Article: Is Terry Ryan Leaving Gardenhire Hung Out to Dry?

[Kwak]

Ryan is staying even if the Twins lose 100+. Any new GM will have demands that will cause ownership to tremble--control, budget, his own staff and manager, etc. Ryan is the old shoe that conforms to your foot.

[Shane Wahl]

I honestly do not think Gardenhire is going anywhere until the Twins in 2013 are as bad as they were in 2012.

[ND-Fan]

Gardenhire sure has a challenge to get this team to be a winner. I doubt they have the horses to get it done like said above all the stars got to align and have a lot of luck. There is still possibility they add some talent before opening season. My thought Gm's and Managers are all held accountable for poor performance but why isn't ownership also held accountable by putting penalties on teams that under perform and finally where they have to sell the team to new ownership for clubs that continually loose shouldn't fans of MLB should see some accountability of ownership. They generally fans are partners with most teams because they are funding the new stadiums with taxes for ownership compete with other teams. If ownership of teams was such a poor investment why is it that they continually sell for more money than what they paid. Its just a thought that ownership should have some accountability for winning too and don't say the botttom line if that was case there are some teams that should have been bankrupt 10 years ago.

[SweetOne69]

Gardy's main weakness, relative to his predecessor, is his ineffectiveness in the postseason. TK hit home runs both times he got the Twins' there. Gardy (with better teams; including one that had both the CY and MVP winners) was one and out often and early.

 

I'll add to this by saying that Gardy's main weakness is the inability to adapt to the urgency that is present in the postseason. He establishes roles for all of his players and that works for the long haul of the regular season. His ability to adjust from those established roles in the postseason has been his downfall (that and the players inability to perform in the postseason).

[Jim Crikket]

So I guess it sounds like the Twins should just keep Gardy around a while. It certainly would appear that it's going to be some time before anyone has to be concerned about how well the team... and its manager... performs in the postseason.

[Boom Boom]

I'll add to this by saying that Gardy's main weakness is the inability to adapt to the urgency that is present in the postseason. He establishes roles for all of his players and that works for the long haul of the regular season. His ability to adjust from those established roles in the postseason has been his downfall (that and the players inability to perform in the postseason).

 

I liked it when Gardy was respectful of Rondell White's needs to keep himself mentally in the game by giving him a defensive position while playing a defensive specialist at DH. In the playoffs even.

[nokomismod]

I agree with some others here that there is some agreement behind the scenes between Gardy and TR. Otherwise Gardy would probably voice some sort of displeasure about having to coach for his life with what I think will be a worse all around team (worse offense, defense, but slightly better pitching) than the past two years.

TR is sly. Just like when he brought up Nishioka and everyone knew Nishi had no business with the big league club last summer. It was a way to get out of that 3rd year (perhaps something might have been brokered behind the scenes prior to Nishi being called up?).

[cmathewson]

I don't think that anyone who watched TK towards the end would agree with this statement

Agreed. TK of the late 80s was great with the kids, not the one of the late 90s.

 

Gardy's main weakness, relative to his predecessor, is his ineffectiveness in the postseason. TK hit home runs both times he got the Twins' there. Gardy (with better teams; including one that had both the CY and MVP winners) was one and out often and early.

 

Kelly had his issue with some players. Todd Walker comes to mind. There was the celebrated Rochester revolt. But several of those players who said they hated him became cores of the team Kelly built: Mientkievizc and Pierzinski in particular. TK built a complete team out of a bunch of young kids, most of them fringe players like Mint. TK had 21 rookies in 99. He let them play and, by the time he left, they were a contender. In contrast, Gardy rarely lets guys play through their slumps. He always plays the hot hand. So he's had a mix-and match, patchwork infield for the last eight years. He'll start benching Plouffe or Dozier at the first sign of trouble. Carroll will be an everyday player at three different positions, whichever one has the cold player. Meanwhile, none of those young guys will get into a rhythm. They'll struggle their way through the season on and off the bench. And, at the end of the year, we once again won't know what we have going into 2014 at three infield positions.

 

I hope I'm wrong. But that's Gardy's pattern, and it's not sustainable on a team that builds from within.

[DaveW]

That.

 

The Twins were very charitable in bringing in Gardy back after 99 and 96 losses and kept his buddies as coaches (other than shuffling the deck). The changes after those 2 awful seasons in a row were very small and Gardy and Co were unscratched. (Like Stelly and Jerry were the 2 who needed to be thrown under the bus...)

 

I also thing that if the Twins are not respectable, Ryan will probably go away too... he is part of the mess as well.

 

Gardy will resign after the season and pick up another hobby (like TK did with horses)

 

DERRRRRPPPPPPPPPPP

 

Hey dude, what happened with the Baker signing again?

[DaveW]

So I guess it sounds like the Twins should just keep Gardy around a while. It certainly would appear that it's going to be some time before anyone has to be concerned about how well the team... and its manager... performs in the postseason.

 

Gardy's struggles in the postseason is a totally valid complaint no doubt, but I don't mind the patience shown with him. As someone who grew up as a Nebraska football fan, it should be noted that fans wanted Osborne out for YEARS due to a less then stellar bowl/national championship record. Luckily, the cool heads at the top realized it was more ****ty luck then bad coaching (see: the Twins playoff loses...bad match ups against the Yankees etc). How did it work out for Nebraska? Pretty well as I recall, as they won 3 out of 4 national titles and had the single most dominating team 1995 in college football history.

 

Now Gardy is far from perfect no doubt, but even with the past 2 rough years it should be noted that Gardy has led the Twins to the division title in 5 of the 10 years he has been manager (50% in a 5 team division is damn good!) Also, if Gardy was let go there would be multiple teams lining up to bring him in as a manager. I sorta equate this to a lesser extent of what happened to Andy Reid in Philly, dude was very successful for the Eagles, had a couple bad years then was let go. I'm willing to bet $100 that the next coach for the Eagles doesn't come close to doing what Reid did for the Eagles, and I am confident that unless the Twins bring in Maddon, Torre or some other amazing MLB manager whoever follows in Gardy doesn't come close to matching his 5 division titles in 10 years.

 

Yes its frustrating that we couldn't get past the Yankees (a terrible matchup) in the playoffs each and every year it seemed! But IMO you gotta give Gardy a couple more years to right the ship with the upcoming talent coming up through the org.

[Kwak]

DERRRRRPPPPPPPPPPP

 

Hey dude, what happened with the Baker signing again?

Still with the bile?

[DaveW]

Still with the bile?

 

Bile? That ****ty post got exactly the response it deserved. I should have just ignored it altogether though.

[CDog]

...In contrast, Gardy rarely lets guys play through their slumps. He always plays the hot hand. So he's had a mix-and match, patchwork infield for the last eight years. He'll start benching Plouffe or Dozier at the first sign of trouble. Carroll will be an everyday player at three different positions, whichever one has the cold player. Meanwhile, none of those young guys will get into a rhythm. They'll struggle their way through the season on and off the bench. And, at the end of the year, we once again won't know what we have going into 2014 at three infield positions.

 

I hope I'm wrong. But that's Gardy's pattern, and it's not sustainable on a team that builds from within.

 

You might want to check the Game Logs for Plouffe and Dozier from last year before you use them as examples of how Gardy benches young guys at the first sign of a struggle.

[cmathewson]

You might want to check the Game Logs for Plouffe and Dozier from last year before you use them as examples of how Gardy benches young guys at the first sign of a struggle.

 

Plouffe spent most of the first two months on the bench. Dozier got sent down after playing average. Gardy had quotes in five interviews over three before the demotion saying he wanted to do it. That's pretty typical.

[twinsnorth49]

Plouffe spent most of the first two months on the bench. Dozier got sent down after playing average. Gardy had quotes in five interviews over three before the demotion saying he wanted to do it. That's pretty typical.

 

Plouffe was on the bench because Gardy was still allowing Valencia to figure it out, another young player not benched at the first sign of trouble. Secondly, neither Dozier or Plouffe were benched at the first signs of trouble, Dozier struggled most of the time and was arguably given more rope than he should have been, for his own benefit. Plouffe went through a number of rough spots after his hot June and largely due to injury to be fair, but he was not benched because of struggling. I don't see how those two serve as good examples of what you're referring to.

[CDog]

Plouffe spent most of the first two months on the bench. Dozier got sent down after playing average. Gardy had quotes in five interviews over three before the demotion saying he wanted to do it. That's pretty typical.

 

I don't think you know what average means.

 

Also, trying to prove a point that players are benched for struggling by saying they were benched BEFORE struggling doesn't really make sense.