Twins Manager Paul Molitor Fired

Jake Mauer, good internal option who left. Outside,  maybe someone from the Cubs or the Astro's.

http://m.startribune.com/twins-seek-pitching-upgrades-and-an-update-on-jake-mauer/463409553/

Jake left, so not really internal

If Joe decides to retire, I think Jake would be a viable candidate. He was ranked as the best of the Twins minor league managers before he left.  And he left to be closer to his family.

I’m disappointed. Molitor did a good job in a season when most of what went wrong had to do either with free agent choices or underperforming or an injury (Santana) or suspension (Polanco). Falvine then traded away Pressly, a very dumb move. And now we have a housecleaning. Falvine now owns it. If it still runs with broken cylinders next year, they’re the ones who should go.

The FO obviously didn't like something about Dougie Baseball. Jake seemed to retire on his own terms, which is sad because I thought he had promotional material stamped across his resume. There really is no internal candidate for the job, unless you include a recent hire.

I don't have a list of candidates right now. But I can tell you what I want. And I'm not talking about the analytics side of things at the moment.

1] No age discrimination, but I want someone who can relate to younger players.

2] A manager who gets and understands the basic fundamentals of ball and will drill that.

3] A manager who knows how to handle and balance his staff and know that once in a while you are simply, probably, going to lose a game and don't burn out your relief Corp in the hopes of an improbable comeback.

4] I don't care if he's Latin or even speaks Spanish, but by goodness he will have a legitimate Latin/Spanish influence on his staff.

5] He doesn't have to be heavy handed. Hell, I'd love it if he danced in the clubhouse after a big win. But he would also hold guys to task, even over the course of a long season, and not be afraid to toss bats in to the shower once in a while.

Front office is just following typical pattern blame the manager for lack of success and bring in there guy. The problem is that there player acquisions were the problem not the manager. I could go on forever about this front office but ownership will have to see for themselves that these people are not ready to lead and develop a team. I think the clock is ticking on this group even the media is starting to wake up to these people. The sad part is how long will it take ownership to come to conclusion that they made a mistake. I am guessing its going to take a while and i as fan will have to endur more seasons of loosing. I betting they are going to have hard time finding players to buy into what ever they are planing and general public will be next to figure it out too.

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My thoughts exactly.

Actually, my thoughts since about 4 years ago.

Ozzie Guillen is a clown, in my opinion. There is a reason why he never got another MLB job after the Miami debacle. Actually, many many reasons, and not just the Miami mess. 

I never liked that Molitor got the job to begin with, and thought he still should have been fired after 2017, and 2016 for sure. But the fact is, he only managed the sad state of affairs the our FO thought would be so good. The free agent's performance wasn't their fault, but it was their choice.

What is Molitor's fault, is that he managed what was one of the fastest teams in MLB, even without Buxton, and the team leader only had 8 SBs.

Whoa. I thought he'd get one more season.

 

Not that I dislike the move, just a bit surprised by it.

I suppose gone are the days of frustrating loyalties....

Front office is just following typical pattern blame the manager for lack of success and bring in there guy. The problem is that there player acquisions were the problem not the manager. I could go on forever about this front office but ownership will have to see for themselves that these people are not ready to lead and develop a team. I think the clock is ticking on this group even the media is starting to wake up to these people. The sad part is how long will it take ownership to come to conclusion that they made a mistake. I am guessing its going to take a while and i as fan will have to endur more seasons of loosing. I betting they are going to have hard time finding players to buy into what ever they are planing and general public will be next to figure it out too.

Falvey and Levine inherited Sano, Buxton and Dozier. Their lack of production is what led to 2018 being a season of failure. For the most part, the players Falvine brought in this year were as advertised.

Molitor was dealt a bad hand this year, no fault of his own.  Comments I have seen said this move was planned last week when Pohlad didn't block it when brought to him.

This has some silver linings:

1.  The FO is now on their own, Pohlad probably did not like this, but the FO now is totally responsible for the package.  They have about 2 years and if the Twins are not contending, they will also be looking at pink slips.

2.  The feeling the young players who had the farm system ranked in the top 3 for 3 to 4 years in a row, where not progressing.  This is probably the major reason Molitor was let go. It is easlier to replace the manager than the players.

3. Lack of accountability.  Do not know what went on behind the sceans, but it seemed like the better players where not punished for their mistakes.

4.  Maybe we will see better pitcher management now that Molitor is gone. Maybe he was more resistant to change then we know.  Molitor's overuse of the hot hand, and he was slow to react when a reliever hit a bad stretch, had a lot to do with it.  Hildenberger  closed for longer than he was effective in that role, and he did not move either Pressly (before he was traded, or May into the role until several failures where noted).

5.  He seemed to be outmanged by better managers, this is a perception issue, but his record in one run games was abysmal.  Next manager will be judged on the strides made and this will be one very telling measurement point.

I guess we'll never know for sure, but the narrative is aiming towards Molitor's ability to work with "our" young guys.  I would not be first in line to defend the job that Mollie has done and I respect any decision that puts the long term goals of this team first.  However, I am alarmed that the FO cannot articulate a vision of our future and what that manager might look like.  At this point, conceding I/we don't have the full picture, I am on alert with this FO just making random moves for short term gains. (that haven't worked). Observing free agent moves the dialogue coming from the front office and the general progress of the franchise my feelings are mostly concern for the future.  

Falvey and Levine inherited Sano, Buxton and Dozier. Their lack of production is what led to 2018 being a season of failure. For the most part, the players Falvine brought in this year were as advertised.

Really - Lynn, Morrison and Castro performed as advertised? 

Really - Lynn, Morrison and Castro performed as advertised?

Morrison would be the exception. Lynn and Castro are about as expected, yes. Last year was the outlier for Castro offensively, not this year. Odorizzi, Duke and Rodney all performed about as expected as well. Let’s put it this way: of the players they brought in, only Morrison significantly hurt the team with his play. And how much of that was the manager continuing to play a struggling hitter when other choices were available?

Re: New manager... Six of the nine coaches are FO hires. This leads me to believe that they will hire an inexperienced manager, where they can choose which coaches stay with the team. Or they hire from the inside, like Shelton. Just a guess. 

If the FO goes with an inexperienced manager, does that mean they are looking to 2020 and later to compete? If so, Gibson and either Kepler or Rosario may be on the trade block before the 2019 season. My suspicion began with the Pressly trade.  He had another year left and had already made strides with the Twins. Another wild-ass guess but it kind of fits together. 

And thanks to Paul Molitor for his tenure with the Twins. Best wishes moving forward.

I wasn't going to say it, but glad you did. I wasn't going to say it because that subject has made me a one-trick pony.

That would be a hell of a trick.

Ozzie Guillen is a clown, in my opinion. There is a reason why he never got another MLB job after the Miami debacle. Actually, many many reasons, and not just the Miami mess. 

 

I never liked that Molitor got the job to begin with, and thought he still should have been fired after 2017, and 2016 for sure. But the fact is, he only managed the sad state of affairs the our FO thought would be so good. The free agent's performance wasn't their fault, but it was their choice.

 

What is Molitor's fault, is that he managed what was one of the fastest teams in MLB, even without Buxton, and the team leader only had 8 SBs.

I definitely agree on Ozzie Guillen. I wasn't thrilled with the Molitor hiring back then, but I didn't hate it.  I didn't really care about SB's, but I prefer to not give outs away.

Molitor should have been fired after the 59-103 season. Ironically, that is what led to the MOY award in 2017. All that matters now is who they hire and if it is a "player friendly" manager, forget 2019. (See Dave Martinez, Washington Nationals who said at the start of spring training, (Paraph) ""I'm just going to let the players have fun and play". Speaks for itself.)

Argueable, Molitor may have managed better this year than last year. With the huge dissapointment of Buxton, Sano, Dozier, Polanco and Morrison and the unloading of assets during the year, losing only 7 more games than the year before was not unexpected in my eyes. Molitor may have had a better year than the front office!

I completely agree with this. This team lost five starters on the opening day roster for most of the year. Guys like Lance Lynn and Logan Morrison were huge disappointments, as was Addison Reed. There must be some other issues behind the scenes to convince leadership that this was the necessary action because it certainly wasn't day-day managing. This team outperformed expectations given all of these injuries and other problems.

That said, you wonder how much Molitor is to blame for problems with Buxton and Sano. And if you think there are issues with how the coaching staff relates to those young players, and you have some young guys coming up, then maybe you make a change. 

I also bring up the performance of Ryan Pressly after his departure. He was absolutely dominant with the Astros. You have to wonder why the Twins couldn't get him to do that while he was here. 

So I'm not saying there aren't questions with coach-player relationships. But it's still hard to look at that record and the Twins' players for much of the season and not think he did a good job. 

And now they are not hamstrung by the Pohlad decree that they couldn't fire Molitor, now they own the manager selection too.

That "but you can't replace Molitor" clause was one of the biggest bush league moves in the history of sports ownership. You can't hire a new president and then tell him "but you can't make changes" - well, what's the point then? I think the spotlight is finally turned on and Falvine now has their time to show what they can do. Ridiculous that we had to wait 2 years for the show to start.

I have been pretty frustrated with the bullpen stuff for a while.

I have this question about MLB teams in general:

Is the overuse of a reliever or the reliance on the hot hand simply the manager’s fault? What say does the bullpen coach have?

If one guy is being overused or under utilized, does the bullpen coach just complain to his wife when he goes home?

I have never looked, but do most other teams have a similar distribution among their relievers? Do most teams have a distribution that is much more even on their staff? Is our critique of Molitor based on an ideal that doesn’t exist?

Also - re: Molitor staying with the Twins. Anyone who is going to be an MLB manager has enough ego strength to deal with a person of integrity like Paul Molitor sticking around with the Twins and continuing to bring his talents to bear.

If ever there was a year when September records and statistics can be ignored completely...this would be it regarding the Twins.  The Twins need to overhaul in a fairly major way.  The manager should be just the first step.

Agreed. A few have said that Molitor did a good job winning 78 games with this ramshackle squad. But don't be fooled - those last few series were gift-wrapped and featured clubs with 100+ loss records who were treating the games like a scrimmage. The 2018 Twins lost when they needed to win, and went on 7-game losing streaks when they absolutely needed to get hot. Nothing went right for this team and it was an extremely disappointing year.