The New York Mets hired Derek Falvey as senior baseball operations advisor, ending his nine-season run as Minnesota's president of baseball operations. The move comes 23 days after the club signed Juan Soto to a $765 million contract and adds a second former club president to David Stearns' front office. Falvey becomes the highest-ranking external hire since Stearns arrived from Milwaukee in October 2023.
Falvey ran Minnesota's baseball operations from November 2016 through his departure, delivering six winning seasons in nine years and three playoff appearances, including back-to-back AL Central titles in 2019-2020. His tenure produced a 509-479 regular-season record and notable player-development outcomes: Byron Buxton stayed healthy enough to post 5.2 WAR in 2024, Royce Lewis returned from three ACL tears, and Jhoan Duran became a 100-mph closer. The Twins' payroll during Falvey's final season sat at $115 million, middle-of-the-pack spending that required extracting surplus value from pre-arbitration arms and international signings. Minnesota's front office employed 28 full-time baseball operations staffers when Falvey left, roughly half the headcount Cohen has funded in Queens.
The hire reads as infrastructure investment after the Soto signature. Cohen's Mets already carry a $344 million projected 2025 payroll before arbitration cases settle, but adding Falvey—who will not report to a specific GM—suggests the owner is building decision-making redundancy rather than just writing checks. Stearns now has two presidents of baseball operations beneath him: Falvey and Billy Eppler, who shifted to a strategic advisory role in November after serving as Mets GM from 2021-2023. This creates a structure where Stearns can delegate entire workstreams—say, international scouting or player health infrastructure—to executives who have run those functions at scale. It also gives the front office depth if Stearns eventually departs for an ownership group, a path Milwaukee's Mark Attanasio openly discussed before Stearns left for New York.
Falvey's Minnesota stint ended after the Twins missed the playoffs in 2024 despite a 82-80 record and a roster featuring $120 million in commitments to Carlos Correa, Buxton, and Pablo López. The club's Pohlad family ownership has not publicly committed to raising payroll above $140 million, and Falvey's departure followed quiet conversations about his future role that began in late September. His arrival in Queens reunites him with Stearns, who overlapped with Falvey in Cleveland's front office from 2010-2015 before both left for GM roles. The two built similar player-development models—heavy pitching lab investment, biomechanics-driven injury prevention, data-science hiring from outside baseball—that have become table stakes for clubs trying to compete below luxury-tax thresholds.
The practical near-term work involves filling coaching and player-development roles after the Mets dismissed bench coach John Gibbons and overhauled their Triple-A staff in October. Falvey hired 19 coaches and coordinators during his Minnesota tenure, including Rocco Baldelli, who went 422-354 as manager and remains under contract through 2027. The Mets still need to replace their director of player development, a role that turned over three times in Cohen's first four years. Falvey's Minnesota front office produced 12 current MLB executives, a pipeline that could accelerate the Mets' hiring process if those contacts are willing to leave stable jobs for a higher-stakes environment.
Cohen's total baseball operations spending now exceeds $35 million annually when adding front-office salaries to the major-league payroll, a figure that dwarfs Minnesota's entire baseball budget. Falvey's advisory role likely carries a salary in the $2-3 million range, comparable to what top team presidents earn before incentive bonuses. The Mets' spring training complex in Port St. Lucie begins full-squad workouts on February 12, giving Falvey 47 days to shape organizational priorities before pitchers and catchers report.