As Rocco Baldelli navigates the Minnesota’s early struggles, we look back at the fate of past managers. Six were fired midseason, five were let go after a season, one retired and one quit.
MINNEAPOLIS — There have been 14 managers who have worn the colors of the Minnesota Twins. As manager Rocco Baldelli fights through the team’s early struggles this season, and reportedly in the last season of his contract extension, his future remains uncertain.
Throughout Twins’ history, six of the 14 managers were fired during the season, five were fired after a season, one retired and one simply quit.
Here’s a look at the team’s managers by decade.
The 1960s
Cookie Lavagetto, the holdover manager from the Washington Senators, was the first Twins skipper to be fired after going 25-41 in 1961. But first, he was given a second chance.
With the team suffering through an 11-game losing streak and winning just one of its previous 17 games, owner Calvin Griffith forced Lavagetto to go on a week’s vacation before a June 6 game against the New York Yankees.
Sam Mele filled in, and was tossed for arguing balls and strikes in the second inning, as the team promptly lost 7-2 to the Yankees. Fargo-raised slugger Roger Maris, meanwhile, hit his 16th home run on the season and drove in four runs that game.
Mele finished his stint with a 2-5 record. When Lavagetto returned June 13, infielder Billy Martin drove in four runs in an 8-6 win over Kansas City. On June 18, however, in the middle of a doubleheader sweep by the Chicago White Sox, infielder Bob Allison and pitcher Camilo Pascual scuffled, leading the reportedly soft manager to tell the press, “Nothing. This is simply a family affair.”
Lavagetto was fired five days later.
Mele took the reins over again and lasted until his in-season firing in 1967. Others to be fired in-season were Bill Rigney (1972), Johnny Goryl (1981), Billy Gardner (1985) and Ray Miller (1986).
Mele, who skippered the Twins all the way to Game 7 of the 1965 World Series, was canned during the 1967 campaign after a 25-25 start. He is one of six managers, including Baldelli, to have a winning record (522-431) on the Twins bench.
Cal Ermer managed the remainder of the season and was fired following the 1968 season after the team finished 79-83. “It has become quite apparent to me that Ermer lost firm control over the ball club,” Griffith said in a statement. “Therefore I’ve decided that a change of leadership would be beneficial to the club.”
Martin retired as a player in 1961 and took over the team in 1969. As a former third-base coach for the Twins, the feisty Martin was known to use a tape recorder between innings to voice his opinions on the team’s play. Despite the team’s success in 1969 and going 97-65 to win the new AL West by nine games, Martin fought pitcher Dave Boswell outside a Detroit restaurant in early August, the Minneapolis Tribune reported .
The team then got clobbered in the divisional series, losing the best-of-five series 3-0 to Baltimore. Billy was done.
“I feel he has completely ignored our understandings,” Griffith said when he fired Martin on Oct. 13.
The 1970s
With high expectations in 1970, Bill Rigney lasted just 70 games, going 36-34. With outfielder Tony Oliva and pitcher Jim Kaat battling injuries, the team trailed Oakland by 9½ games when Griffith pulled the plug on July 6.
Frank Quilici, hired at just 33 years old, had his chance for three seasons with the Twins from 1972-75. But following a 6-4 extra-inning loss to the White Sox to finish the 1975 season at 76-83, the personable Quilici, who later would become a Twins radio color commentator, was told he would not be retained.
Enter the no-nonsense Gene Mauch, the recently fired manager of the Expos, for the 1976 season. With the likes of Rod Carew, Lyman Bostock and pitcher Dave Goltz, who threw 13 complete games that year, Mauch turned the Twins around, going 85-77 his first season. At the gate, however, Minnesota drew an AL-worst 715,394 fans.
But even with Carew batting an astounding .388 in 1977, the Twins finished fourth in the AL West at 84-77. A stalling offense that scored 201 fewer runs and hit just 82 home runs led to Minnesota finishing again fourth in the division at 73-89 in 1978. The following season, the Twins finished 82-80, just six games back from the AL West lead. Mauch’s future in 1980 spiraled.
The 1980s
Following a 3-2 loss to Detroit on Aug. 24, the team’s 1980 record dropped to 54-71. Mauch simply had enough. He quit.
“I feel the responsibility for the general play of this ball club and am not satisfied that I’m making the proper contribution. I suggested to Calvin Thursday that in reevaluating his club for the future it might be well to do so in a different atmosphere,” Mauch said.
While new manager Johnny Goryl, the team’s former third-base coach, rallied the team to a 23-13 finish to the 1980 season, the former Twin himself (1962-64) didn’t make it through the 1981 campaign. Frustrated because he thought the team had talent, Griffith fired Goryl after an 11-25 start, beginning a quick hook of managers by the team. Goryl went 34-38 and his 72 games as manager is the second-shortest stint behind Lavagetto’s 66 games in a Twins uniform.
Immediately taking over for Goryl after serving as third-base coach, Billy Gardner went 41-68 during the strike-shortened season of 1981. He then lost a then-franchise record 102 games in 1982 as the team ushered in the Metrodome.
Let’s point out an interesting fact here. For a team that has drawn at least a million (and 3.2 million during Target Field’s first season in 2010), only 921,186 fans helped christen the dome its first year. The team wasn’t worth watching.
It was a veteran reliever that couldn’t keep the ship from tipping during Gardner’s term. Acquired in a 1982 trade with the New York Yankees, closer Ron Davis went 19-40 as a Twin, blowing 14 saves in the 1984 season alone.
It was Gardner who began to usher the future cornerstones of the franchise over the next four years. Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti, Tim Laudner, Frank Viola and Tom Brunansky would help raise expectations with the rising superstar Kirby Puckett in 1984.
But with more pitching struggles in 1985 (the staff ERA ballooned to 4.48 for the season), Gardner too was gone after winning just 43% of his games, the lowest since Lavagetto.
“I can’t believe how 10 guys on one pitching staff can go sour at one time,” Gardner said after being fired in June 1985 with a 27-35 record. “I just think what happened is they made a lot of money, they were picked to win and the pressure got to them. I really do.”
New manager Ray Miller wasn’t a fit either, winning 109 of his 239 games. Team owner Carl Pohlad wanted more usage out of his young stars, something he said Miller refused to do.
“Ray was under extreme pressure that he had to win every ballgame to make sure he’d be asked back next year … so he may not have played his younger players,” Pohlad said.
Miller, with a 59-80 record, was fired Sept. 12, 1986. With veteran manager Jim Frey turning down the job, Pohlad hired within once again. Tom Kelly, the former Twins infielder who was serving as a team coach, posted a 12-11 record for the remainder of the 1986 season. While that ’86 team finished 71-91, efforts to fix the bullpen worked in 1987.
World Series wins
Setup pitchers Juan Berenguer, George Frazier, Keith Atherton and Dan Schatzeder all dodged losing records while new closer Jeff Reardon shined with 31 saves. The 85-win Twins would beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1987 World Series.
Kelly led Minnesota to another World Series title in 1991, but a 90-72 campaign in 1992 left the Twins six games back of AL West winner Oakland. In the following years, the Twins went south, never finishing higher than fourth in the division through 2000.
The 2000s
Kelly surprisingly retired on Oct. 12, 2001 after 16 seasons, the most ever in Twins history and second longest in franchise history. Kelly, then just 51, got the Twins back into contention as they finished six games back in the AL Central in 2001. He compiled a 1,140-1,244 record.
Ron Gardenhire, another third-base coach, got his chance in 2002. Despite winning six division crowns in his first nine seasons, the Twins advanced to the AL championship just once. His clubs went 78-148 combined after Aug. 1 and 6-21 in the playoffs. He was fired with one season left on his contract following the 2014 season.
“The reason for this change, I think it’s safe to say, the last couple years we have not won enough games,” GM Terry Ryan said. “That’s what it comes down to. It’s nothing more, nothing less than that.”
The 2010s
Paul Molitor, who was coaching in the Twins organization since 2005, was named manager in November 2014. Named manager of the year in 2017, he was gone the next season following the team’s 78-84 campaign in 2018.
Injuries to key players such as Byron Buxton (28 games played), Miguel Sano (71 games played) and Joe Mauer (missed a month of action for neck strains and concussion-like symptoms in his final season) hampered the team’s chances. Jorge Polanco also served an 80-game suspension for performance-enhancing substance use to begin that 2018 season.
With new brass Thad Lavine and Derek Falvey having now more than a year to observe and react, Molitor’s exit on Oct. 2, 2018 was considered just another puzzle piece to bring in their own manager.
This time, it was 37-year-old Rocco Baldelli, a former player who had never managed a ball club. He was also the first manager since Miller in 1985 to come from outside the Twins organization.
Into the 2020s
Hired before the 2019 season, Baldelli is one just six managers (Mele, Ermer, Martin, Rigney and Gardenhire) to have an overall winning record. He’s led the Twins to the playoffs three times, including the team’s first playoff game and series win since 2004 when Minnesota beat Toronto in the 2023 AL Wild Card Series.
The analytical-minded organization, especially with Baldelli managing, has led to decisions ranging from brilliant to head-scratching.
“There are some baseline, cultural things we want to believe in, right?” Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said in 2022. “We want to really dive into the information, root ourselves in evidence, make decisions that are based on facts and not just things that are flying around. That’s our process.”
This season, Twins are 18th of 30 teams in payroll at $145.2 million, sliding four spots from 2024, according to spotrac.com .
But a losing record so far this season, and among the worst starts in Twins’ history, could jeopardize Baldelli’s future. Minnesota is also drawing its lowest average attendance per game since 2000, except for the COVID-19 seasons of 2020 and 2021, leading to even more fan malaise. Just 10,240 fans showed up for an April 14 game against the New York Mets.
