Twins Hire Brian Reith As Pitching Coach

The Twins announced Wednesday that they’ve named Brian Reith their new pitching coach, replacing Pete Maki, whose contract wasn’t renewed at season’s end. Reith has spent the past five seasons as the pitching coach with the Rays’ Triple-A affiliate in Durham, and he pitched in parts of three major league seasons with the Reds from 2001-04. Minnesota also elevated Ben Myers, who’s been on the training staff with their top affiliate in St. Paul, to the major league staff as an assistant athletic trainer.

Before his half-decade run in Durham, Reith coached in the low levels of Tampa Bay’s system. The 48-year-old was a sixth-round pick by the Yankees back in 1996 but was traded to the Reds four years later as part of the trade that brought two-time All-Star pitcher Denny Neagle to the Bronx. Reith wound up pitching 127 2/3 innings with the Reds across parts of three seasons.

Although Reith never found much success in the majors as a pitcher, he comes to the Twins from one of the game’s most highly regarded organizations in terms of player development. Reith has actually coached three pitchers on the Twins’ 40-man roster — Taj Bradley, Eric Orze and (more briefly) Joe Ryan — during that trio’s time in the Rays system.

This will be Reith’s first stint on a major league coaching staff. He and Twins skipper Derek Shelton didn’t overlap on the coaching staff in Tampa Bay, but both were in the Rays organization at the same point in the mid 2010s (Shelton coaching on the big league staff, Reith down in Low-A). Even if the two didn’t work directly alongside one another, there’s surely some familiarity and a sense of philosophical alignment from those formative years in their coaching careers.

With the Twins, Reith will take over a staff that’s led by two quality veterans, Ryan and fellow righty Pablo López, the latter of whom will be returning from internal brace surgery. Bradley had a breakout showing in 2026 and is locked into a rotation spot in 2027. Veterans Dean Kremer and Bailey Ober are on hand as innings-eating options at the back of the staff, but Minnesota also has a bevy of recent top-100 prospects who’ve gotten their feet wet in the majors: Connor Prielipp, Zebby Matthews, Kendry Rojas and Mick Abel among them. Should Minnesota move either Kremer or Ober — both are due raises to nearly $7MM in their final season of club control — that would open the door for some of those younger arms to claim spots early in the year.

The bullpen scene is more fluid. Veteran Jeff Hoffman is the elder statesman in an otherwise young group that features young Andrew Morris, left-hander Kody Funderburk, veteran Tommy Nance and waiver gem Yoendrys Gómez (who was claimed out of the Rays organization but never pitched in Durham, where Reith was coaching).

In addition to moving on from Maki, the Twins also opted not to retain assistant pitching coach Luis Ramirez. A replacement for Ramirez has yet to be named, so it stands to reason that Reith will have some say in working with Shelton and general manager Jeremy Zoll to find an assistant in the weeks ahead.