New Triple-A site 'a competitive advantage'

MINNEAPOLIS -- The crack-of-dawn flight from Rochester, N.Y., to Minneapolis to call a player up from the Minor Leagues is no more.

That Delta route has long been a way of life for many of the Twins' players making the hop from Triple-A to the Majors, but it should now be replaced by an easy (assuming no rush-hour traffic) drive down Interstate 94, spanning the 10 or so miles from St. Paul to Minneapolis. Life should get much easier for players now that the St. Paul Saints are set to become the club's Triple-A affiliate, and the Twins feel their player development operation also stands to benefit from the change.

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"I can say that we are uniquely positioned now as a Major League franchise to have our two highest levels of play within just a few short miles of one another, and we view that as a competitive advantage," Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said. "It's something that, in this game, when you're seeking every possible competitive advantage in development, in player selection, in performance, this is something that we feel is going to be a significant benefit to our club."

Though there are other MLB teams in the same geographic area as their Triple-A affiliates, none are as close together as the Twins and Saints -- so much so that one can take the light rail's Green Line from one stadium's gate to the other.

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When the Twins had the opportunity to use CHS Field -- home of the Saints -- as their alternate training site during the pandemic-shortened season, Falvey and the Twins noted the quality of the facility and the logistical ease for both players and coaches afforded by the extreme proximity. That was particularly significant considering this front office has made consistency in developmental programming and collaboration between the Major and Minor League coaching staffs into priorities in recent years.

"I can tell you that it was a bit of a peek into what we thought could happen along the way somewhere with this partnership forming and developing that would allow for an incredible amount of alignment in terms of the way we develop our players at the Major League and Minor League levels," Falvey said.

Only a matter of months later, that's now the Twins' new way of life after talks consolidated to bring the Saints into the Minor Leagues.

Instead of the final step of a prospect's development happening in upstate New York, nearly 800 miles from Minneapolis, that prospect will now have access to both the Twins' and Saints' coaching staffs as he graduates from the Minors. If Twins manager Rocco Baldelli wants to hop over to St. Paul to monitor one of his players' rehab assignments with head athletic trainer Michael Salazar or take an off-day to meet and plan with the Triple-A coaching staff, there's only an easy 20-minute drive standing in his way.

Consider, too, that the Twins' player development leaders -- assistant general manager Jeremy Zoll and farm director Alex Hassan -- are both based in the Twin Cities, and co-hitting coach Edgar Varela comes from a background as Minor League field coordinator, as part of which he helped develop and instruct coaches and coordinators throughout the organization. In that way, there's also a significant benefit for the Twins' Triple-A coaching staff in this collaboration.

"As our coordinators are coming into town, as our coaches are in town like that, that ability to perform those actions with our Major League staff and really feeling like we're on the same page and really feeling like we're taking a team effort to our players' development really across those levels, I think it's something that we're really excited about," Hassan said.

All that means that players will benefit from a more focused and collaborative effort on the final leg of their Minor League journey -- and this should also be a significant quality-of-life improvement for them, considering they will no longer need to navigate the logistical challenges of travel, locating and breaking apartment leases in two different cities, and adjusting to a new environment when they do get the call to the Majors.

"You're limiting [it to] as few unknowns as possible," Hassan said. "And, you know, whether that's just getting over to the Major League side at various points or vice versa of players coming down to rehab or pitching in Triple-A, just getting that exposure and getting that familiarity with the city, with the environment."

The new Twins-Saints partnership already has the potential to jointly expand the clubs' influence in the Twin Cities baseball community and increase fans' investment in the prospect pipeline. In this way, players and coaches will look to benefit, too.