The Minnesota Twins hired Thad Levine as their senior vice president and general manager Thursday:
Levine, 44, will work under chief baseball officer Derek Falvey, who was appointed several weeks ago.
"I am inspired to work for the Twins franchise, known as being one of the best organizations in all of professional sports due to the stalwart leadership of the Pohlad family, commitment of its local workforce, talent of its players and unflagging loyalty of its fans," Levine told the club's website.
Levine had been the assistant general manager for the Texas Rangers since 2005 and took over the reins of the international scouting program in recent years. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News broke down Levine's impact with his former organization:
Levine has been a trusted voice for [Rangers general manager Jon] Daniels. While the baseball world seems to spin around "scouting" and "analytics" stars, Levine has a blended background, but his real strength is in understanding interpersonal dynamics. He has been a key in bringing the Rangers management staff closer together following the rift that saw Nolan Ryan leave, followed a year later by the exodus of A.J. Preller to San Diego.
Levine will be tasked with helping to turn around a Twins team that has had just one winning season in the past six years and hasn't reached the postseason since 2010.
The Twins do have talent on the roster, however, led by Brian Dozier, Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton. They also have a number of talent prospects in the farm system, namely pitchers Tyler Jay, Kohl Stewart and Stephen Gonsalves and shortstop Nick Gordon.
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