Toby Gardenhire will manage Twins' top affiliate, the St. Paul Saints

A Gardenhire will manage professional baseball in the Twin Cities once again this season.

Toby Gardenhire, whose father, Ron, managed the Twins for 13 seasons, has been hired to lead the St. Paul Saints in their first season as the Twins' Class AAA affiliate, the Saints will announce Tuesday.

Toby Gardenhire, 38, played in the Twins' minor league system for seven years after being drafted in 2005, and he managed Class A teams for the organization in 2018 (Cedar Rapids) and 2019 (Fort Myers). He was promoted to the helm of their Class AAA Rochester team last spring, before the 2020 minor league season was canceled by the corona­virus pandemic.

He's not the only former Twins farmhand planning to resume his managerial career in Minnesota's system.

Brian Dinkelman, Gardenhire's double-play partner at several levels in the organization a decade ago, will return as the manager at Cedar Rapids. Dinkelman, who played 23 games for the Twins in 2011, also managed the Class A Kernels in 2019. He likely will see plenty of familiar faces on his roster, because the Midwest League will advance to high-Class A this year, while the Florida State League, where the Twins' Fort Myers affiliate plays, reverts to low-Class A.

The Twins' new Class AA team will be the Wichita Wind Surge.

PHIL MILLER