Hosken Bombo Disco

I'd argue Molina and Posey have been much more valuable to ther teams in recent years.. but I ask you how does Mauer fit with what the Twins are doing?

I agree the Mauer situation is a huge mess. I say this as a Mauer supporter. Besides Doumit and Willingham who are a couple of the "what are they still doing here" guys, you basically have Mauer being Mauer and making $20 million a year, and then 20 other guys making the league minimum. And now with Morneau gone there's really no point in even having Mauer around anymore. But I also doubt Mauer has any influence on the clubhouse atmosphere, if that's what our good buddy LEN3 is insinuating. I mean Mauer's walk up music is still What You Know, am I correct so I presume Mauer's not walking around the clubhouse telling people shhh quiet, to turn their rap music down!

Scherzer Schmerzer... If pitching to contact means throwing thigh-high, middle-in fastballs to David Ortiz, then by golly, that's what we need to do.......... Benoit is a free agent if I'm not mistaken!?!?

Agree that there's no chance he's coming back, as both Torii and the Twins were ready to part ways after 2007. Disagree with your clubhouse comment - we need one or two of our younger outgoing guys to fill the leadership vacuum next year. Torii was one of those guys when he was here.

Torii was fantastic. We could have used some of that edginess and outwardness (and the big smile) in the '08-'10 years.

Yes. Which many people fear is likely with next years' ace / opening day starter ..

Overall assessment C+ after a championship! What have you done for me lately!! The Twins were so good that year... memories of that season sustained me through most of the 90s

Good to get that local perspective. I will refrain from beating the Lincecum drum this offseason.

Something good to keep in mind: Formula for making playoffs: There's not one | MLB.com: News

The 1992 team would have been a playoff team under today's alignment, but man oh man memories of that 91 season helped many of us through the rest of the 90s :-) Video: MLB Network Remembers: Game 7 of the 1991 Series | MLB.com

Interesting thought, Dave. I will call you back.

These are the next two individuals we've been told the Twins will build the future around -- yes? no?

Good post. I defer to you on the calculations and like your rule categories. I would have moved Defense up even higher. I think we underrate how well Terry Ryan has put together bullpens -- you don't really know its value until its gone. Also I am somewhere in the middle on the starting pitching argument, #1 Ace vs. five solid starters. I think two quality guys can get you through a season and into the playoffs in these days of 4 or 5 playoff qualifiers. It's a huge regret that the Santana/Radke pair didn't get to the World Series. I like how Brad Radke continued to pitch with a basically a broken arm in 2006. I like how Alex Meyer wants to be a school teacher when he's not pitching. I like how guys like Diamond point the finger at themselves. For a while we have gotten away from that by gambling on the Valencia/Garza types of guys. We need to cycles those guys out, and get back to guys who care about fundamentals and are decent people to have around. Cuddyer, Span, those guys -- that in my opinion is/was part of what made the Twins Way.

I did not intend to imply racism, and I don't think I did. Also, I understand this thread is not the place to start an animated conversation on civil rights, which I understand would make the site admins uneasy and which is also not what I was trying to do. In light of the last 3 seasons and yesterday's press conference, I think it's fair to open every aspect of the Twins organization to scrutiny. When owners of professional sports teams come hat in hand to the public for financial assistance, they are acknowledging that the team is a public good and worth having around. The team wants engaged fans. People in Twins Territory have a lot invested in the Twins even if it's just an emotional investment. It's hard for many of us to hear that there will be no personnel changes for the foreseeable future. We were Twins fans before Terry Ryan and Ron Gardenhire ever got here. This should be a results based business. If and when the Twins continue to lose, I think this only gets uglier, and no one wants that. In light of everything that's happening, each member of the public invested in this team has a right to respectfully challenge these decisions or non decisions. So again, I didn't intend to inflame or make an accusation of racism against individuals inside the organization, I just wanted to defend a person's right to ask an uncomfortable question.

Good article but my first take is that Gardy doesn't really "work at a job" and he's paid an obscene amount of money with the understanding what the trade off is (being fired at the pleasure of the owner). In most places that's how pro sports works. Other commenters above said it better. Speaking business, I've got to think if the Twins take another deep dive below 500 early next season, and with all the suits in baseball descending on Mpls for the All Star Game in July, that Pohlad, the gracious host, would just be too embarrassed to stand pat and would maybe clean house at that point, and send his good friend Gardenhire packing on a year and a half paid vacation. But that could just be me trying to kick Lucy's football again.

This is actually a very valid point. From what I've read, the Twins don't have a Black or Latino coach in the system above A ball, nor any Black or Latino veteran ballplayers on their big league club any more? Admins do you want to take a crack at explaining this for us?

Agree with both a. and b. Go back and re-read that second paragraph -- Trevor May is going to see the GM telling the press that May needs to 'step it up' -- I don't know how that's supposed to endear a prospect to an organization. What, is May supposed to reassign himself to the next level?

Why wouldn't he want to be traded?

I asked for it, I got it. Whereas I was reflecting on the bigger picture and the relative normality of occasionally needing to part ways with a good manager, you managed to get down into the gritty details to argue that Ron Gardenhire not only belongs in the pantheon of the best managers of our generation, but even excels them in many key respects, and you backed it up with numbers. I'm still not swayed though. I would have thought a change was the right thing to do. We'll see.

Maybe not run of the mill, but definitely not special. The 2009 Yankees was a nice swan song for Jeter Rivera Pettitte et al but they weren't necessarily destined. The Twins could have at least put up a fight that year if they had any fight in them. The answer was zero, by the way. The Yankees won zero playoff series between 2004 and 2009. Thanks for playing Gardenhire trivia, we have some nice parting gifts.

Gunnarthor, How many playoff series did the Yankees win between beating the Twins in '04 and beating the Twins in '09?

Spideyo, Making the playoffs has been a lower bar since the mid 1990s and the realignment. I'd like you to compare Gardenhire with Terry Francona, Tom Kelly, and Joe Torre -- all of these managers won a World Series in their first year as manager, and in Francona's situation in Boston he broke the Babe's curse. Each of those guys had at least as much success as Gardenhire. Those guys stepped aside when it was time. What makes Gardenhire's case so different that he can't be allowed to step aside when it's time to step aside? Thanks.

Come on give Gardenhire some credit for those years and maybe he can win with an established lineup. But where are we now? 2004 playoffs? This is what caught my eye about your post. How about running Silva out for game three instead of veteran Mulholland -- Silva never had a chance. There are surely other mistakes but my memory stretches. He did abuse his bullpen throughout 2008-2010 seasons which perhaps contributed to the failure of those post-seasons. Gardenhire is not an X's and O's manager -- he admits he shoots from the hip. Couple things in particular: he doesn't know how to use a pinch runner or make substitutions (defense defense defense!) in late innings. He has always constantly shuffled the lineup -- opposite of Tom Kelly. He is an intense competitor -- opposite of Tom Kelly's "not too high, not too low" approach. He no longer has the ear of the clubhouse, hard to get that back once you've lost it. Of course he's likable, I'd probably like playing for him, but what else are the players going to say? He can't pull a team out of a losing streak. Yet he plays favorites and names names. There is zero evidence he has the patience to develop young talent. "I don't know how many times we can beat it into these guys heads" seems to be his favorite expression. The next prospects are always just beyond the horizon. Like Hicks and Gibson were last year. Valencia/Plouffe/Revere before that. Neither Buxton or Sano or Rosario pitch. We need to get Diamond and Gibson figured out before we send Meyer and May to the same fate. "There's always next year." What year would it have been good to make a change at skipper? This year? Last year? Never? I write this hoping that the reports are wrong and that Ryan has offered Gardenhire a contract he can't refuse/accept, in other words, letting Gardenhire turn down the offer, so that we can finally move forward again. If Gardenhire was no longer managing here next year, we all agree that he'd be fine, and find another job, right?

Gardenhire has done no fine work. He will be gone before the all star break next year if he manages.

The two you mentioned, and Hicks throwing out Vernon Wells trying to stretch a triple.