Twins to hire Diamondbacks farm director/VP of player development Mike Bell as bench coach

He’ll be stepping into the void left by Derek Shelton when he was hired as manager of the Pirates. Bell, the younger brother of Reds manager David Bell, was a managerial candidate himself this winter. He interviewed with the Mets and was also reportedly considered for the Pirates gig that eventually went to Shelton.

The 44-year-old also interviewed with both the Rangers and the Orioles last offseason, so it stands to reason that the Twins could be making a hire who’ll draw managerial interest again in the near future. The 2019 season was his third as the Diamondbacks’ farm director, but Bell previously served as the team’s director of player development and spent another three years as a minor league manager. In all, he’s been with the D-backs as a minor league skipper or a front office executive for a total of 13 years.

A former third baseman, Bell was a first-round pick of the Rangers back in 1993 and is the son of five-time MLB All-Star Buddy Bell, who also managed in parts of nine MLB seasons with the Tigers, Rockies and Royals.

Bell isn’t the only notable hire for the Twins in recent days, however. Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball.com tweets that Minnesota has hired UC Santa Barbara hitting coach Donegal Fergus as their new minor league hitting coordinator.

The Twins haven’t been shy about dipping into the college coaching ranks to fill out key positions in their organization recently, with second-year pitching coach Wes Johnson (formerly the pitching coach at Arkansas) standing out as the most notable hire to date.