LaBombo

Sounds good, but can our McCutch Jr. not have the Predlocks? It's aerodynamically unsound. Maybe Goin will spend some time with him in a wind tunnel and convince him. http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8303/7908454434_d5b8c02708.jpg

Probably. And maybe some sort of 'Senior Consultant of Looking Out the Window' job, which is fine unless they remove the personnel decision ball gag.

Almost everything I've read of what little is known about Goin tells me that he's the public relations and due diligence equivalent of a kid's toothbrush splashed with water and put back in its place to give the appearance of having brushed their teeth.

Sounds about right. Not rooting for him to fail, but the odds are against him. If the Twins are already thinking about season ticket sales after 2013, it's hard to see him getting to manage the wonderkids in 2015 if next season looks anything like this one, regardless of his contract. But if he turns out to be the only guy besides TK in over 70 years with 3x90 losses who turns out to be more than a one year stopgap, good on him. He's already the second most tenured manager in baseball, so anything is possible. And if not, maybe the decision to retain him will lead to a much more widespread housecleaning than just a new manager, one that starts as close to the top as practical.

Maybe you can repost or even revisit your interesting 'Twins' Binary Hope' article from last fall. There was an ongoing discussion about the relative merits of the two philosophies of reloading quickly and trying to be competitive in as many seasons as practical (the 85 win way) vs. accepting an extra down year or two to build the best team practical (the 95 win way). Another tough season for the 85 win way, with no team reaching the playoffs with fewer than 90. The lowest win totals in the AL and NL to avoid sudden death were 93 and 92.

Of course not. The front office probably at least partly blames misguided fans, wrapped up in the simple arithmetic of wins and losses instead of appreciating baseball played "the Twins way", who've stopped paying attention and thereby reduced the revenue pool and resulting player salary available. And it seems extremely likely we'll be held accountable throughout off-season free agency...

Even if the Twins were to totally disregard advanced metrics in evaluating their own talent, they'd be doing themselves a disservice if they didn't get at least a better grasp of them just to understand how other organizations evaluate and therefore value their own players, and to predict how they will approach free agency and the draft.

Sorry. No offense intended. http://images.sodahead.com/polls/003119615/4351321193_Meet_linus_big_xlarge.gif

Well, just off the top of my head, if you're seriously contending that the Twins were reduced from a playoff team to an expansion team in just a couple of seasons, then it would seem that you'd be squarely in the 'or not' camp when it comes to liking Ryan's job being perfectly secure, along with pretty much everybody else in the front office.

It's reaching the point where I sort of hope that he'll just stop talking to the media, which I normally hate.

It's not rhetoric, it's history. Lose 270 games in three years, get fired. End of story. The few teams that didn't fire those managers fired them the next season anyway. I completely understand people wanting Gardenhire to stay on, as long as they acknowledge two things. One is that they're implying either that he's a Hall of Fame manager or that a historically bad front office has left him with as little talent as the worst expansion teams in postwar history, because those are the only two kinds of managers who get to keep their jobs after going 3x90L. The other is that they're advocating something that's never worked in 70 years. Teams that keep managers after three 90 loss seasons have always lost around 100 games the following season and...wait for it... fired the manager. Kelly was the only guy who wasn't, and managed just one more year. Three consecutive 90 loss seasons isn't a bump in the road, it's signaled the end of a manager's tenure with an organization every single time it's happened in modern history. Someone who's up for either of those viewpoints is probably a much bigger Gardenhire fan than I am, so my opinion about his ability to develop young players would very likely be disregarded as biased. And it probably is. That being said, as long as the Twins are GM'ed by a sworn enemy of free agency, if there's enough doubt to sustain a debate about whether their manager properly handles developing players, then he's probably not the right man for the job on that basis alone.

Mine too. Those teams were probably all bad for many reasons besides the manager. But the point of including that loss number was not to imply that the franchise could pull a winner out of its posterior simply by changing managers. It was to illustrate the futility of the 'stay the course' mentality, which more often than not simply results in the panicked decision to change managers in midseason, or at best delays the inevitable til the end of the following season.

Every other organization in baseball would "choose to look at the last three seasons" and fire him. That's simply a historical fact dating back over to WWII. Lose 90 games three years in a row and you're gone. You can go on about talent level and loyalty and the simple-minded fan desire for change for the sake of change, but at the end of the day you're advocating something that simply doesn't happen. So I question your perspective, Seth. I don't consider the Twins 'lucky' to retain the services of a manager whose record the past three years was so awful that going back 70 years, only Hall of Fame legend Casey Stengel lost more games in that span and kept his job. Now that you've put Ron Gardenhire and Casey Stengel in the same sentence, I'm wondering what good you hope will come of bringing back our modern-day 'Old Perfesser'. In the incredibly rare eight (including 3 expansion teams and two contraction candidates) instances since WWII of a manager being allowed to return after three 90 loss seasons, they all lost over 90 games again, averaging around 100 or so. Four of them were fired and one retired during the following season and two were fired after. Only Kelly survived, and managed a grand total of one more season. So knowing that the historical upside of bringing back a guy who you're inadvertently elevating to Stengelesque stature even though no other organization in postwar baseball history would him bring back is about a hundred losses next year and one more season around .500, do you still feel you're objectively evaluating Ron Gardenhire and what's best for the Twins?

Could be tough. Would it be enough if he just battles his flint off?

If Garza is fire and Anderson is ice, I'll take a Zippo worth of Garza over a glacier worth of Anderson. Anyway, it'll never happen, but fun to speculate. Here's how I picture Zippo Garza: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=38815320 Lack of arms may hurt his velocity, but you can tell by the eyes that he's a competitor...

Everyone gets the sample size argument, but even so, it's not A best of five series anymore. It's being swept three times in five chances that have produced two wins and 12 losses spanning a decade and two almost completely different rosters. But setting aside whether a nearly complete lack of postseason success should have an impact on how a manager is evaluated, Gardenhire's perceived abilities as a manager are largely irrelevant to the discussion of whether it's a good idea to bring him back. Yes, that sounds ridiculous at worst and counter-intuitive at best. But the simple fact is that when managers amass nearly three hundred losses in three years, they are almost never retained, regardless of their reputation or the lack of player talent. And in the eight instances dating back to WWII that they have, every team has lost more than 90 games again, and most fired the manager during the following season. Only TK ever even managed his team again. So if the historically predicted upside of retaining Gardy is another near-100 loss campaign followed by just one more year of Gardy, do you still feel there's enough subjective evidence of his ability to bring him back despite the fact that in the last 70 years only Casey Stengel lost more games in three years than Ron Gardenhire and kept his job?

If that's the Twins' viewpoint, it's... well, at least a little crazy, going by how incredibly rare it is for a manager to amass nearly 300 losses in three years and keep his job, and the fact that those rare instances have mostly produced 100 or so losses and an in-season manager change the following year.

Ahhh. That's handy, as long as you don't listen when one or both of them tell you to set things on fire...

Every other organization would fire him based solely on losing nearly 300 in three years. Only eight times in nearly 70 years has a manager been brought back after 3x90+ losing seasons. Only legendary Hall of Famer Casey Stengel had a worse record than Gardy over those three seasons. And in each of those 8 instances the team lost at least 93 games the following season, with the average clocking in at over 100 losses. All but three fired the manager during the following season, and only Kelly managed his team again after the fourth consecutive 90+ loss season. So it's not that Gardenhire's a bad manager, it's just that he has no business managing the Twins next year. Teams never give managers with that kind of three year record another chance, and if they do, it's never produced anything but another disaster. That's not pessimism, it's the overwhelming evidence of history. There are sure to be some things to get excited about in 2014, but Gardenhire returning is definitely not one of them.

Can't believe I forgot that one. Can I change my vote?

Great choice. But was that really the only thing about Dickbert that got on your nerves? If so then only one word comes to mind: http://cdn.pimpmyspace.org/media/pms/c/fe/e0/08/lucky.jpg

The game thread. If forced to choose otherwise, player highlight was the pleasant surprise that was Dozier. Moment highlight was Mastro's leaping catch followed by his borrowing a belt from the bullpen to keep his pants from falling down in the outfield.

It's pretty hard to think of any manager with no playoff success who is widely regarded as one of the elites of his generation. Maybe that's as unfair as not considering players on non-contenders for the MVP award, but that seems to be the prevailing attitude almost everywhere. But even if that comparison is conceded, what does it have to do with not firing Gardenhire? Managers who amass nearly 300 losses in 3 seasons are fired. In the incredibly rare postwar instances that they have not, they have all lost 90+ games again and gotten fired the following year, usually during the season. All but one. Tom Kelly is the only manager since WWII to continue managing his team after four 90+ loss seasons. He did it for one year. If the best comp to defend Gardenhire with is a single-season aberration of historical proportions, isn't that extraordinarily compelling evidence that Gardenhire doesn't belong in the Twins' dugout any more?

Every other organization in baseball would start a winner-mentality rebuild by dismissing the manager. That's not an opinion, just a matter of historical fact. Here's the list of the other managers since The Second World War who've lost 90 or more games in three consecutive seasons and returned the following season: Tom Kelly Twins 1997-1999 Not too surprising given Carl Pohlad's loyalty, the threat of contraction, and TK's two WS rings. Felipe Alou Montreal 1998-2000 Like the Twins, the Expos faced contraction and were so wrecked by Loria that MLB was forced to buy them. Larry Rothschild TB 1998-2000, the first three years of the franchise. Joe Torre Mets 1978-1980 Graduated from player to plyr/mgr to manager in 18 days. Darrell Johnson Seattle 1977-1979, the first three years of the franchise. Preston Gomez San Diego 1969-1971, the first three years of the franchise. Casey Stengel Mets 1962-1964 Year 4 of the Mets when he took over. 8 prior WS titles. Zack Taylor StL. Browns 1948-1950 Veeck employee who managed Eddie Gaedel. Of the non-expansion managers, only Stengel and his historically awful Mets lost more games in three years than Gardenhire's 293 and returned for another season. What happened to these franchises in the season after the third consecutive 90-loss season? Every one of them lost at least 93 games if you project the '81 Mets strike-shortened season to 162. Even the non-expansion franchises managed a composite record of just 61-101. What about the managers? Only three of the eight lasted the entire fourth season. Only Kelly even managed his team again, despite the 4th straight 90 loss season. In fact, the six managers not named Torre or Alou cumulatively managed only three full season in the majors before their careers ended. The takeaway seems to be that nobody brings back a manager after they accumulate nearly 300 losses over three years, and if they do, they can expect to lose about 100 games and fire the manager during the season anyway. So for the people who wished that the low talent level would buy Gardenhire more time, well, what is it they say about being careful what you wish for?

And yet virtually every other organization in baseball has done so when their manager has lost this many games in three years, with identical outcomes from those evaluations.