First Move the Twins Front Office Must Make This Offseason

Minnesota has several needs to address before 2027, but one move should sit at the very top of the front office’s offseason priority list.

A Minnesota Twins ball bag. Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports | USA TODAY Sports

The Minnesota Twins have a long offseason ahead of them and a lot of decisions to make. They have to infuse some talent onto their roster, shed some talent, add some payroll, and make some front office-related desicions.

Last offseason, the Twins brought in Derek Shelton to be their new manager. This season was rather unsuccessful for Shelton, and now he will work with Jeremy Zoll to hire a new pitching coach and a new assistant pitching coach.

Benefits of Hiring a Coach Now

The Twins should hire their pitching coach before they do anything else this offseason because it gives that candidate more time to work in the offseason with the pitchers on their staff to make adjustments.

Relieving Pete Maki of his duties was necessary given how bad their pitching department was in 2026. Maki was a good coach and someone who was elevated from within and had no prior coaching experience.

Now that it's time to find another pitching coach, the Twins need to check a few boxes. The first is hiring a coach with experience. It might have worked with Maki for a few seasons, but it would be to the benefit of the Twins organization going forward to hire a coach with experience.

The Twins have mostly veteran pitchers in their rotation, like Dean Kremer, Joe Ryan, Taj Bradley, and Bailey Ober, and should look to hire a coach with experience because of that. The veterans and coaches alike would serve as solid mentors for the younger pitchers like Zebby Matthews and Connor Prielipp. The more experience, the better.

Second, the coach needs to come from outside the organization. It's cool to stay within because those guys know the program best, but the Twins need to bring in some new ideas from outside the organization. Adding new perspective will help break the cycle of mediocrity that there's been with the pitching staff.

Maki was one of the more analytical pitching coaches in the league, which is probably why the Twins liked him and his methods. The Twins should look for a coach that uses analytics, but not to the extent that Maki did. Analytics are important but are not the end-all be-all, and at times were treated as such.

Shelton should have a heavy input on the decision, given that he is the manager and they normaly have ultimate say in hiring desicions and are the ones making in-game desicions in a collaberative effort.