What Do We Know About Derek Falvey?

Falvey is a bit enigmatic. Information about him online is scarce, owing to his lack of a high profile in the game. Up until the news of his selection emerged on Monday, his name barely popped up on a Google search. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. I mean, come on, even Aaron Gleeman has a Wikipedia page!

However, this certainly isn't a random, out-of-nowhere hire for the Twins. There are plenty of signs that Falvey is a highly respected up-and-comer. Cleveland manager Terry Francona has called him a "rising star," praising his acumen and people skills while noting that he's a central figure in their operations. Jeff Passan, a national baseball columnist for Yahoo! Sports, noted a year ago that Falvey was "in the eyes of many, a future general manager."

With the help of search firm Korn Ferry, Jim Pohlad and Dave St. Peter have settled upon an extremely intriguing candidate for this crucially important role. We'll learn much more about Falvey's philosophies and perspectives once he's formally introduced, and becomes accessible to the media, but for now here are a few things we can conclude about the new top dog for the Twins.

He comes from an excellent front office culture.

The Cleveland front office has been a hotbed for baseball executives. Former longtime general manager Mark Shapiro was hired on as Blue Jays team president last year. He brought along Ross Atkins, who worked under him for 15 years with the Indians, to be his GM.

David Stearns, who once shared director of baseball operations duties with Falvey in Cleveland, went on to become assistant GM of the Astros and is now the youngest general manager in the game with Milwaukee.

It's not hard to see why teams are repeatedly tapping into Cleveland's executive pipeline when filling their own vacancies. This is a reputable franchise with an excellent track record. We all know about the reign of dominance in the late-90s, when they won the division five straight times and went to the World Series twice. But even since then, the Indians have consistently fielded competitive squads.

In 17 years since the turn of the century, Cleveland has won 80-plus games 11 times and reached the postseason four times, including 2007 when they came within a game of another World Series appearance. Over the last decade, they have boasted three different Cy Young winners (CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Corey Kluber). They have done all this while regularly ranking in the bottom third of the league in payroll.

The organization's recent ascent has been particularly impressive. After bottoming out with four consecutive sub-.500 finishes from 2009 through 2012, they have bounced back strong. They're wrapping up their fourth straight winning season and are heading to the playoffs with an elite (albeit injury-riddled) pitching staff, along with a premier young star in Francisco Lindor, a Rookie of the Year front-runner in Tyler Naquin and two 34-homer sluggers. They've accomplished all of this with virtually no contribution from hobbled Michael Brantley, who's arguably their best position player.

Falvey of course can't be credited with all this success, but he has held prominent administrative player development roles during their rebuilding process.

He's an ambitious fast riser.

Falvey joined the Indians organization as an intern back in 2007, and less than 10 years later he has risen to a chief executive position. That's insane.

Within four years of joining the organization, he was already assistant director of baseball operations, and it didn't take him long to drop the "assistant" tag. After last season, he became assistant general manager, and less than 365 days later he takes a massive leap to the top position in a front office.

It seems like Falvey was destined to reach this point eventually. The Twins savvily stepped in and grabbed him before anyone else could. The question is whether he's truly ready for everything his new title entails.

He's analytically inclined.

It probably goes without saying given his age and the era he came up in. But there are other indications that Falvey heavily factors analytics and advanced metrics. For instance, three years ago he was on a player development panel moderated by Rob Neyer at a SABR event. You can watch video of it below (helpfully dug up by TD user nytwinsfan):

The fact that Falvey was participating in this panel to begin with is telling, since SABR is a well known beacon of statistical analysis. In fact, this particular event is called the "SABR Analytics Conference." Its objective is to "bring together the top minds in the baseball analytics community to discuss, debate and share insightful ways to analyze and examine the great game of baseball."

During the Q&A session, Falvey comes off as very sharp and knowledgeable while fielding questions about defensive metrics, the scouting/analytics balance, developing power hitters, and many other subjects.

He knows pitching.

Falvey was a pitcher for Trinity College before graduating with an economics degree in 2005. He had a hand in many different aspects of Cleveland's operations, but arms were known to be his specialty. He is studious of mechanics and delivery. He oversaw an Indians pitching program that utilized many innovative methods such as weighted baseballs and high-tech pitching sleeves that transmit data via Bluetooth.

For a Twins team in desperate need of pitching improvement, this may be the most alluring component of Falvey's résumé.

He represents, basically, the most drastic change possible.

Terry Ryan was the second oldest GM in the game. He was a minor-league pitcher in the mid-70s who went on to gain decades of experience as a scout and exec. While he made some efforts to adapt to new trends in the game (often too late), his mindset was forever old-school.

Falvey now becomes baseball's second-youngest baseball ops chief. He never played in affiliated pro ball. He's a month older than Joe Mauer. Whatever attachment Ryan had to traditional conventions is not even a consideration in this case. Falvey is the definition of new-school.

In that respect, he's exactly what many fans wanted. I'll admit that I had my doubts about Pohlad and St. Peter executing this search, especially with some of their early comments about the approach. But from many different perspectives, Falvey looks like a creative, thoughtful and above all fitting choice for the task at hand.