When Derek Falvey came in to interview in 2016 to lead the Twins’ baseball operations department, there was a group of people who saw potentially even more for him in his future. Falvey was just 33 at the time but when Twins president and CEO Dave St. Peter concluded the interview process, he was among those who believed that he might just be looking at his successor.
He was right.
St. Peter is stepping into an advisory role after 35 years with the Twins — and 22 as president — early next year and Falvey will succeed him, taking on the role as both the president of baseball operations and president of business. Falvey will become just the fifth president in team history.
Jeremy Zoll, 34, who has served as an assistant general manager since 2020, will become the team’s next general manager, replacing Thad Levine, who left the organization earlier this year. The transition is underway with the moves expected to fully take effect in early 2025.
“I feel incredibly honored to take on a role — not Dave’s role exactly because no one can be Dave’s role exactly — no one can be Dave St. Peter. I’m not even going to try,” Falvey said. “But I will take on a different role with different leaders underneath, with different structure, that ultimately will hopefully lead the team into the next phase.”
Falvey has been looped into business conversations with St. Peter, the Pohlad family, which owns the team, and others since his arrival, likely much more so than others who hold his position across the big leagues.
Still, there’s plenty for him to learn as he takes the reins from St. Peter and tries to figure out how to strike a balance between focusing on baseball and focusing on business.
While Falvey will continue to lead baseball operations, Zoll, whom the Twins hired in 2017 as their farm director, will take on greater responsibilities. Zoll, who became an assistant general manager in 2020, is the seventh general manager in team history.
“His role, his experiences, what he’s done, they speak for themselves,” Falvey said. “(Manager) Rocco (Baldelli), the staff, everyone, JZ is the person they go to have conversations about anything that’s going on in that space. He’s naturally already connected to a lot of areas of oversight and has been doing that job of oversight in a lot of those spaces. This next step in the journey, he’s going to continue to take on more of that.”
As he transitions to his new role, one of the things Zoll said he was most excited to do was to “dig in more deeply with our scouting operations.”
Already, Zoll has been the lead negotiator on many of the team’s recent trades, Falvey said, pointing to the acquisition of Sonny Gray from Cincinnati in 2022 and the Jorge Polanco trade earlier this year. He has plenty of experience dealing with agents, as well, dating back to his days running the team’s minor-league system.
“When you start out in a career in baseball — at least when I started, you have this big, broad goal, but the reality of knowing how few jobs and opportunities exist along the way,” Zoll said. “I’ve always tried to throw myself at whatever opportunity was in front of me to the best of my ability. When this all finally came to pass, it’s in a real way a validation of a lot of hard work.”
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