It will be a long, long off season for the Minnesota Twins. An almost certain post-season berth went up in smoke when the team went into a late season swoon, which produced cries of firings, finger pointing and shaming and blaming as a result.
“Everything we did probably took a step down six weeks ago,” admitted Twins Manager Rocco Baldelli to reporters, including the MSR, during his last post-season meeting after his team concluded its season on a three-game losing streak. “We did not play well-rounded baseball… We broke down.”
Historically, whenever a team collapses as Minnesota mightily did, it is virtually expected that somebody or a bunch of somebodies must take the fall—scapegoats must be sacrificed on the criticism altar.
Credit: Photo by Charles Hallman
Four coaches were dismissed last week, but not Tommy Watkins. “I love Tommy,” Baldelli told me. “Tommy does a great job.”
Watkins, the Twins’ only Black coach, has been a member of the organization for nearly 30 years, beginning as a draftee in 1998, then several years in the minors, then as a minor league coach and a one-year manager before finally landing with the parent club as a coach in 2019.
He has served as a first base coach and in his present third base coach position for several seasons. Being a third base coach draws more than its share of criticism, sometimes more than the manager, usually from the so-called fans and media who believe they know more than the professional player or coach.
“We get a lot of second-guessing from ‘third base coaches’ that watch the game,” Watkins pointed out as we sat and chatted in the Twins dugout during the team’s final home stand last month. “When you hold somebody [up], they think you should send them [home]. When you send somebody and they get thrown out, it’s my fault.
“It’s a chance you take, and you don’t win every chance you get. Some guys get thrown out,” he said.
“You definitely have to know your personnel,” explained Watkins. “There’s a lot of things that go on. People just see [me] waving my hands.”
Asked how many Black third base coaches there are in the majors, Watkins took a deliberate pause before answering: “Just thinking off the top of my head, there’s four I can think of.”
Watkins’ other responsibilities include working with the outfielders.
“With the outfielders,” he continued, “we take ground balls every day and I progress from ground balls to line drives. Then I hit line drives in and over their heads to make them go back and forth, then end with short pop-ups.”
Changes are evitable even after a successful season, but especially after a club that did a historic crash like the 2024 Twins did. “It’s tough to say goodbye because you never know who is going to come back,” said Twins infielder Royce Lewis, one of three Blacks on the team this season.
But it might be safe to say that both Lewis and Watkins will be in Twins uniforms in 2025.
Woods Richardson hit rookie wall
Simeon Woods Richardson was the Twins’ only Black pitcher for most of the 2024 season, being called up from St. Paul in May. And for the most part, the rookie hurler was impressive as a starting pitcher with 28 starts, 5-5 W-L record, 4.17 ERA, 117 strikeouts. He finished sixth among Minnesota rookies since 2009 to log over 130 innings.
After his Sept. 25 start, the Twins demoted Woods Richardson, shutting him down for the remainder of the season. But Baldelli told us that the organization is still high on the pitcher.
“He had a very long year,” surmised the manager. “He had no way of knowing he would be in the big leagues basically the entire season” and hit the proverbial rookie wall late in the year, Baldelli said of Woods Richardson. “This is a difficult task to do for four months, yet alone for 4-7 months.
“He made great strides this year, and I think he’s capable of a lot more,” concluded Baldelli.
Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.