Twins GM Thad Levine interviews for Red Sox front office post; Derek Falvey declines interview request

The Red Sox are looking for someone to head their baseball operations department. Former Twins pitcher Craig Breslow is also being considered.

October 17, 2023 at 7:36PM
Twins General Manager Thad Levine hugged Byron Buxton after Buxton signed a contract extension before the 2022 season. (Carlos Gonzalez, Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

After the Twins earned an American League Central Division title and won their first playoff series in 21 years, the Boston Red Sox reached out to the club's top two baseball executives about leading their baseball operations department.

Derek Falvey, the Twins' president of baseball operations who grew up in a Boston suburb, declined to interview and will remain with the Twins, sources familiar with the situation told the Star Tribune.

But Twins General Manager Thad Levine was in Boston on Monday and interviewed for the Red Sox's top job, a source confirmed.

The Red Sox fired chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom in September after he spent four seasons with the organization. Boston, which finished in last place in the AL East in three of the last four years, is searching for its third head of baseball operations since 2018 and fourth since 2013. Theo Epstein was the team's last GM to last more than four years in the job.

Dave Dombrowski, who built the Philadelphia Phillies into a National League pennant winner in 2022 and a current NL Championship Series berth this year, was fired by the Red Sox as their president of baseball operations in September 2019, less than a year after he guided Boston to a World Series title.

Levine joined the Twins in November 2016, partnering with Falvey in all areas of the baseball operations department, and he's previously drawn interest for other top baseball operations jobs around the league. Before the Twins, Levine spent 11 years as an assistant GM for the Texas Rangers.

The Twins won AL Central titles in three of the last five seasons, and they've made the playoffs in four of the past seven years. The club ended an 18-game postseason losing streak this year.

The Boston Globe reported Tuesday the Red Sox have interviewed Chicago Cubs assistant GM Craig Breslow, a former Red Sox and Twins pitcher; Cleveland Guardians special assistant Neal Huntington, a former GM with the Pittsburgh Pirates; and internal candidate Eddie Romero Jr., the team's assistant GM.

"We plan to take our time," Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy told reporters after the season ended. "We plan to be very deliberate. We're going to have internal candidates. We're going to have external candidates. We're going to have a consistent, robust process that hopefully leads us to the right person or people."

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about the writer

Bobby Nightengale

Minnesota Twins reporter

Bobby Nightengale joined the Minnesota Star Tribune in May, 2023, after covering the Reds for the Cincinnati Enquirer for five years. He's a graduate of Bradley University.

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