December 8 - 'Catching Up' is a monthly feature by NOVA Baseball Magazine where we connect with a player or former player with Northern Virginia roots for a question and answer session. This month we sat down with Minnesota Twins senior vice president and general manager Thad Levine, a 1990 graduate of T.C. Williams High School.
Levine was hired by the Twins last month after working as the assistant to Texas Rangers’ general manager Jon Daniels for 11 years. He also previously worked in the Dodgers’ and Rockies’ organizations after playing collegiately and earning his bachelor’s degree at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and his master’s degree in business administration from UCLA. Levine is joined atop Minnesota’s front office by first-year executive vice president and chief baseball officer Derek Falvey, the former assistant general manager of the Cleveland Indians. The duo are looking to turn around a team coming off the worst record in franchise history after going 59-103 this year.
We caught up with Levine earlier this week while he was attending baseball’s winter meetings at National Harbor in Maryland.
NOVA Baseball Magazine - After attending T.C. Williams High School, you played collegiately at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and then got your MBA from UCLA. At what point did you decide you wanted to get into sports management and pursue a career in baseball?
Thad Levine - “When I was five years old and I went to a Baltimore Orioles game with my Dad, my mother and my sister. There was a foul ball hit in our area. I was sitting on my Dad’s lap, he dropped me without thinking for a second, caught the ball and I was laying on the ground with his beer drenching me and a hot dog on my chest and I realized if this man loved this so much more than he loved his only son, this must be pretty special and the passion was born that day.”
Mag - You were hired as the GM for the Twins a little more than a month ago. What has the adjustment been after being an assistant GM with Texas?
Levine - “I feel as if in Texas, I had a tremendous relationship with Jon Daniels, who was a true mentor and great friend, he was like a brother to me. He exposed me over the last 11 years to almost every aspect of being a general manager, and he really groomed me for this opportunity. So, I feel as if Jon did an exceptional job of preparing me for this, so nothing about this opportunity has truly surprised me because of the credit I owe to Jon. But, getting an opportunity to work with [Derek Falvey], it’s a completely different personality, different dynamic, and it’s been exceptionally rewarding over the last month. We haven’t slept a whole lot, our eating habits haven’t been great. But it’s been a little bit daunting and exhilarating so every opportunity we have had to meet people within the organization and get to understand our people, our processes and try to get a handle on the culture of the organization as well as the personnel on the field has been extremely rewarding, but it has not been without some late nights and it’s going to be something that is ongoing for the months to come.”
Mag - The Twins had the worst record in club history last season. What are some steps you are looking to make here at the winter meetings and throughout your first offseason with the team?
Levine - “Well, we are going to be inspired to win more games and we are going to get more good players. That’s two of our mantras. I think from the outside looking in, we don’t see ourselves as a 59-win team. We never have. We think the talent on the field is much greater than a 59-win team. We are not naive, we don’t just think we are going to roll the balls out there next year and make the playoffs. We do think that if we hit the reset button we will have a much better season next year just by playing the same people and staying healthier and having guys take the next step. The things we can control are we are going to put better resources around our players so they can realize their potential or ideally at some point over achieve. A lot of our best players last year took a step sideways or maybe spun their wheels a little bit at the Major League level. It’s going to be imperative that we put the right leaders around these guys as well as the right resources around them off the field so they have a chance to really take a pronounced step forward. This franchise is not going to be a top 10 payroll franchise, so we are going to need our own, home grown players to excel on the field. That is something we are going to really focus our attention on.”
Mag - The Twins have not made the playoffs since 2010 and play in a very tough division in the AL Central. What do you see as the recipe for getting the team back to the postseason?
Levine - “If you look at the 1990s and the 2000s, this franchise was in the playoffs quite a bit. One of the first things Derek and I did was hire LaTroy Hawkins, Torii Hunter and Michael Cuddyer. Partly because they were exceptionally passionate about the Minnesota Twins and part of that passion was built around how they played the game of baseball during that era when they were playing in the playoffs every year. So we look at this as a franchise that not long ago had a firm hold throughout the industry as one of the best organizations in the game. We want to get back to that place, so we hired three of the guys that lived that and who helped shaped that while they were here to help redefine that. We are not reinventing the wheel, just trying to get back to the way this franchise did things seven, eight years ago and we hired three of the best experts to help us along that path.”
Mag - Has the addition of another Wild Card berth in each league changed strategy with a smaller market club like the Twins?
Levine - “If you look at the last three American League representatives in the World Series, you have Kansas City twice and Cleveland once and they are both small market teams. So nobody here thinks we are behind the eight ball because we are a smaller market. There are other ways to compete in this game, it’s been time honored in the 20 years. A lot of small market teams have excelled and we plan to follow in their footsteps, learn from what they did and gain dominance in the American League no different than they have.”
Mag - The Twins are not generally known to be a team that makes big splashes in the offseason. Can we expect anything different with you as the club's GM?
Levine - “When you bring together Derek from Cleveland and myself from Texas, we came from two different philosophical backgrounds on how to build a Major League team. Speaking from Texas, we were aggressive. We were a team that tried to build from the bottom-up through the amatuer market internationally and domestically as well as from the top-down through trades and the free agent markets. So, I think part of the appeal of hiring me was the fact we were a little more aggressive and a little more risk tolerant in terms of acquiring talent. Players that may have a lower floor but have higher ceilings and if you bet on your scouts and they make the right decisions, you may have some superstars on your hand. I think we will employ a little bit of that here.”
Photo of, from left, Twins executive vice president and chief baseball officer Derek Falvey and senior vice president and general manager Thad Levine, courtesy of Major League Baseball
