Twins Manager Baldelli: Collapse Will 'Bother Me Forever' After Missing MLB Playoffs

The Minnesota Twins were 17 games above .500 and cruising to their second consecutive playoff appearance on Aug. 17.

Until they weren't.

Minnesota is 12-26 in the last 38 games, in fourth place in the American League Central and officially eliminated from the playoffs. And it is going to take Twins manager Rocco Baldelli a long time to get over it.

"This will bother me forever," Baldelli said Saturday, per Bobby Nightengale of the Minnesota Star Tribune. "There will be no way around that. I will think about it a lot and I will use it to motivate myself in a lot of different ways going forward, because I never want to experience that again."

Despite missing the playoffs, Baldelli is expected to return as Twins manager in 2025, per The Athletic's Dan Hayes.

Nightengale noted Minnesota had a 90 percent chance to make the playoffs six weeks ago but instead collapsed following some questionable roster decisions.

"It's an embarrassment worn at all levels of the organization," he wrote. "Ownership cut payroll by more than $30 million after the Twins advanced to the AL Division Series in last year's playoffs. The front office whiffed on many of its additions and failed to bolster the roster at the trade deadline."

Whether the collapse inspires the front office to make critical additions during the upcoming offseason remains to be seen, but Baldelli was not happy with the situation.

This is his sixth year managing the organization, and it has been to the playoffs in three of them and finished above .500 in four of them. He is helping build a standard for the American League Central team, but that standard was missing down the stretch this season.

As a result, the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals will join the Cleveland Guardians as three playoff teams from an American League Central that will have the Twins in bounce-back mode next season.