager for the ‘25 season.

After Levine served faithfully at Falvey’s side through the construction of three division championship teams in 2019, ‘20 and ‘23, he openly acknowledged that he would not have considered himself successful in the role had the nature of what Falvey needed in that partner not evolved with the help of Levine’s guidance over those years.

And he doesn’t think he’s done yet.

“I’ve heard told tales from agents and players from days of yore that there’s this mystical panacea called free agency,” Levine said. “I’m blessed that it took me 25 years to get there. I really count myself blessed and here I am so I’m a little bit intrigued at the notion of what free agency may have in store for me.”