Twins reportedly rebuffed by 'multiple' front office candidates

The Star Tribune reported this week that the Twins have interviewed Kansas City VP J.J. Picollo to lead their baseball operations but also swung and missed in an attempt to get former Red Sox GM Ben Cherington to interview.

Interestingly, Cherington’s name resurfaced Wednesday when he was hired as a VP with the Blue Jays — which we can assume is a lesser job, at least in terms of title and power, than he would have been offered with the Twins.

Also interestingly, Yahoo’s Jeff Passan on Wednesday tweeted that Cherington (pictured) isn’t the only exec who has said no thanks to the Twins. He didn’t say how many, but Passan said “multiple GM types have rebuffed their interest so far.”

It would be dangerous to read too much into that, of course. Sometimes a situation just isn’t right. Cherington, for instance, reportedly cited “personal reasons” for not interviewing with the Twins. If the Twins are doing their due diligence, they are going to cast a wide net when it comes to candidates — and not all of them, presumably, are going to jump at the chance to come here for a variety of reasons (many of which might have nothing to do with the Twins themselves).

Still, the natural inclination will be to wonder if candidates are looking at the Twins’ situation — on pace for 100 losses this season, with a mixed bag of production when it comes to the prospects who are going to lead the charge going forward, not to mention ownership that has declared Paul Molitor will be the manager in 2017 regardless of who is in charge of baseball operations — and deciding they’d be better off waiting for something else.

That said, when the Twins do make a hire in the coming handful of weeks, they will get someone qualified. And at the end of the day, it won’t really matter if it was a first choice, a second, a third, etc., as long as that person ends up being the right hire. If not … well, it’s only the future of the franchise that’s on the line.