Souhan: All's quiet in Twins clubhouse

[Craig Arko]

You said in one concise sentence, what I wanted to say, but instead rambled on incoherently. Well done.

 

I do wonder if Miller, Bollinger, and Berardino are treated a bit more warmly. Souhan may have burned a bridge or two.

[SDFan]

I wouldn't necessarily equate "chemistry" with "boisterous" or "loud". If most of the team like things more quite and laid-back - or perhaps they would consider it more "serious" - then that's just as much a legitimate "chemistry" as a team full of jokers taking batting practice in nothing but a jock strap. Both vibes can be called chemistry - as long as it's an atmosphere where the players feel comfortable with each other, supported, appreciated, motivated, etc. It depends on the personality of the players, not what Souhan wishes it was.

[stringer bell]

Only if it's something other than Aqualung.

I'm a "Cross-eyed Mary" fan myself. "Living in the Past" is my mantra, as well.

[gil4]

And when you and I were their age, we curled up with a book or sat with headphones while listening to our new hi-fi we got for Christmas, and uttered a grunt if one of the elders tried to strike up a conversation.

 

A book? On Christmas? Are you nuts?

[Thrylos]

I do wonder if Miller, Bollinger, and Berardino are treated a bit more warmly. Souhan may have burned a bridge or two.

 

Nope. I am pretty sure that Souhan has not burned any bridges and, unlike the beat writers who report what happens, Souhan as a columnist has the freedom to be the Twins' mouthpiece when certain players need to be publicly thrown under the bus. And he has served in that capacity pretty well. Rewind his columns to read what he said about Kevin Slowey, Danny Valencia, Luke Hughes and others, for example. And two of the aforementioned three, were not quiet guys in the clubhouse.

 

I don't know what Souhan meant by quietness, but there are quiet leaders out there. A couple of examples are Killebrew and Allison. They were not loud, or having team meetings or giving good quotes out, but when they needed, they grabbed some of their teammates aside on an 1-1 basis and set them straight. This is leadership and this is what the Twins need. Quiet or not...

[D. Hocking]

Souhan may have burned a bridge or two.

 

This is not entirely inconceivable.

[ashbury]

This is not entirely inconceivable.

 

You keep not entirely using that word. I do not not entirely think it means what you think it not entirely means.

 

[chamoman]

Great thread starter, Parker, and nice reference back to the Sam Miller article. Research into quantifying "chemistry", like any social science research, will have to spend a fair amount of time figuring out how to operationalize the term. It sounds like the Rutgers' profs have found that "cross-cutting cleavages"--which sounds like a single sub-type of the concept of "chemistry"--is a way to do this.

 

Two things: 1) this does not preclude *other* operationalizations of the concept from potentially playing a role (e.g. aggregate overlapped time spent in the minors by MLBers, etc.); and 2) this does not mean that greater "chemistry" leads to more wins; only an increase in overlapping cleavages. From a team's perspective, this represents a gain or loss at the margins; obviously having good talent is the baseline.

 

With specific regards to the Twins, it sure sounds like the next two waves of prospects to come up have personality and come from multiple countries--and most importantly, they are talented.

[Jdosen]

On the Mauer subject, I don't think he can be bashed too much for the way he is in the clubhouse. It's just not his personality to be a "rah rah" guy and if he tried to be, I think his teammates would see right through it. If you remember those 2004-06 teams, Mike Redmond was one of the biggest vocal leaders in the clubhouse, one of the biggest chemistry guys. And he was the backup catcher. I don't think it per se is on the best guy on the team to be that guy. It takes a certain type of personality to be a clubhouse leader, and it doesn't have to be the best guy.

[Otto von Ballpark]

I don't know if winning begets chemistry exactly, but it's just easy to be interested in the team (and focus on THE TEAM) when they are winning. This applies to fans, sportswriters, and even the players themselves, I imagine.

 

On the flip side, when the team is struggling, one has to work to generate/maintain interest, focus is shifted almost entirely to individuals rather than the collective team, and the results usually lean negative, like a lot of the talk on this board the last few years, and this article by Souhan. I imagine there has been a lot of negativity in the clubhouse too about individual poor performances, injuries, job security or lack thereof, etc.

[JB_Iowa]

On the Mauer subject, I don't think he can be bashed too much for the way he is in the clubhouse..

 

I'm not bashing him but I think that the clubhouse does reflect his personality and that, over the last couple of years, there haven't been other players who are veteran enough and respected enough to provide a counter balance.

 

Although I believe that losing contributes in large part to that atmosphere, I can't help but think that the quietness of the clubhouse is a reflection of Mauer's personality. And I actually think that Twins management has some concern about it. Gardenhire has talked about the need for players to have fun (even in the midst of losing it is still a game). And I think that need for some attitude was a part of trying to sign A.J.

 

It may be that this group of veteran pitchers can bring in a little life to the clubhouse -- Nolasco certainly seems to have a bit of a different personality. So I guess we'll see.

 

But it was concerning that there wasn't any excitement or life last September when some of the rookies were called up. Losing still isn't fun but there should have been a bit of boisterousness just from several of them having a chance to realize a part of their major league dream.

 

Quiet, cool, professionalism obviously works well for Joe Mauer. It doesn't necessarily work well for every player. Some signs of life would be appreciated (and I don't think this is all just Souhan complaining because he doesn't have an easy interview).

[Willihammer]

If you squint at the past couple decades you can kinda see the team's personality reflected by who plays up the middle. Probably a coincidence. But maybe the team will assume Suzuki's, Hicks' and Florimon's personalities this year now that Mauer's on 1B.

[twinsnorth49]

I wouldn't necessarily equate "chemistry" with "boisterous" or "loud". If most of the team like things more quite and laid-back - or perhaps they would consider it more "serious" - then that's just as much a legitimate "chemistry" as a team full of jokers taking batting practice in nothing but a jock strap. Both vibes can be called chemistry - as long as it's an atmosphere where the players feel comfortable with each other, supported, appreciated, motivated, etc. It depends on the personality of the players, not what Souhan wishes it was.

 

This is a great post, it really depends on the particular mix of individuals, there is no magic formula for creating chemistry, it can be created a number of different ways. One constant though is that it usually occurs organically and cannot be manufactured, bringing in some loud, gregarious players is not going to fix what ails this team or guarantee any chemistry.

 

One thing is for sure, this team just needs better players. You can bring in all the cheerleaders you want, if they can't get it done on the field, it solves nothing. By the same token those loud, cheerleader types who do get it done on the field can't make water into wine, you can only elevate someone else's play so much, if at all. I'm sure there are a number of players in the Twins clubhouse who look to Joe Mauer as the example for who they want to be, a complete professional. It's just that for too many of them they lack the ability to carry that onto the field where it really matters.