RandBall: The Twins found people to blame for swoon, but were they the right ones?

We already knew the Pohlad family wouldn’t hold themselves accountable for the Twins’ 12-27 sputter to the finish because owners don’t fire themselves.

Some of us might say cutting payroll by $30 million and announcing payroll limitations before the season started played a huge role in a team that missed the playoffs by four games.

Joe Pohlad said this: “Throughout three-quarters of the season, we were in position, so I don’t think that this is a resource conversation right now.”

Then as the dreadful final weeks gave way to the merciful end of the year, we learned from Pohlad that Derek Falvey and Rocco Baldelli would be back in 2025. From there, we knew there would be scapegoats down the food chain. We just didn’t know right away who they would pick.

“I don’t judge employees off of six crummy weeks,” Pohlad said in explaining the choice to maintain the status quo at the top.

As it turns out, some employees are being judged on six crummy weeks after all.

How else can we interpret the first domino that fell this week: hitting coach David Popkins, assistant hitting coaches Derek Shomon and Rudy Hernandez, and infield coach Tony Diaz have been let go, which I talked about on Wednesday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

Even with their end-of-year slump, the Twins finished 10th in the majors in runs scored (same as in 2023) and in the top half of baseball in on-base percentage, OPS and home runs.

That was despite getting just 86 games from Carlos Correa, 102 from Byron Buxton and 105 from Max Kepler — three high-cost veteran hitters who combined to account for almost $60 million of the team’s $130 million payroll. It wasn’t Popkins who heavily invested in two injury-prone players and gave Kepler one more year at $10 million that probably should have been spent on a pitcher.

While Baldelli and Falvey were grumbling about the hitting approach during the latter stretches of the season, guys like Correa were saying this per the Star Tribune’s Bobby Nightengale Jr.: “Popkins the hitting coach helped me understand myself a little better. A .900 OPS for some people comes with homers and walks. For me, it comes with being a little more creative, and he helped me understand that I don’t have to hit a home run every at-bat. Pop has been a huge help for me, and I’m grateful that I came to this organization and he was my hitting coach.”

Baldelli ripped the Twins after a sweep against Kansas City, calling their approach “unprofessional.” That suggests he was frustrated with players not following the game plan Popkins was giving them. Some of that blame could be given to Popkins for not getting through to guys. Some of it could go to the players themselves. A decent share of it it could fall on Baldelli for not diagnosing or quelling a seeming rift between veterans and younger players.

By the end of the year, it felt as if the top Twins decisionmakers were more adept at the art of self-preservation than steering the Twins out of their skid.

A lot of Twins fans are already out of patience and wanted bigger changes than the ones offered. Time will tell whether the end of 2024 was six lousy weeks or the start of something worse.

Here are four more things to know today: