John Shipley had an article this morning regarding Danny Valencia and shared some of the spillage of information gathered from general manager Terry Ryan in his blog.

Ryan on how he handles players:

“When you get to know players, you hear some things on occasion that just aren’t good, aren’t right, that you’d like to do something about. I would never hesitate to maybe mention what we think about going about the business, what might be the right way, or how to react to a certain situation or how you’re going about your business. I’ve had conversations with a lot of players through the years, some more serious than others."

On his defensive struggles:

"He’s certainly athletic enough to play the position. Sometimes it was about taking your bat out to the field or sometimes it was how you’d react to a bad call."

On Valencia's clubhouse presence:

"

A couple of years ago, when he came up here, you didn’t hear much of that about him because we were winning a lot. Last year, some stuff might have come out because we weren’t winning. Stuff like that does emerge. Just ask Morneau and Hunter 10 years ago (they got into a clubhouse fracas in 2005). That wasn’t good. We were losing, we had some issues there. We always have issues when you’re losing. That’s all.

On Valencia's future:

“Everybody wants Valencia to take the next step is what it comes down to. There’s no reason he shouldn’t be a guy who’s a productive member of this organization. We’ve been looking for a guy to get over there who’s got the prototypical third base skills and he has them. Now we’ve just got to get some consistency is all."

I've certainly heard from a few front office members who have not quite embraced Valencia's "swagger" attitude. That doesn't exactly fit the Twins mold. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing either, but when a team is losing, those sorts of traits are magnified (a hundred times more when your production drops off from your rookie year as well).

Even with his personality that might rub people the wrong way, you have to appreciate that he is attempting to improve on the field, working on both his offense as well as his defense. If Valencia makes the necessary tweaks at the plate - returning to someone who thrived going back up the middle instead of trying to turn on every pitch - I wholly expect his numbers to be significantly improved in 2012. If that happens to be the case, I would anticipate the comments regarding his attitude to subside.