Twins to Name Paul Molitor Manager

I wonder, if the entire Maddon surprising out situation had never transpired, would there be so much vitriol and angst among the Molitor and Ryan haters?

I think the makeup of the coaching staff is going to be both paramount and interesting in its makeup. Molitor had a very long and distinguished career. He's been in organized ball for about 40 year, and he's obviously played under and with a lot of quality baseball people, and had a lot of contacts both at the major league and minor league level as a player and coach/instructor.

 

Initially, he wasn't my first choice as I found myself swept up in the idea of Dougie M to have that young manager who would be with the club for the long term and this next wave of the "new Twins" arriving. And while it's doubtful Molitor will be as long term as his predecessors, the more I thought about his qualifications, and his work with the Twins minor league players, and their glowing comments about him, I began to feel better and better about him being the choice with Doug getting additional milb time to develop himself as a manager. (Still feel he or Mauer may be the guy in a few more years).

 

I have a hard time NOT seeing Bruno back. Likewise, I think Cuellar would be an excellent choice to return as either pitching or bullpen coach. His reputation has always been glowing, and he probably deserved a promotion to the ML club sooner than last year.

 

I had honestly never thought of Robin Young until recently, which I mentioned elsewhere, until I heard him mentioned by a respected local journalist. I find myself intrigued by his presence. I also wonder about the possibility of Dale Sveum as bench coach. Would he leave the Royals to join Molitor as his bench coach? He might, joining a former teammate, and might enjoy the idea of being a #2 with the idea of using it as a springboard to another shot as a ML manager.

 

I like the idea of a former ML catcher being on staff as well. I think Steinbach is certainly a possibility to be retained, assuming he doesn't move on to join LaRussa in some capacity. If not him, what about Henry Blanco? I believe he's with the Diamondbacks, but perhaps he's ready for a new challenge?

 

Molitor has ties as a player to former Latin players such as Roberto Alomar, Tony Fernandez and Alfredo Griffin. Could any of these be coaching possibilities?

 

The pitching coach is obviously going to be a major hire. And I confess I'm at a bit of a loss for possibilities for this spot.

 

 

I Feel sorry for the other Candidates who wasted their time. In Music, you stay clear of fixed auditions

I doubt they're wasting time feeling sorry for themselves.

I'm good with this. Here's hoping that Gene Glynn moves up and joins Molitor's coaching staff. That leaves AAA open for Douglas "Eye Chart" Mientkiewicz.

 I think Dougie follows all of his guys to Chattanooga (and becomes manager-in-waiting) while Jeff Smith moves up to Roc.

I Seth you miss the point. I haven't seen too many sane people say Molitor will stink as a manager. The problem is the front office has no interest in having an outside voice. As you note the day they brought Molitor on the staff was the day the job was his. Ill bet his first interview they just asked him what kind of office furniture he wants. The process was a joke. And for a team with so many problems

 

I would rather they focus on improving ibstead of continuity.

 

As I detailed in the Parker H. thread,  the club did improve greatly in some of the areas where Molitor had significant responsibility, like base running and on-base productivity.  But I do generally concur in your overall conclusions, Pohlad has wanted Molitor for quite some time, and the writing was on the wall the day he was hired to work in the Twins dugout, or Molitor never would have taken the assignment. in the first place  Not enough change for many of us, it will be quite interesting to see how much free reign Molly will have in hiring coaches from outside the organization.

I don't think Molitor did much last year to earn wearing the good old boy badge. To overly focus on where he came from and not his acumen for the game is just petulant and unfair.

 

Perhaps the best guy got the job.........nah, that's no fun.

 

AJ Pettersen detailed Molitor's Tom Kelly-like passion for teaching the finer points of base running.  Here's what was accomplished, under either a lot or a little of Molitor's tutelage (as copied from the other thread)

 

Twins 2014 League Ranking per stat (VS. 2013 ranking stat in parentheses):

 

BB%  2nd  (7th)

OBP%  2nd  (20th)

UBR 2nd  (14th)

BsR 3rd   (21st)

Runs 7th  (25th)

wRAA 8th  (21st)

Spd 8th  (30th- LAST!)

wSB  14th  (29th)

:

Pitching coach decision is going to be huge, I think.  That will be a good indicator how much Molitor is really "manager material" and how much "outside thinking" he's bringing to the job.

This... I cannot like it enough. Molitor was one of my top candidates (though I think I wanted Maddon the most). He's got an incredible baseball IQ, which should make in game managerial decisions a bit less frustrating to watch. He's also open to the sabre crowd too, which is also good. In the end, I don't think this is a bad choice, whether inside or outside the org... The real question comes down to his coaching. Who to keep:

 

Cuellar, Bruno, Steinbach (assuming he's not gone). The rest not so much. And I'd like to see them go outside the org for a lot of these (though that said, I wouldn't mind Doug M up working on things like fundamentals of defense)...

Ok... Molitor is the Manager.

 

Now let's put a team together for Molly to work with.

So it is ok to hire FA players to take jobs, but not FA managers? That's not how business works.

 

I'm ok with Molitor. I would have been ok with the other guy whose name I can't spell. I would have liked Maddon the most. But at this point, I'm glad they have a manager before FA starts, so the manager and GM can be on the same page.