Boone and Baldelli deadlocked with 13 first-place votes apiece, but a 13-9 margin in second-place votes allowed Baldelli to join Tom Kelly (1991), Ron Gardenhire (2010) and Paul Molitor (2017) as Twins managers to be named the league's best.
"Nobody takes on a job like this for personal accolades," Baldelli said on MLB Network's broadcast of the announcement. "You take these types of roles because you want to do everything you can for your players and your staff and your front office and your organization. It really comes down to the players going out there and doing it. You need great players, and we have great players."
Those players responded to the easygoing personality of their rookie manager by hitting an MLB-record 307 home runs, winning 101 games and capturing the team's first AL Central championship since 2010. Baldelli, at 38 the youngest manager ever to be named Manager of the Year, emphasized communication and inclusive decisionmaking, and the team responded.
"It's the people, it's the respect, more than anything it's setting a tone [by] how you're going to treat everyone every day," Baldelli said. "It's easy to talk about, it's easy to say this at the beginning of the year, but you've got to kind of act it out, live it every single day and treat people well. … You want everyone to show up every day with a smile on their face, and really enjoy what they're doing."
Twins President Dave St. Peter tweeted that Baldelli "does a masterful job of creating a winning, team-oriented environment. Not afraid to disrupt the norm with hopes of putting players in best place to succeed."
Baldelli's success in his first year as a manager might cost him some of his staff. Hitting coach James Rowson departed last month to take a job as bench coach with the Marlins, and assistant pitching coach Jeremy Hefner interviewed with the Mets on Monday for their vacant pitching coach job. Bench coach Derek Shelton was a candidate to take over as Mets manager, but the job went to Carlos Beltran.