Certainly, the collaboration worked. Even with 18 players on the injured list at various times, the Twins won 101 games in the regular season, one short of the franchise mark, while hitting a major league-record 307 home runs. Baldelli and Shelton huddled in the office before and after games, often with Falvey and Levine.

“Rocco is ultimately responsible for what happens in the game, but he’s going to lean on Sheltie for ideas and thoughts to manage the group in here,” Falvey said. “We told them that was the vision for it, the way we operated upstairs. Ultimately, he believed Rocco wanted that too.”

But it wasn’t always a given that Shelton and Baldelli would end up in the same dugout this year. Shelton, a stocky former catcher, joined the Twins last year as bench coach. When Falvey made the surprising move to fire Molitor, a Hall of Fame player and the 2017 A.L. manager of the year, Shelton — a former minor league prospect for the Yankees and a minor-league manager in the 1990s — interviewed for the job, as did Baldelli.

The two knew each other well. Shelton had been Baldelli’s hitting coach with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2010. Baldelli joined the Rays’ front office after retiring in 2011, and they coached on the same Rays staff in 2015 and 2016.

Falvey and Levine gave the manager job to Baldelli but asked Shelton to remain as bench coach, promising a collaboration similar to their own. Shelton, who also interviewed for the manager’s job in Texas, said he returned for one reason: Baldelli.

“I only would have stayed if he got this job,” Shelton said. Seeing the Falvey-Levine collaboration firsthand, he said, eased his mind.