Old Twins Cap

Sorry my friend, this is a sad apology for a manager who does not deserve his job. I keep hearing this, "Well, he doesn't make the plays, he only fills out the lineup card and makes pitching changes". Well, SSSSSOOOOORRRRYYYYY. Life ain't fair. Period. If it were, we would live in a more egalitarian society. We don't, and Gardenhire is sitting in a position, managing a team, that, by any measure, is truly awful. There is this thing in the professional ranks called accountability. You may have heard of it. It means that if you are a teacher and your student's test scores don't measure up, you can be let go. If you are a CEO and your company's earnings fall off, you can be fired. It's life. Functional organizations follow these basic precepts. A truly dysfunctional organization continues to do the same thing, year after year, and expects a different result. That is the definition of denial. Gardenhire, in his best years, did not advance in the playoffs, and in fact, are you even aware of the Twins record the last three trips to the post-season? What are you trying to preserve exactly -- the Twins right to be doormats for the Yankees? After 10 years plus, his team is rotten. It doesn't matter if it's his fault or not. All that matters is that the Twins take up a new direction. It ain't going to happen with Gardenhire as coach. In particular with all the new players expected to emerge in the next few years, it is exactly a new coach that will allow the cream to rise and keep old habits, losing ones, from being ingrained in younger players. If you could cite some metrics for your praises of Gardenhire, like numbers, or I'd even take anecdotes, anything besides the fact that the Twins won 6 division titles in the worst division in baseball AND NEVER ADVANCED TO THE WORLD SERIES as rationale for keeping him.

Oh man, you are going to blame Diamond's performance on his catcher? Are you one of his parents or what?

After consecutive 95+ loss seasons where the Twins were easily one of the worst teams in either league, they break out a (current) 10-game losing streak in May of 2013, one in which they are repeatedly pummeled early in the game. An announcer said not only have the Twins allowed the most runs in the 1st inning, but that the runs allowed in the 1st are the most runs allowed in any inning by any team in baseball in 2013. Think about that: right when you take the field to get a good start, you perform worse than any team in baseball in any inning. Incredible. In games where they grab significant leads, like 6-0 over Baltimore, 2 and 3 run leads against Chicago, Detroit and Atlanta, they find a way to lose. Usually, pitching, but also, increasingly, dumb plays, bloop hits, sloppy throws, poor defense. When your are a bad baseball team, it isn't hard to invent new ways to lose. But really, it comes down to this: Is Gardenhire's contract going to be renewed? And really, the answer has to be "No" at this point. Not after the last two years. If Gardy could turn things around, he would have at this point. He follows up two unacceptably bad years with a 10-game losing streak and effectively relegated the last four months of the season to meaningless baseball games. And the real issue is this: If Gardy is not going to be renewed then what are the Twins accomplishing by keeping him as manager? Are the players going to try harder because they know Gardy won't be around next year? Are they going to listen closer and try to learn from him? Are they going to even care what he says -- knowing that he won't be here? And, is that the kind of atmosphere you want in the clubhouse, a dead man walking and no one able to face the bald truth that the team is rudderless, the organization incapable of making a managerial move because.... because why? I'm not a Gardy hater. I really don't care who the manager is as long as they play well and make games fun and interesting. But once the answer becomes Gardy isn't the guy going forward, then the question has to be: Why is he still the manager right now? Is this the right thing for what comes next? Only a dysfunctional organization clings to the past when it's clear the future lies in a new direction. To renew Gardenhire at this point would be pathetic. He's had a good run -- though it needs to always be remembered how poorly the Twins played in the post-season under Gardy. It doesn't mean he's hated or a lousy manager. It just means it's time for a change. And when it's this clear that change is coming -- then there is no reason for it not to happen sooner rather than later. Like yesterday.

After consecutive 95+ loss seasons where the Twins were easily one of the worst teams in either league, they break out a (current) 10-game losing streak in May of 2013, one in which they are repeatedly pummeled early in the game. An announcer said not only have the Twins allowed the most runs in the 1st inning, but that the runs allowed in the 1st are the most runs allowed in any inning by any team in baseball in 2013. Think about that: right when you take the field to get a good start, you perform worse than any team in baseball in any inning. Incredible. In games where they grab significant leads, like 6-0 over Baltimore, 2 and 3 run leads against Chicago, Detroit and Atlanta, they find a way to lose. Usually, pitching, but also, increasingly, dumb plays, bloop hits, sloppy throws, poor defense. When your are a bad baseball team, it isn't hard to invent new ways to lose. But really, it comes down to this: Is Gardenhire's contract going to be renewed? And really, the answer has to be "No" at this point. Not after the last two years. If Gardy could turn things around, he would have at this point. He follows up two unacceptably bad years with a 10-game losing streak and effectively relegated the last four months of the season to meaningless baseball games. And the real issue is this: If Gardy is not going to be renewed then what are the Twins accomplishing by keeping him as manager? Are the players going to try harder because they know Gardy won't be around next year? Are they going to listen closer and try to learn from him? Are they going to even care what he says -- knowing that he won't be here? And, is that the kind of atmosphere you want in the clubhouse, a dead man walking and no one able to face the bald truth that the team is rudderless, the organization incapable of making a managerial move because.... because why? I'm not a Gardy hater. I really don't care who the manager is as long as they play well and make games fun and interesting. But once the answer becomes Gardy isn't the guy going forward, then the question has to be: Why is he still the manager right now? Is this the right thing for what comes next? Only a dysfunctional organization clings to the past when it's clear the future lies in a new direction. To renew Gardenhire at this point would be pathetic. He's had a good run -- though it needs to always be remembered how poorly the Twins played in the post-season under Gardy. It doesn't mean he's hated or a lousy manager. It just means it's time for a change. And when it's this clear that change is coming -- then there is no reason for it not to happen sooner rather than later. Like yesterday.

The Twins look terrible right now. The only good thing is that it is early. The Angels look bad right now, so take it with a grain of salt. However, at some point, after two years of misery and now the beginning of a third year, there has to be some accountability. Why Gardenhire gets a free pass in all this is beyond me. He reams Hicks for not hustling out a pop-fly that he gets to second on. But, the day before, he lets Correia blow a winnable game because, well, it's His game to lose, not the team's. I don't get it. When a team plays like this, you usually hold the manager accountable. But, for whatever reason, in Minnesota, it's everybody else's fault, not Gardy's. It ain't working out. Gardy is not a bad guy, probably not even a bad manager. But there comes a time when a new face, a new approach makes a big difference. That time is now.

Arcia can hit, he's got a hell of a swing. But, and you don't hear about this much, he must have a hell of an arm. Three assists already. All at second base. Or, is he getting assists from bone-headed runners at 2B? Either way, I've seen his arm ranked as average, but in the box score, it looks like more than that. What's the skinny?

Yeah, appreciate the inside look at the Twins. I was down there in early March but only got to Port Charlotte for a game -- the one where the Twins hit back to back triples in the Ninth to tie and won it in the Tenth. I agree: Twins look better this year. More life, more youth, more energy. They will score runs, they will play better defense, their bullpen is fine. It all comes down to pitching and there, well, hard to say at this point. Some guys need to grow, some guys need to heal and some guys need to out-perform their historic numbers. In other words, the Twins will be a .500 team, unless something amazing happens.

Well, historically, almost anything can happen in Minnesota as far as snow and winter are concerned up through mid-April. In the old days, they used to schedule the Twins on the road for the first couple of series, calculating, correctly, that it is better to be playing in Minneapolis on April 10th than March 30th. But, global warming has changed all that, along with the three decades in the Dome, which allowed schedule makers to do whatever they wanted with the Twins schedule. And so, one of these years in Target Field, we will get burned, in a big way. Like a whole week is lost. Sure the field can get cleaned off, but there are snowstorms, cold weather, rain and general misery when it comes to early Spring in the Midwest. Is it this year? Might as well be. The Twins got nothing to lose playing the Tigers and especially up against Verlander. Let's play those games sometime in July or August, in double-headers, with minor leaguers pitching for the Bengals, shall we?