Gardy was watching a replay of the Vikings 1989 playoff loss and thought it would be great to have someone around the dugout that he could call "Burnsie?"
Well, they could dump the entire ridiculousness of rigid roles and actually pitch him more often when it matters, rather than facing half of his hitters in low leverage situations.
It wasn't Smith that left the minor leagues a barren wasteland. If the minors hadn't been in such putrid condition when Ryan stepped down there would have been more talent around when he "came back."