Twins hold first virtual panel on diversity

So often, decisions made by scouting departments come down to weighing the risks associated with an acquisition against the rewards an organization might reap if all goes according to plan. It tends to be the highest of rewards are correlated with the greatest risk.

But on Tuesday night, at least for an hour, four members of the Twins’ scouting department -- along with general manager Thad Levine -- turned that notion on its head and demonstrated the benefits that can be derived from an effort that can easily be replicated and built upon.

In the first of a series of webinars highlighting some of the team’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, the organization spotlighted four Black staff members -- senior scouting advisor Deron Johnson, amateur scouting director Sean Johnson, pro scouting fellow Navery Moore and advance scouting analyst Josh Ruffin -- in a virtual roundtable moderated by Noah Croom, the general counsel/partner at the Beautiful Game Group and a former assistant general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves and NBA player agent.

Levine opened the evening’s event with a powerful statement voicing the notion of brokenness in baseball’s hiring practices, with organizations too reliant on the plethora of candidates ready and willing to work in the game. But after listening to the bulk of the discussion from the wings, it was the general manager’s comments after the Zoom recording came to an end that were perhaps the most impactful.

“In a sport that’s measured by rings, I would rather measure it by lives you impacted and you touched in one way or another,” Levine said. “That’s the way Deron’s run his whole career, same with Sean, and it’s massively rewarding. We don’t really have a lot of control over whether we win a championship. We all aspire to do that, but a life touched is forever. And it sometimes doesn’t take a whole lot of investment on your part to do that.”

Leading into Tuesday’s panel discussion, the Twins were bringing an investment they’d already begun working on in the background into the public sphere. It will continue next with a second panel on Aug. 13, focusing on female leaders in the organization. Tuesday also marked the introduction of the Twins Diversity Mentorship program, matching people from the organization with members of underrepresented minority groups for advice on their careers, projects, resumes and more. The hope is that the program and the ensuing conversations can help diversify the organization into the future.

"It’s really cool that in today's culture and in today's business world, it's mandatory that you talk about it and try to make change as far as equality across all races, genders, backgrounds,” Sean Johnson said. “The fact that it's being talked about now, for me, is really cool to see, and I'm happy to be a part of the conversation and hopefully more to come.”

Tuesday’s discussion offered a glimpse into the jobs and working lives of the panelists, their backgrounds, and a few of their personal experiences with the game. They shared insight into the impact mentorship has had on their careers, gave their thoughts on how to get more young Black players to embrace the game and stay with it longer, talked about scouting and analytics and offered advice on breaking into baseball.

“If you really feel like you’ve done the work and you’ve prepared yourself and you’ve at least tried to do your best to expose yourself … you don’t have to solve baseball to get a job,” Ruffin said. “You probably are a lot more qualified than you think. … It’s important to have that confidence that you can be a valuable employee, and the Twins are looking for valuable employees. It’s not just going to be whoever has the highest degree. There’s a lot more value that a lot of people can bring to an organization rather than just the coolest resume.”

The men acknowledged a shift in conversation and thought processes since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis and the resulting potential for opportunities where they weren’t as plentiful previously. But they also noted that some of those opportunities are at odds with the global pandemic that has essentially frozen hiring in the industry.

“We want jobs because of the quality of our work, not anything more or less,” Sean Johnson said. “We’ve earned those things that we’ve been given by the Twins organization, and Deron’s worked really hard for it, and I know I have, and Josh and Navery are the next guys in the pipeline. But the push is to keep the pipeline going and getting it deeper. … We’ve got to keep that going.

“The George Floyd incident is hopefully that final tipping point to get the momentum and keep it going forever. I thought it was going to be Rodney King, however many years ago that was, and that was wrong. We’re in the exact same spot. So hopefully, this is the moment we need to get us in a place where we put an end to all this stuff.”