Out with the old, in with the new. Such a phrase has never been truer in Minnesota sports than it is right now with the Twins.
Their latest buck-the-trend move is the hiring of John Manuel, a lifetime baseball fan who’s spent the past 21 years writing and podcasting for Baseball America.
Yep, the Twins took a guy who’s covered baseball his entire life and essentially told him to go find good prospects as a member of their scouting department.
This new style of thinking comes from Chief Baseball Officer, Derek Falvey, whom was part of the Cleveland Indians front office that hired Baseball America employees as scouts years ago. So while this is new to the Twins, it’s not new to Falvey.
Manuel explains in a Facebook post announcing his new career path.
“Last spring, the Wall Street Journal featured all the BA alumni who work for the Cleveland Indians, and Derek Falvey was the one who started that. Derek called me as a reference for Matt Forman back when he was hiring Matt as an intern in the Tribe’s baseball operations department. Derek and Matt went on to bring in more BA alums—five others so far—to Cleveland’s scouting department. So when Derek inquired to me about candidates to pro scout for the organization he now leads, the Twins, I couldn’t help myself. I asked him, ‘What about me?'”
Moral of the story: The next time you’re armchair quarterbacking your favorite team at home, just remember that you might actually be capable of quarterbacking them in real life.
Granted, it helps if you’ve worked in the field as long as Manuel has.
