SCHREIER: Twins, Gardenhire & Loyalty in a What Have You Done for Me Lately Business

Written by Tom Schreier

The sad thing about the firing of Ron Gardenhire is that people are more likely to remember the four 90-loss seasons then the fact that Gardy, as he was known colloquially, took a team that was about to be contracted to the playoffs by winning a division title. Professional sports are a “What have you done for me lately?” business, and lately, the Twins have been awful.

 

 

Gardenhire has managed the team for 13 years, based in large part on his ability to win six division championships from 2002 to 2010, while holding onto his job despite a 99-loss season in 2011 when star players Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau got injured, and the entire 5-man rotation imploded.

The organization and fans alike thought this was an aberration — How do the Twins move to a new ballpark and get worse? — but losing soon became the norm at Target Field, and the Twins went from Cardinals North to teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Milwaukee Brewers that struggled upon opening a new stadium. Once the losing started in 2011, attendance dropped 29 percent according to Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press. The Twins stress that this is not the reason for his firing, but money talks and the rows of empty seats at Target Field mean less revenue for the baseball organization.

“None,” Ryan responded when asked how much the business side affected the Twins’ decision to part ways with Gardenhire, a notion that was seconded by team president Dave St. Peter and owner Jim Pohlad. “We need to win games, and attendance will return. I’m aware of the business side of this thing, but I’m also paid to win baseball games, and we aren’t winning enough baseball games. Consequently, the attendance slips, and so do the other revenue streams.”

Gardenhire was witty and cordial in a press conference that felt more like a funeral. “[For] the most part you guys have been fantastic,” he said to the media present, “except for Berardino [who] called my wife and tweeted it today, that wasn’t great.

“Remember now, I’m a fan, I can punch you in the nose [laughs].”

Everyone else took it pretty hard. Wayne “Big Fella” Hattaway, the resident comedian in the Twins clubhouse, was crestfallen and hardly could utter one of his patented jokes. Ryan straight-faced the whole thing. Dustin Morse, the team’s head of public relations, had tears welling in his eyes through most of it. Even some of the reporters seemed uncharacteristically somber. Only Gardenhire was in good spirits, which says something considering the fact that he was the one being replaced.

“This organization is a great organization, will continue to be a great organization, and honestly I’m just happy to have been a part of it,” he said. “I’ll move forward and see where it takes me from here.”

 

Two different sets of Twins

You’re in a better position than when I came in, because you’re not talked about being contracted.  — Gardenhire on his advice to his successor

Gardenhire is not one to complain, but he did take over during a perilous time for the Twins organization. MLB was considering contracting two teams, and then-owner Carl Pohlad offered his team for contraction, in addition to the Montreal Expos. The Expos eventually moved to D.C., of course, and became the Washington Nationals, but despite interest from New Jersey, Las Vegas, Portland and North Carolina, the Twins managed to stay in Minnesota.

“[That’s] all that was ever talked about when I first got the job, and it was ridiculous,” said Gardenhire about the distraction of potential contraction that year. “They’re not going to take the Minnesota Twins away from here, this is our team.”

Gardenhire was a big part of the Twins staying in Minneapolis. Few managers can make the playoffs with a team that’s being considered for contraction, let alone take them to the ALCS. His 6-21 playoff record, however, remains a stain on his otherwise stellar legacy, but given what he had from 2002-09, he definitely overachieved. “It sucks, okay,” said Gardenhire of his playoff record. “I would have loved to have won a World Series, I would have loved to have gone deeper [and] won more games, but it is what it is. You can’t bring those things back, you move forward. We didn’t play well in the playoffs, that’s on my record, I’ll take it, I’ll wear it.”

It’s important to consider that while Gardenhire didn’t have a lot of talent around him during the past four years, even if he had gone to the playoffs, he might still be under scrutiny. But still, the Metrodome was a poor baseball facility, one where balls got lost in the white bubble, seats had to be propped up in center field to create a makeshift batter’s eye and few attended on a sunny day. Even if Minnesota didn’t have much playoff success under Gardenhire’s watch, he often had to compete with big-market teams, especially the New York Yankees, in the first round. Keep in mind, the Twins were once like the Rays and A’s — the plucky team that somehow could take down teams in bigger markets with better venues and larger payrolls. Once they got the new stadium, all excuses were thrown out of the window.

The team he managed from 2010-14 was significantly different. With a publicly-funded outdoor stadium came the expectation that payroll would increase, and with increased payroll came increased expectations. The Twins did not meet them, but it’s hard to fault Gardenhire entirely. He was not given a viable rotation, lacked a shortstop and didn’t have a center fielder that could hit once J.J. Hardy, Ben Revere and Denard Span were traded. He also saw significant injuries to top prospects like Kyle Gibson, Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano who were expected to come up quicker than they did.

Gardenhire is right, the next manager enters a better situation. This is why, perhaps, Ryan feels this is still a premier place to manage. Gardenhire may not have been perfect, but he took the fall for poor decisions made in the front office. “[The] new guy coming in, all he’s gotta do is not lose 90 games,” he joked. “He’ll be good.”

 

Not the second coming of Tom Kelly

I’m not burned out at all. — Gardenhire on the wear of losing

 

It’s easy to compare Kelly’s tenure as manager next to Gardenhire’s and conclude that they are nearly one and the same. Kelly had immediate success, taking over the team in 1986 and winning the World Series in 1987 and 1991. Likewise, Gardenhire replaced Kelly in 2002 after an 85-77 season where things were looking up and made the Twins the team to beat in the AL Central.

On the flip side, Kelly endured losing seasons from 1993-2000 and handed over the reins once Minnesota got better. With the 2-year contract extension he signed before last season, Gardenhire appeared to be doing the same thing. The team is starting to see legitimate prospects make a major league impact: Gibson took a step forward, Trevor May showed signs of promise towards the end of the season, Kennys Vargas was productive after skipping Triple-A, Danny Santana came out of nowhere and Oswaldo Arcia hit 20 home runs.

Even established major leaguers took a step forward: Brian Dozier had a 20/20 season, Trevor Plouffe continues to evolve and Eduardo Escobar looked capable of being an everyday shortstop. And then, of course, there’s Sano, Buxton and pitcher Alex Meyer who are supposed to make the major league roster sometime next year.

Gardenhire won’t get to see these guys blossom under his watch, however. “Well I hope it is: I’m a fan now,” he said. “To see the talent we had this year was fun. These games, playing these teams in playoff contention was fun. That was what I wanted our guys to experience and get a taste of it, because I believe here in the near future they’re going to be right back in the middle of that.”

Don’t equate Gardenhire and Kelly’s situations, however, because Kelly never had a new stadium, a massive payroll or established veterans like Mauer and Glen Perkins. He never got a free agent signing like Phil Hughes, who had a breakout year. On the other hand, he never had to deal with free agent pitching that didn’t (or haven’t) panned out like Ricky Nolasco and Mike Pelfrey, or had to deal with a scrutinized, well-paid superstar like Mauer.

Things changed when the Twins entered Target Field. No longer is this team a scrappy underdog, but a bona fide mid-market club that should spend money and, well, win games.

Finally, it doesn’t look like Gardenhire is done. Remember, he was fired; Kelly stepped down.

“I still love going to the ballpark, I love hanging out with the players, I love hanging out with the clubhouse guys,” he said. “We have a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun this year towards the end. Baseball, once you get on the field and lose the ballgame, that’s when it’s the toughest. But all that leading up to it — the work on the field, all those things — are still a blast.”

While Kelly stayed in the building and is a mentor to younger players; Gardenhire could be coaching against the Twins at some point if he is given a good opportunity. “I’m tired right now, but that’s just because the season just ended, and you’re a little bit mentally and physically beat up,” he said. “But I still love going to the ballpark, I love what I’m doing and if there’s another opportunity, and I think it might be right for myself and my family, I would do that.”

Someone will snatch him up, and while he’s unlikely to have a better situation than he was in with the Twins — his wife, Carol, is from White Bear Lake, and he had perhaps the most patient ownership in baseball — there’s other opportunities out there. Kelly became a Twin for life; Gardenhire might not.

 

Why the 2-year extension?

I feel like he’s my brother, not my manager. — Ryan on his relationship with Gardenhire

 

This is perhaps the most perplexing element of Gardenhire’s tenure with the Twins. The team was highly scrutinized when he got a 1-year extension after his second 90-loss season. “Country club management!” bellowed radio hosts and columnists in the Twin Cities. A single 90-loss season was one thing, Mauer and Morneau were hurt and the results came as a shock after a 94-win season in 2010, but two? And they re-signed him? What the hell was going on over there?

“We gave him a 2-year deal last year because all I did was get hounded after having him on a 1-year deal, as you well remember,” explained Ryan. “I got asked about that about every other day, so I thought there was no sense in having him be a lame-duck guy another year because it caused all kinds of distraction. And if we know one thing about professional sports, the less distraction you can have going on a daily basis on a professional team is a contract. I didn’t want that to happen to him again.”

At the time, the contract made some sense. Minnesota obviously knew they hadn’t put enough talent around Gardenhire, and why fire a coach that had had so much success just because he couldn’t get Triple-A level players to produce at a major league level? The Twins were keeping a proven winner on board, and, for the most part, that move can easily be justified.

But a 2-year contract after the 2013 season? After three straight 90-loss seasons? That caused quite a stir.

It looked like the Twins had shifted all the blame from Gardenhire to team management, and rightfully so. Minnesota had no semblance of a starting rotation and had trouble with runners in scoring position due to serious holes in the lineup. Perhaps Ryan was taking the blame himself and hoping to usher in a new era with a proven manager in tow.

“We’re better; we’re better,” Ryan said of the team’s current talent level. “And the record doesn’t indicate what we have going on. I’m not saying it’s sizable, but we’ve got some pieces here, and Gardy and I both agree: We’re a better ballclub. Sometimes we didn’t win enough games, and sometimes we didn’t put games away, and he’s dependent on exactly what we provide for him.

“I’ll acknowledge that forever, I’m not gonna hide from the talent level.”

The Twins had to think that Buxton and Sano would have been up at some point in 2014, and that Meyer would help supplement a rotation that already had Hughes, Nolasco, Pelfrey and Gibson. It would be logical that they would want to give Gardenhire a chance to coach a complete team and see if he was the guy to bring Minnesota back to prominence.

But to release him after one year? Yes, it was another 90-loss season and yes, perhaps the team needs a new voice. But Buxton and Sano were injured all year, and the pitching rotation still had holes in it. Hell, Meyer wasn’t even called up.

Ryan said the decision was not made because of the decline in attendance and television audience, but this is a business, and the Twins have to put butts in the seats and keep television ratings from bottoming out. Apathy is starting to set in among fans, and sometimes changes have to be made for changes sake.

“I told Terry today, I think this is the right thing,” said Gardenhire, gracious as always. “I’ve been here a long time, I’ve been doing this a long time — sometimes people need to hear a different voice. And, you know what? I have no problem with this. I love it here, I really have no desire to go anywhere else, but life changes, and you have to do things you don’t want to do.”

But then why not bring in the new manager this year? He’d have essentially a honeymoon period, it would have kept the fans engaged — at least at the beginning of the year — and he would have coached Buxton and Sano had they not gotten hurt.

The 2-year deal is confusing in hindsight. Maybe they didn’t want the distraction, maybe they thought this team would win more games and maybe they were just trying to show faith in Gardenhire. But in the end, he was axed, and it’s hard to think anybody could have done much better with the talent he was given.

 

What’s next for the Twins?

There is no Twins Way; it’s the right way. There’s no Twins Way, that’s a fallacy. — Ryan on what he wants to pass on to the next manager

 

Target Field is located at 1 Twins Way. It’s not 1 Twins Boulevard or 1 Twins Street or 1 Twins Circle. That’s not a coincidence. It’s also not 1 Right Way, but the right way is up for interpretation. Regardless, it’s hard to say that the Twins haven’t done things the right way, even if some of their baseball decisions leave something to be desired. They didn’t start Francisco Liriano the day before he was traded, even though he was headed over to the rival Chicago White Sox. They traded Morneau to a contender, even though they didn’t get much in return and it was a major PR hit. And this season, they offered Phil Hughes an opportunity to pitch out of the bullpen to try and get his $500,000 bonus for pitching 210 innings.

“I have always said, ‘I do know, I think, the right way,’” Ryan said after the press conference. “We might have been a little lax in some of the skill, but we tried, it just didn’t end up being the right way. That’s why we’ve lost quite a few games; things got out of whack.”

The key with this transition is not to lose the Twins’ identity, while also allowing new ideas to flourish. The team still should be made up of players they drafted, and they still should be loyal to their guys. Even with the new ballpark, there’s no way they’re gonna have the payroll of teams in bigger cities like New York, Boston or Los Angeles.

Patience has paid off with players like Trevor Plouffe, who was considered Quadruple-A talent when he first came up, and Kyle Gibson who still can be frustratingly inconsistent. Trevor May benefited from the team’s approach, getting over his initial butterflies, and Aaron Hicks showed promise after being brought up too early and getting muddled at the plate.

“It would be nice to get a guy that’s inside because he’d know the workings of this organization, the market and the ballpark and the personnel — that would be great,” admitted Ryan, “but sometimes it’s not meant to be.”

Ryan will pass on the way things are done in the Twins organization, but eventually he may be replaced too. He is not in great health, and while he’s done well with transactions involving position players like Eduardo Escobar, his track record with pitching leaves something to be desired. Hughes worked out, but Nolasco and Pelfrey have not. It’s early yet, but pitching is the main culprit for why the Twins have lost as many games as they have.

“The rotation’s been one of our problems this year,” Ryan said earlier in September. “We got a lot of work to do with that rotation. That’s one of our problems, we overwork our bullpen, put a lot of pressure on our offense, our offense has responded pretty well, and the bullpen was holding it together there for quite a long time.”

Gardenhire never mentioned the rotation on his way out, however, instead thanking the organization for allowing him to manage the team as long as he has. “I agree with this; I think this is the right thing,” he said. “I think they need a new face here, I’ve been here a long time and I’ve been doing it — they’ve given me a great opportunity, but let’s see what happens here.

“I want this organization to win, and you know what? I’ll be rooting just like everybody else.”

Gracious in defeat; something he shouldn’t have experienced as much as he did in Minnesota. The Twins lost a good manager and an even better man on Monday.