Rocco Baldelli won’t be a candidate for the Mariners’ managerial opening after all.
According to a recent post from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic on Oct. 25, the former Twins manager has withdrawn his name from consideration for Seattle’s job because of family considerations. Baldelli had drawn interest from the Mariners in the middle of October after Dan Wilson was fired, but that pursuit is now off the table.
Baldelli is currently serving as a special assistant to Los Angeles Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, a role he took after his time in Minnesota ended. He hasn’t been in Los Angeles long, and the job gives him stability while he weighs what comes next.
That doesn’t shut the door on a return to managing. Baldelli is still only 45, and he has already said he wants another shot at running a club when the right opening comes along. For now, though, the timing and the situation have to line up.
His résumé should keep him in the conversation whenever another job opens. Baldelli guided the Twins to a .511 winning percentage from 2019 to 2025, and his best stretches came in 2019, 2020 and 2023, when Minnesota won the AL Central and reached the postseason each time.
Minnesota moved on to Derek Shelton in 2026 after Baldelli’s departure, but the club still finished that season with a losing record and in third place in the AL Central. Shelton, who came over after a few seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, has now posted fewer than 80 wins in three full seasons as a manager.
The Twins still have young talent, but getting back to the playoffs is going to fall on Shelton’s shoulders first. He’ll need to show he can get the team to a .500 record or better before anything else.
In Other News...
Twins Quietly Cut A Young Pitcher For A Reason Fans Missed
The Twins moved on from another young arm this week, releasing 18-year-old right-hander Eliezer Lucena after a brief run in the organization. Lucena had signed a minor league deal in January 2025 and got into 11 games in the Dominican Summer League, part of the early-stage pitching pipeline Minnesota has continued to sort through as it trims its lower-level roster.
Lucenas release came after he spent the 2026 season sidelined and never got back onto the field once he was placed on the 60-day injured list in June. He is the eighth minor leaguer the Twins have let go since September 2025, a small but steady cleanup of organizational depth that often goes unnoticed until a player like Lucena disappears from the ledger without much fanfare. [Read more 🡒]
Ryan Jeffers Projection Could Change Twins Offseason Plans Fast
Ryan Jeffers is already the kind of player who can complicate an offseason in a hurry, and a recent market projection only adds another layer to it. Jim Bowden, the former general manager turned insider, floated a modest two-year deal for the Twins catcher in the 2026-27 free agent class, with Minnesota mentioned as one of the clubs that could make sense if he gets there. For a team that always has to balance budget realities with roster stability, the catching spot is one worth watching closely.
The real question is whether that kind of projection will age well. Jeffers has done enough recently to make it hard to imagine his market staying that restrained, especially if several teams decide they need catching help at the same time. If his value keeps climbing, the Twins may find themselves facing a decision that reaches beyond simply keeping a familiar bat and glove around. [Read more 🡒]
Joe Davis Just Put Kirby Puckett Back In Twins Fans Heads
Some postseason calls are bigger than the moment itself, and Joe Davis tapped into that old broadcast magic again in Game 4 of the 2023 World Series. After a walk-off single ended it, the moment instantly sent listeners back to the lineage of Jack Buck and Joe Buck, the kind of call that baseball fans remember long after the final out. For Twins fans, it was the sort of scene that can drag Kirby Puckett and those October memories right back to the front of the mind.
The Rays now head into Game 5 at Tropicana Field with the series still alive, and Tampa Bay has not yet announced its starting pitcher. Even with the spotlight shifting toward the next matchup, the broadcast call from Game 4 lingers because it connected a current postseason finish to one of the sports most recognizable traditions, the kind of throwback that reminds fans why October baseball sounds different when the pressure is highest. [Read more 🡒]