Has Rocco lost the club house?

[insagt1]

After Saturday its hard to feel real confident with him at the helm. Yes the players have to do their job once the game starts, but decisions like pulling Ober really makes one wonder if he is on the same planet.

Tonites game was about as lifeless as it could be, for a team supposedly trying to nail down a playoff spot. If the leader can't rally the troops now, when it counts most, I can't see him returning next year.

We have half a month left to prove us all wrong.

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

Are there still questions about this?

[DJL44]

8 minutes ago, Twins_Fan_in_NJ said:

Are there still questions about this?

Is this a good team that Rocco ruined or a below average team that Rocco has kept together? If Rocco had lost the clubhouse the games versus the Guardians wouldn't have been close and they don't win that extra inning game against Boston. He has a rotation full of rookies and a bullpen full of castoffs from other teams.

[Squirrel]

27 minutes ago, Twins_Fan_in_NJ said:

Are there still questions about this?

Yes. I don’t think any of us knows what goes on behind closed doors. Winning or losing says nothing about the clubhouse, imo. And I don’t say that out of defense for Rocco. I say that as I don’t know. I don’t get local news so I have heard any rumblings from players. But it’s the players who have lost way more games than Rocco has. Rocco can’t hit the ball for them.

[Craig Arko]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

Is this a good team that Rocco ruined or a below average team that Rocco has kept together? If Rocco had lost the clubhouse the games versus the Guardians wouldn't have been close and they don't win that extra inning game against Boston. He has a rotation full of rookies and a bullpen full of castoffs from other teams.

I tend to think they overachieved based on the available talent most of the season. This isn’t a team full of stars.

Having said that, I won’t be shocked if Rocco is dismissed. I also won’t be shocked if he’s back next year. My perennial question, as always, is who would do better? Not any of us, that’s for damn sure.

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

1 hour ago, Squirrel said:

Yes. I don’t think any of us knows what goes on behind closed doors. Winning or losing says nothing about the clubhouse, imo. And I don’t say that out of defense for Rocco. I say that as I don’t know. I don’t get local news so I have heard any rumblings from players. But it’s the players who have lost way more games than Rocco has. Rocco can’t hit the ball for them.

This is what I find interesting.

In the NFL, when a coach is on the hot seat, do people say, well he can't throw touchdowns for them or he can't play defense for them.

In the NBA, is it, well, the coach can't make jump shots for them.

In the NHL, is it, well, the coach can't score goals for them.

When players fail on the field, the buck stops with managers and coaches. Otherwise, coaches and managers would rarely get fired.

 

[cmoss84]

32 minutes ago, Craig Arko said:

I tend to think they overachieved based on the available talent most of the season. This isn’t a team full of stars.

Having said that, I won’t be shocked if Rocco is dismissed. I also won’t be shocked if he’s back next year. My perennial question, as always, is who would do better? Not any of us, that’s for damn sure.

Anyone who can manage a pitching staff. And not let someone break records for futility. And someone who lets lefties hit lefties. 

[Craig Arko]

21 minutes ago, cmoss84 said:

Anyone who can manage a pitching staff. And not let someone break records for futility. And someone who lets lefties hit lefties. 

Anybody come to mind? Gotta hire an actual person.

[cmoss84]

1 hour ago, Craig Arko said:

Anybody come to mind? Gotta hire an actual person.

Scott Servais

Bruce Bochy

Terry Francona

Skip Schumaker

David Ross

Brad Ausmus

Will Venable

Mark Kotsay

Walt Weiss

 

[Dave Borton]

8 hours ago, Squirrel said:

.. And I don’t say that out of defense for Rocco. I say that as I don’t know. I don’t get local news so I have heard any rumblings from players.

There are no published rumblings.

We have lived in 10 states and I have never seen such a lack of probing reporters as we have in the Cities. The local reporters are much too gentle, timid, or afraid to ask the hard questions, IMHO.

Mike Berardino for the PP used to be good but he long ago moved on to cover Notre Dame/South Bend sports.

[Squirrel]

19 hours ago, Twins_Fan_in_NJ said:

This is what I find interesting.

In the NFL, when a coach is on the hot seat, do people say, well he can't throw touchdowns for them or he can't play defense for them.

In the NBA, is it, well, the coach can't make jump shots for them.

In the NHL, is it, well, the coach can't score goals for them.

When players fail on the field, the buck stops with managers and coaches. Otherwise, coaches and managers would rarely get fired.

 

Look, he can’t. It’s up to the players to play the game. I’ve long said I’m sure Rocco has lost a game or two for the team, but I do think the players have lost way more for themselves. But as Craig said above … I won’t be surprised either if he’s dismissed, and I won’t be surprised if he isn’t. Managers have always been the scapegoats. This team from the beginning has been average, maybe slightly above. They have never been a great team. I do think Rocco got most of the most he could out of them considering the injuries and all. But the ones I blame most, are the Pohlads. They are the ones who pulled the rug out from under before the season even began. Problems, such as team culture, begins at the top, but it’s usually the coaches and/or manager that take the hits. Even if you think they should, it still won’t solve the top of the problem, and team culture still starts at the top, and as long as the Pohlads are at the top, mediocrity will thrive here. But go ahead and blame Rocco for the season and every loss they took. It’s a team sport. Winning and losing is done by more than one person. But the manager always has been and always will be the scapegoat. Just thought this site was better than falling into that easy answer.

[Squirrel]

1 minute ago, Dave Borton said:

There are no published rumblings.

We have lived in 10 states and I have never seen such a lack of probing reporters as we have in the Cities. The local reporters are much too gentle, timid, or afraid to ask the hard questions, IMHO.

That could be very much so. As I said, I just don’t know if he’s lost the clubhouse or not. If Rocco is dismissed after the season, I think we’ll have an answer. If he isn’t, I still don’t know. But as I just said above, managers are the scapegoats. It’s just too bad that the Pohlads can’t ever ante up when they should.

[Dave Borton]

7 hours ago, Craig Arko said:

I tend to think they overachieved based on the available talent most of the season. This isn’t a team full of stars....

Their wins came against the also-rans and they choked on games with tough opponents, as previously discussed in the thread.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

1 hour ago, Dave Borton said:

We have lived in 10 states and I have never seen such a lack of probing reporters as we have in the Cities. The local reporters are much too gentle, timid, or afraid to ask the hard questions, IMHO.

Mike Berardino for the PP used to be good but he long ago moved on to cover Notre Dame/South Bend sports.

I have 100% observed the same thing, for a long time. 

It is called Access Journalism and it is alive and well in this town.

You have to wait on the occasional commentary from someone like Reusse, Rand or Scoggins, or catch Barreiro on the radio or maybe the Skor North guys podcasts, don't know if they are coming around or not all the way, because I don't catch them much. 

Game threads have also been a good place for honest conversation lately. 🙂

 

[Squirrel]

10 hours ago, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

I have 100% observed the same thing, for a long time. 

It is called Access Journalism and it is alive and well in this town.

You have to wait on the occasional commentary from someone like Reusse, Rand or Scoggins, or catch Barreiro on the radio or maybe the Skor North guys podcasts, don't know if they are coming around or not all the way, because I don't catch them much. 

Game threads have also been a good place for honest conversation lately. 🙂

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Sure, if honest conversation = an echo chamber. 🙄

[Squirrel]

1 hour ago, Dave Borton said:

Their wins came against the also-rans and they choked on games with tough opponents, as previously discussed in the thread.

Maybe they just weren’t that good.

[Dave Borton]

19 minutes ago, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

I have 100% observed the same thing, for a long time. 

It is called Access Journalism and it is alive and well in this town.

You have to wait on the occasional commentary from someone like Reusse, Rand or Scoggins...Skor North guys podcasts...

Enjoy those 3 but you have to work too hard to find them w/infrequent critiques of the Twins. I wish they would let Chip do more baseball but this is not a baseball governing town.

Skor North? I let that whole station/personnel go once they laid off Derek and Manny. No baseball coverage.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

31 minutes ago, Dave Borton said:

Enjoy those 3 but you have to work too hard to find them w/infrequent critiques of the Twins. I wish they would let Chip do more baseball but this is not a baseball governing town.

Skor North? I let that whole station/personnel go once they laid off Derek and Manny. No baseball coverage.

Agree. I think it was easier to keep tabs when people had regular beats or regular days. There are only so many hours in a day to track down everyone’s podcasts. 

[Doctor Wu]

20 hours ago, Craig Arko said:

My perennial question, as always, is who would do better? Not any of us, that’s for damn sure.

Good point. As much as we question some, or many, of Rocco's decisions, how much better could anyone else do with this stitched-together bunch of hobbling veterans and raw rookies? As someone else posted, looking at the injuries and poor performances that this team has faced this season, it's almost a miracle that we are still in contention for a playoff spot. That said, maybe a new manager might help to do more to inspire this bunch next season. 

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

12 hours ago, Squirrel said:

Look, he can’t. It’s up to the players to play the game. I’ve long said I’m sure Rocco has lost a game or two for the team, but I do think the players have lost way more for themselves. But as Craig said above … I won’t be surprised either if he’s dismissed, and I won’t be surprised if he isn’t. Managers have always been the scapegoats. This team from the beginning has been average, maybe slightly above. They have never been a great team. I do think Rocco got most of the most he could out of them considering the injuries and all. But the ones I blame most, are the Pohlads. They are the ones who pulled the rug out from under before the season even began. Problems, such as team culture, begins at the top, but it’s usually the coaches and/or manager that take the hits. Even if you think they should, it still won’t solve the top of the problem, and team culture still starts at the top, and as long as the Pohlads are at the top, mediocrity will thrive here. But go ahead and blame Rocco for the season and every loss they took. It’s a team sport. Winning and losing is done by more than one person. But the manager always has been and always will be the scapegoat. Just thought this site was better than falling into that easy answer.

Rocco's been around since 2019. This isn't his first season. 2021 was a disaster. They collapsed down the stretch in 2022. They had an even worse collapse in 2024. No one is blaming Rocco for every loss this season. That's moving the goal posts. What people are blaming Rocco for, and rightfully so, is a team that fails to execute and has shown an uncanny knack for losing games at the margins. Take a look at the Mets in 2024 and compare them to the team in 2023. Take a look at the Guardians. Managers matter. Good ones can absolutely make a difference as can mediocre ones.

[Squirrel]

44 minutes ago, Twins_Fan_in_NJ said:

Rocco's been around since 2019. This isn't his first season. 2021 was a disaster. They collapsed down the stretch in 2022. They had an even worse collapse in 2024. No one is blaming Rocco for every loss this season. That's moving the goal posts. What people are blaming Rocco for, and rightfully so, is a team that fails to execute and has shown an uncanny knack for losing games at the margins. Take a look at the Mets in 2024 and compare them to the team in 2023. Take a look at the Guardians. Managers matter. Good ones can absolutely make a difference as can mediocre ones.

Again, how many games really is that? As I’ve said, I don’t think it’s a many as you do, because much of the criticisms are in hindsight with lots of bias and emotions and not actual objective critique and analysis. Managers have always been scapegoats and will always be scapegoats. But I will concede on the Guardians. No one thought they would sustain that but good for them. Still,is the difference solely because of the manager? Managers are easy targets. The players play the game … how many missed opportunities with RISP? How many errors that led to winning runs? How many blown outings for a pitcher? While you lay fault on Baldelli for most of that saying it’s his decision making that cause most of that, I don’t. Some, yes, probably, but most? no. The players need to take the field and play the game, win or lose. A lot of that, even most of it, is on them. That’s my take on the game. What a manager has to work with is a big part of winning and losing. If we had won a small handful of games we lost due to managerial decisions, yes, we’d be in a better spot. But we’d be in a much better spot if players could/would actually hit the ball. But we’d be in a much better spot if we had better players. Would we be better with a better manager? No way to know. You are convinced yes, I’m not because we would still have this roster. A better manager might have eked out a few more wins, but enough of them? Better players probably would have eked out more. Even with the manager of your dreams leading this team, with the same injuries and same players, this team is not a WS team.

That all said, still doesn’t answer the question about the clubhouse. Not for me. You and I are at an impasse, so let’s just agree to disagree.

[USAFChief]

Well, yeah. Better players would be good. 

That has ZERO relation to the question of whether the players they DO have are well managed.

"I'm not going to fix my broken leg because I have two broken arms" is a poor way of improving your health.

"I'm not going to worry about the manager because Carl Pohlad won't buy us Juan Soto and Shohei Ohtani" is a poor method of improving your team's results. 

 

[insagt1]

Its interesting...the human psyche. In sports we find over the decades that both good managers and bad ones are fired eventually. Often when an entire team is going south, it simply needs a new voice. (not necessarily because the old voice isn't good, or competent or skilled) Its just that a new voice and a new approach often clears the air. Its not scientific. Its more a  mentality of the group.

Usually when a manager is fired, the players are quick to openly blame themselves for not supporting him better. And then sometimes it just takes a special person to handle a team of individuals. Remember how hard it was to keep a manager in NY, handling all those egos and pressure from every direction. Then Joe Torre came along. Was he a guru? Was he an incredible manager? What he WAS, was someone who knew how to handle the egos and pressure and somehow he lasted a long time in a very difficult job. He was the right man at the right time.

The coach of the Edmonton Oilers ( a decent coach) was canned early in the season when the team got off to a miserable start...something like 2-9 or 2-11. Management assessed the situation and found a new coach. The Oilers recovered and nearly won the Stanley Cup. Was it the coach?

Its so subjective. I feel that if the Twins continue the free-fall and miss the playoffs, management will have to make a change. If Twins sneak back in and maybe win a series, he may survive to manage another year. Guess we'll have to see.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Good point about managing egos. 

Another example of having the wrong voice in the clubhouse is the White Sox hiring Tony LaRussa a few years ago. That decision will set back the franchise for years. The ironic thing is that all the White Sox had to do is get an actual manager, keep their good players, make a few tweaks, and they would still be really good. 

[Danchat]

On 9/23/2024 at 11:31 AM, Twins_Fan_in_NJ said:

In the NFL, when a coach is on the hot seat, do people say, well he can't throw touchdowns for them or he can't play defense for them.

There is a world of difference between the impact NFL coaches have on games compared to managers in baseball, and to some extent basketball and hockey. The differences in preparation for a game / how scheming offense and defense works / and so many other things make it folly to even compare to the two. In football you can scheme around bad players to a degree, feed your star players the ball, etc, but you can't do that in baseball. A hitter has to hit when he's up to bat and a pitcher has to pitch and the amount of strategy involved by the manager is lesser by several magnitudes.

[Craig Arko]

41 minutes ago, Danchat said:

There is a world of difference between the impact NFL coaches have on games compared to managers in baseball, and to some extent basketball and hockey. The differences in preparation for a game / how scheming offense and defense works / and so many other things make it folly to even compare to the two. In football you can scheme around bad players to a degree, feed your star players the ball, etc, but you can't do that in baseball. A hitter has to hit when he's up to bat and a pitcher has to pitch and the amount of strategy involved by the manager is lesser by several magnitudes.

Kinda like chess on the one hand, and roulette on the other.

[Gagnerules]

17 hours ago, Squirrel said:

Again, how many games really is that? As I’ve said, I don’t think it’s a many as you do, because much of the criticisms are in hindsight with lots of bias and emotions and not actual objective critique and analysis. Managers have always been scapegoats and will always be scapegoats. But I will concede on the Guardians. No one thought they would sustain that but good for them. Still,is the difference solely because of the manager? Managers are easy targets. The players play the game … how many missed opportunities with RISP? How many errors that led to winning runs? How many blown outings for a pitcher? While you lay fault on Baldelli for most of that saying it’s his decision making that cause most of that, I don’t. Some, yes, probably, but most? no. The players need to take the field and play the game, win or lose. A lot of that, even most of it, is on them. That’s my take on the game. What a manager has to work with is a big part of winning and losing. If we had won a small handful of games we lost due to managerial decisions, yes, we’d be in a better spot. But we’d be in a much better spot if players could/would actually hit the ball. But we’d be in a much better spot if we had better players. Would we be better with a better manager? No way to know. You are convinced yes, I’m not because we would still have this roster. A better manager might have eked out a few more wins, but enough of them? Better players probably would have eked out more. Even with the manager of your dreams leading this team, with the same injuries and same players, this team is not a WS team.

That all said, still doesn’t answer the question about the clubhouse. Not for me. You and I are at an impasse, so let’s just agree to disagree.

Well even its only a few wins. With those few wins we would be in the playoffs now would t we?

[Squirrel]

5 hours ago, Gagnerules said:

Well even its only a few wins. With those few wins we would be in the playoffs now would t we?

Sure. And if we had won the games the players lost, we’d be leading the division. Team sport, it’s not on one alone.

[Tuffjuff]

I know if I was on a team that was chasing the playoffs I would for sure think less of my manager pinch hitting a guy who is 0-30 doing it

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

I've seen way too many mental errors and mistakes from the players. I've seem them look disinterested and lackadaisical. It was happening way too often and it usually happens when the team culture allows it to happen. Employees show up to work everyday and perform in the way that some Twins' players performed, the folks at the top of the food chain aren't going to blame the employees - the first stop is with the person tasked with managing those employees.

For the posters that want to put the bulk of responsibility on the players, why then does a MLB team ever fire their manager? What does it take?