It's Time for Gardenhire to go!!!!!

[harvey lee]

Isn't that terrible Dave?

[Willy]

How many times do we need to see great ball players like Morales as a back up cather only get pushed back down to AAA to get more seasoned when its clear he did better then Redmond did all year!

Who finally tells the dumb s**t that its time to let Buscher go after 2- seasons of doing nothing!

How long will we have to put up with the new rising power hitter Young that only hit 6-homers this year.

Didn't Gardy have a clue towards the end of last year when his pitching team when to s**t., but only decides to bring the whole pitching staff back this year for another chance??

My god... I coach little league and I could have won the division 3 years in a row with the players we had.

Must be politics, or guys like nicky fetching him coffee daily to keep his job.

Bottom line is this.... GARDY NEEDS TO GO!!!!

Great take. You just described there things Gardy has no control over. The front office and GM can be 95% blamed for personel decisions. Gardy just manages and coaches the players he is dealt.

Pretty much all the baseball guys and other managers around the league talk about Gardy as one of the best in the game. Enough said.

[Drewski]

He has only finished first in the division 5 out of his 8 years. If the twins win just 1 more game last year he wins the division 6 out of 8 years.

Oh Boy! Gardy has finished first 5 out of the last 8 years in arguably the worst division in Major League Baseball! Lets all give him a hand.

It seems like that's all he can do. Finish first in a mediocre division only to get stomped on in the playoffs. He may be able to win the division, but that's it. No world series wins. No, scratch that. Make that not even a trip to the WS for Gardy!

2nd place is the first loser!

[MNTwinsFan]

I'm amazed by how folks either admire the job Gardy does or flat-out hate him. For the record, I'm in the former camp.

I do think Gardy and Anderson do a lousy job with the pitchers in general though. He has hurt the confidence of several newcomers by letting them implode when it was clear the hook was needed. Conversely, I have never cared for the philosophy that he and TK share about pulling pitchers that were pitching well to bring in somebody else.

[Big Dave2]

Originally Posted By: Big Dave2

He has only finished first in the division 5 out of his 8 years. If the twins win just 1 more game last year he wins the division 6 out of 8 years.

Oh Boy! Gardy has finished first 5 out of the last 8 years in arguably the worst division in Major League Baseball! Lets all give him a hand.

It seems like that's all he can do. Finish first in a mediocre division only to get stomped on in the playoffs. He may be able to win the division, but that's it. No world series wins. No, scratch that. Make that not even a trip to the WS for Gardy!

2nd place is the first loser!

Ok then, Who do you bring in that will do better than winning the division 5 out of 6 years with one of the lowest payrolls in MLB?

[fishyguy]

Originally Posted By: Big Dave2

He has only finished first in the division 5 out of his 8 years. If the twins win just 1 more game last year he wins the division 6 out of 8 years.

Oh Boy! Gardy has finished first 5 out of the last 8 years in arguably the worst division in Major League Baseball! Lets all give him a hand.

It seems like that's all he can do. Finish first in a mediocre division only to get stomped on in the playoffs. He may be able to win the division, but that's it. No world series wins. No, scratch that. Make that not even a trip to the WS for Gardy!

2nd place is the first loser!

OK, lets use that logic. How many managers should be fired this year? I guess they are going to have to find about 27 new managers for MLB this offseason. I guess you can give a break to the guys who made the World Series. You can probably give a break to the guys who made the WS last year, but that would be only a one year break. Don't win the WS next year and they should be gone. Time to let Scioscia (sp?) go. He has the best record in baseball in the last 2 years but really he was just the first loser in the AL this year.

[theweekend]

Oh how quickly we forget. Let me bring you back to Sept 29, Game 1 and Game 2 of a doubleheader vs. Detroit at Tiger Stadium.

We won Game 1 by a run and lost Game 2 by a run.

Gardy managerial blunders in those two games, in no particular order:

1. Game 2: Keppel brought in to bases loaded, 2 out situation

2. Game 1: Casilla, the DH, still allowed to hit with men on base and 2 outs in the 10th inning

3. Game 2: Tolbert allowed to hit in 9th inning, down 2 runs, with one out and one man on base

4. Game 2: Punto allowed to hit in 9th inning, down 2 runs, with two outs and one man on base (to not put someone up who COULD hit the ball over the wall there is criminal)

5. Game 1: Suicide squeeze in 9th inning of tie game

6. Game 1: Casilla stays in the game as DH after pinch running for Morales (even though he hit what should have been a huge double....but turned out to be meaningless because of bad managing seen at #5 above)

Please note that these are not entirely hindsight comments, as both #4 and #6 actually, against all odds, "paid off." That does not change the fact that they were horrible managerial decisions.

I will also list a #7....and this is just a general comment....why were we bunting SO MUCH in Game #1? Gardy was overmanaging, just like he always does in playoff-type (these games were really must-win. Yes, somehow we recovered from the Game 2 loss and forced a Game 163...but at the time, it was a devastating loss) games. He has to try to prove he's smarter than everyone else. Just try that again playing against the Yankees in the playoffs....playing for one run at a time....like 1 run is EVER going to be enough to beat the Yankees....or most any other MLB team, for that matter....and that includes the Tigers. Sacrificing that much is just giving up too many outs. How about stealing a base instead?

Good Gardy moves in those games:

1. Game 1: Gomez in for Kubel, moving Span to RF. I will give Gardy credit here. In my mind, I admit, I questioned removing Kubel at that point in the game. But Span made a nice catch in RF that Kubel possibly wouldn't have made.

I was once in attendance at a game where Gardy pinch-hit Matt Tolbert for Jason Kubel.....it was an important at-bat in about the 6th or 7th inning. I got up and did laps around the concourse for the rest of the game.

[Big Dave2]

To quote Napoleon Dynamite: What the heck are you even talking about?

[theweekend]

To quote Napoleon Dynamite: What the heck are you even talking about?

I'm talking about the Twins winning the division in spite of Gardy, not thanks to him.

[PierBridge]

Good Grief!

You Crazy.....but welcome to the forums none the less!

[Big Dave2]

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Ron Gardenhire: AL Manager of the Year?

There are two general points of view when it comes to Ron Gardenhire.

Most people outside of Minnesota seem to feel that he's one of the game's best managers, a man who consistently gets the very most out of his players and puts the Twins in a position to contend year in and year out. When a Twins game is nationally broadcast, you almost always hear the announcers fawning over Gardenhire. Fellow managers and baseball people across the league consistently speak very highly of him. Joe Posnanski -- who I think is one of the very sharpest baseball minds in the country -- has repeatedly opined that the Twins' manager is the best in the game. Gardenhire had placed among the top three finishers in the Manager of the Year voting five times in his seven years as a manager entering this season.

Many people within Minnesota who follow the Twins closely, on the other hand, seem to feel that Gardenhire is a terrible manager who holds the team back year in and year out. Fans rail on him for his bullpen management. Bloggers rip him for his stubborn loyalty to bad players. It seems that every week during the baseball season there are multiple columns in the local newspapers in which scribes question Gardy's tactical decision-making.

Logically, it would seem that the group that follows the team closely and gets an intimate perspective of how the manager operates would provide the most accurate portrayal of that manager's job aptitude. However, I don't think that's the case here. I feel as though many hardcore Twins fans get so worked up over Gardenhire's flaws that they are unable to fully appreciate the man's full body of work -- an eight-year tenure which now includes seven winning records and five division championships.

The most recent of those AL Central titles stands as perhaps the most impressive, all things considered. By mid-September this year, the Twins sat several games out of first place with numerous key players on the shelf. The starting first baseman -- who had been a crucial contributor during a first half in which he'd posted MVP-caliber numbers -- was done for the year with a back injury, as was the team's slick-gloved, power-hitting third baseman. Three-fifths of the season-opening rotation had lost their starting jobs, due to either injury or ineffectiveness (or both). The team was relying largely on mediocre minor-leaguers and relatively underwhelming trade acquisitions to scrape by. Most fans had given up on the club, and it would have been tough to blame the players themselves for packing it in and beginning to concentrate on next year.

But, they didn't. The Twins rallied to win 16 of their final 20 regular-season games to draw even with the first-place Tigers and force a one-game tiebreaker at the Metrodome. There, in a hard-fought extra-innings battle, the Twins emerged victorious, capping off one of the most improbable late-season comebacks in franchise history. Plenty of credit rightfully goes to the players who stepped up and carried the team during this impressive late stretch, but it's tough to overlook the man who piloted the ship.

Without a doubt, Gardenhire has his flaws. As a person who has watched the team regularly during his entire tenure, I'm not ignorant to those flaws. But what people around here don't seem to realize is that every manager has flaws. Yes, Gardenhire is too stringently adherent to traditional closer usage when it comes to utilizing Joe Nathan. Yes, he's too stubbornly fixated on having a middle infielder batting in the second spot in the order, regardless of whether that player's offensive proficiency qualifies them for such an important duty. Yes, he's overly loyal to the players he deems "scrappy." Yes, he lets his obsession with veteran presence put younger and more talented players at an often unfair disadvantage. But these are flaws that plague many of the game's managers. We've seen the skipper of each team in the playoffs this year make questionable decisions. There's no denying that Gardy is largely able to succeed in spite of his downfalls.

For whatever reason, people around here seem quick to criticize Gardenhire but hesitant to credit him for the things he does well. During almost every game I hear people complaining about the way he operates the bullpen, but the Twins finished fourth in the the league in bullpen ERA and sixth in WHIP this year despite sporting a corps of relievers that -- early in the season -- looked like it was going to be a complete disaster. In fact, Gardenhire's bullpens consistently rank among the league's best, and I would argue that managing relievers is actually one of his greatest strengths. It's easy to play the "coulda shoulda woulda" game during the season and point out individual instances where Gardy perhaps could have more effectively utilized his bullpen arms, but again I encourage you to step back and consider the overall results.

Gardenhire is also liked and respected by his players, which is no small thing. He keeps the clubhouse loose and and avoids infighting. It's worth noting that, despite his troubled past, Delmon Young has had essentially zero publicized negative incidents since coming to Minnesota. Orlando Cabrera, who was reportedly run out of Chicago last year after run-ins with his White Sox teammates and manager, was praised as a clubhouse staple here after coming over. Players enjoy playing for Gardy and they seem to stay motivated and focused.

A manager's effect on the outcomes of ballgames tends to be overrated. Gardenhire made some tactical decisions that helped the team this year and some that hurt it. But, in the end, his players came together for him and made a huge push, winning game after game late in the season to capture the division title.

I don't know if Gardenhire excelled more than any other American League manager this year -- Mike Scoscia and Ron Washington both did excellent work -- but he certainly deserves to be one of the front-runners for the Manager of the Year award. Even if local fans are too blinded by his downfalls to admit it.

[bunkerbay]

I cant even beleive this an item on here!...Gardy is the man and will be the skipper for as long as he wants to be.

[Cicada]

So well said Big Dave2. Probably fell on deaf ears of the blind eyes. Too bad the only thing working is their mouths.

[knoppers]

gardy and tom kelly both are great managers. they don't have the big payroll players like the yanks, red sox, and the angels, but they still put out a very good contending team almost every year. hard play gets rewarded. I see some of the other teams players, that sometimes don't seem to try very hard at times. that would not fly with gardy.

[bassNspear]

i think gardy is a good coach! I dont follow the twins that much, and i am a braves fan through and through, but it sounds like hes one of the best in the game????