Article: Is Lame Duck Gardy Good as Gone?

[jmlease1]

When your top four knocks against him range from "speculation" to "pure fiction," I'd say that's actually a pretty ringing endorsement.

 

Well, TPuck took care of the Hardy stuff, so no further comment needed from me.

 

Regarding the OF alignment, Gardy was quoted in spring training about Willingham being more comfortable in LF. And we're all in agreement that Revere is a superior CF to Span defensively, right? Span's better arm doesn't make up for Revere's better range. Throw in Span's success as a LF in the Dome, the relatively spacious LF in Target Field and the fact that Willingham is the Butcher of Cairo no matter which OF position he plays at times...I think I've got a fair point on this one, not a fictional one. (I can't find it right now, but I swear I recall Gardy being quoted as saying Span was going to play CF because he liked it better there, but whether this was in the last year I don't know)

 

We have had terrible production from the #2 spot in the batting order in recent years, and there have been better options available. Now, with Span leading off, Jamey Carroll isn't unreasonable; the career OBP is there. Casilla is a bigger reach; the .330 OBP years are marginally acceptable, the .280 years are NOT. Or the Nishioka or whomever else experiments, especially when you have on-base machine Joe Mauer sitting right there. Does he have to hit 3rd because he's won a batting title?

 

I'll admit freely it's speculation on my part that Gardy gets himself kicked out because he can't control himself, but it's sure what it looks like to me. When he's screaming at an umpire and there isn't a Twins player within 30 feet of them, it's not protecting a player. It doesn't get you any advantage the rest of the game with the umpire; having refereed for years I can tell you that a coach going berserk in your face doesn't help that guy's cause. Much easier to write him off as a lunatic. The guys who calmly told me about a specific thing they wanted looked at were a lot easier to take seriously. Save the screaming for when you're trying to keep your player from getting thrown out.

 

You might weight this stuff differently than me. That's fine. But I don't think I'm making stuff up here. And it's not my only problem with Gardenhire, who has been almost immune to criticism over the years, and I question the validity of that.

[Kwak]

Uh, no we're not all in agreement that Revere was a better CF. Span's positioning and his initial read made up for being slightly less faster than Revere. {I have this sense posters equate Revere with Usian Bolt and every other Twins' OF ranges from snail to turtle--Span is fast!}

Gardenhire badly underestimated Kubel's ability and marginalized him to the point that the Twins made the Tampa trade. The Santana trade and accepting the "package from the Mets"--has Gardenhire's input all over it. Combine that with the immediate promotion of Gomez over Span in the "famous" 2008 Spring Training CF competition--yeah, more Gardenhire. But to mee his biggest sin was the inclusion of Radke in the 2006 playoff roster and its rotation. Radke was injured and was no longer the pitcher he was. To claim "loyalty" was a slap in the face of everyone else who busted their tail to make the 2006 team a division winner. It is incumbent to put the best 9 on the field in the playoffs and Radke (sadly) was no longer in that category. Garza (he took over for Liriano in the OAK game when his tendon broke) pitched very well against the A's, demonstrating that he was up to the task of pitching against them. He should have been on the playoff roster as a minimum, and given the team's starting pitching needs (there were many) probably should have started Game 3. But loyalty to Radke--yikes!

[ThePuck]

'Uh, no we're not all in agreement that Revere was a better CF. Span's positioning and his initial read made up for being slightly less faster than Revere. {I have this sense posters equate Revere with Usian Bolt and every other Twins' OF ranges from snail to turtle--Span is fast!}'

 

Bravo! Span was rated as the 3rd best defensive CF in the game this year, yet people act like he's pedestrian. After watching Span play CF this year and Revere last year in place of injured Span, I say Span is the better CF. Many of Revere's 'great' plays were only made great by him misplaying the ball off the bat to begin with and taking bad routes. Not saying Revere isn't a very good defender...got better this year for sure...but Span is better. Span just isn't as flashy.

 

As far as the rest of the post...I agree with some of it, some other stuff not so much. For example, while I do belief the 2008 ST battle for CF was a farce, I think management told Gardy, you are gonna play Gomez in CF. (because of the Santana trade...saving face). You know me, I'm no Gardy backer, but I think in that instance, his hands were tied. I also don't think he wanted Santana gone

[Kwak]

I wasn't implying that Gardenhire was in favor of trading Santana, but rather he was strongly in favor of the Mets package as opposed to the competing packages from Boston and NY. He was "drooling" about Gomez, and others the "pitching prospects". True, if those guys had all panned-out--Oh my, the Twins would have been so much stronger and would not be in the position they are now!

[diehardtwinsfan]

I often find that people who use the term "hindsight is 20/20" often lack foresight. The Hardy trade was pretty obviously bad to a number of people, and yes Gardenhire had his hands all over it. I agree he isn't responsible for the return, but dragging the guy through the mud didn't exactly give Smith leverage either. Gardy didn't have the leverage on the organization in 2002 that he has today... and is a problem as well.

 

I tend to think Gardy needs to go. He's never been good with the kids, and his game management skills (or lack thereof) are well known. He won't be fired, he just won't be extended. This is probably the most honorable way to do this. The Twins are going to need someone capable of developing young talent (like a Joe Madden), not someone whose first tendancy is to plug in some crappy veteran over that rookie who will make mistakes.

[one_eyed_jack]

All of those ripping Gardy's game management - you do realize that almost any other manager would make the same moves Gardy does about 99.4% of the time, yes?

 

Sure, you have a few outliers like Maddon who go against conventional wisdom and do some unusual things.

 

But if it's Gardy's decision-making that gets to you, prepare yourself to be disappointed by his replacement, because it's highly unlikely that he'll do anything substantially different in that area.

 

I think the 20/20 hindsight argument applies here more than it does to trades. A manager makes thousands of decisions over the course of a 162-game season. Even if he's right 90% of the time, which is insanely high, that's still a lot of times where he's wrong. You try to make decisions that give your team the best chance to win, but inevitably, you'll be wrong sometimes.

 

When you follow a team closely, those decisions that didn't turn out well tend to stick with you. And because your exposure to other managers is more limited, you don't tend to see that they make the same types of decisions Gardy does.

 

I remember going on a Tigers site a couple of years ago, and the forum was filled with anti-Leyland posts, some even complained specifically about him getting consistently out-managed by Gardy.