St. Peter to step down as Twins president, CEO after 22 years

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Minnesota Twins have always been an organization fiercely proud of their continuity and stability -- and that is poised to carry forward, even as a significant transition looms in all facets of the business.

Team president and CEO Dave St. Peter will step down after a 22-year tenure as the steward of the franchise, and he will transition into a strategic advisor role and will have a voice in guiding the ownership group and organizational business leadership, the Twins formally announced Tuesday morning shortly after St. Peter addressed employees throughout the organization.

In St. Peter’s place, president of baseball operations Derek Falvey will begin transitioning to the business side of the organization under the new title of president of baseball and business operations. The Twins’ new general manager will be Jeremy Zoll, who was elevated from assistant general manager to fill the role left vacant by the departure of Thad Levine.

“It's a gift to me as a leader to have a seat at the table in scripting your departure,” St. Peter said. “That's not a given in professional sports. But I also think it's a gift for the organization to have ownership at the table with your leadership, both current and future, to thoughtfully think about what succession planning can look like.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us -- Derek and I in particular -- to land the plane on a transition plan. But I'm confident that we'll do that in a way that is beneficial not just for us, but more importantly, for the people that work inside the Twins, our Major League player group, our player development group and all of our fans and partners.”

Obviously, much remains uncertain about the direction these coming months and years will take. The biggest of those factors is the looming potential sale of the team, with the Pohlad family having announced its intent to explore selling earlier this offseason. The manner in which Twins fans consume the sport is also in transition, with the club moving to MLB-led production and distribution of television and streaming content in 2025.

But that’s why this announcement has been in the works for some time, with St. Peter indicating that his conversations about this move with the Pohlad family have dated back 2 1/2 years. It’s not that the uncertainties, stresses and blowback of all that change have worn St. Peter out, as he emphasized that thinking about the future of the television and media distribution elements of the sport are, in fact, still exciting and motivating to him.

Separate from all that, St. Peter indicated that he still felt this was the right time. He cited the need to find more balance in the priorities in his life -- a factor highlighted by the pandemic -- and Falvey’s continued immersion in business-side meetings and evolution as a leader that gave St. Peter firm confidence in the organization’s future as the Twins navigate the handoff during the first quarter of 2025.

Amid all the uncertainty, there will be stability in the leadership as the Twins fill from within -- and St. Peter emphasized that, no, he is not retiring, and yes, he will still be around -- which they hope will smooth the transition not only for employees of the organization, but also for potential buyers.

“We're setting up the organization for potentially something that I believe that -- potentially, new owners and new buyers would look at, and see as a real strength of the organization, which is the leadership, its people, the way these things are handled, the way the transitions work inside this organization,” Falvey said. “I think it's really important.”

With all that in mind, the focus of these coming weeks will be in looking forward, at how the organization will dictate its approach to the future with this new leadership structure in place.

But before that happens, it’s very much worth first looking back at the journey that St. Peter took as one of only four people who have held the title of team president of the Minnesota Twins.

St. Peter’s journey with Minnesota began as an intern in 1990. The morning after the club won the 1991 World Series, he had to report to his first “real” Twins job as manager of the club’s Richfield Pro Shop by 5 a.m. -- a year before he moved into the front office in ‘92 as a communications manager.

“I would hope people would appreciate the story,” St. Peter said. “I was a kid that grew up in Twins Territory in Bismarck, [N.D.], and ultimately had an opportunity to get my foot in the door as an intern and managed a pro shop and worked my way through the company. I think the beauty in that story is one of opportunity. I didn’t know anybody. People saw something in me, thankfully.”

St. Peter worked his way up in the organization until he succeeded Jerry Bell as president of the club in 2002. He navigated the Twins through a pivotal stretch of growth in the negotiation, construction, operation and improvement of Target Field -- the defining achievement of his tenure, one that set up the long-term future of baseball in Minnesota -- and the surrounding economic development in the North Loop and Target Field Station area.

The Twins advanced to the postseason in 10 of St. Peter’s 22 seasons at the helm, complementing his modernization of the organizational structure, expansion of the Minnesota Twins Community Fund and improvements to the club’s infrastructure in Fort Myers, Fla., and in the Dominican Republic.

“Nobody not named Pohlad cares more about the Minnesota Twins than Dave St. Peter,” Falvey said. “Nobody ever has. I'll take on that argument with anybody who wants to sit across from the table from me and feel otherwise. I think what this is a reflection of, and this conversation, and where he's at, is a reflection of an incredible tenure, an incredible leader here.”

Ultimately, St. Peter was at peace with the notion that, by and large, his tenure might still be defined in the eyes of fans by the successes and failures on the field. His only regret, he said, is that the Twins weren’t able to achieve more postseason success in those two-plus decades to build on their division titles. It's a results-oriented business, after all.

But within the walls of Target Field, he remains proudest of the culture that he hoped to steward for his employees -- one of putting people first, of emphasizing greater work-life balance, of maintaining stability for employees through the pandemic, of pushing for equity initiatives -- one that he now hands off to Falvey.

“I think we really tried to do the best we could in terms of, again, it starts with how you treat people,” St. Peter said. “I think about it really simplistically. It’s how you treat your season-ticket members, it’s how you treat every guest that comes through the ballpark. … Every usher, every ticket taker, every concessions worker. That doesn’t happen by accident. We were unbelievably intentional about how we elevate that.

“Every interaction, there’s an opportunity to treat people with respect and to be professional and hopefully to be welcoming. I think that’s something that is embedded within the culture here that I think is really special. And I’m hopeful that this group in the future will continue to nurture that.”