Letters From An Idiot: Dear Ron Gardenhire...

Regular season wins and postseason appearance mean jack squat.

We all know that there is only prize that matters. The “Twins Way” has never won that prize. Kill the experiment now.

awesomeness.

Jon is obviously joking, as he’s basically pointing out how empty some of the “Fire Gardy” crowd’s arguments are. When someone then comes and makes an empty comment, for the umpteenth time, yeah, I reserve the right to ask him to go elsewhere if he’s not going to be constructive with his arguments. I’ve had a number of (heated) conversations the last few days with fans who want Gardy fired, but I haven’t asked them to re-direct to the Strib or Rube Chat because they actually had something to say. I appreciate that, because it’s what we’re here for.

At the same time, if somebody out there wants to write a tongue-in-cheek FanPost about how empty some of the “Keep Gardy” points are, they’re welcome to do that.

Also, I’m shocked and a little nervous at the idea that Souhan and I agree on something. I should take him out to dinner sometime.

The point you make about the Twins Way of Developing Pitchers versus getting guys who can miss bats is a good one, because it’s been proven true over the last X number of years that the Twins don’t go after strikeout/power pitchers. It’s evidence of the fact that, yes, something does need to change in regards to The Twins Way. And it does—something needs to change.

Reading Jon’s article annoyed me to no end. While I too believe that Gardy is an excellent manager and should NOT be fired, and while yes, some of the people are indeed over-reacting, the Twins have not one a post season series since ’02, or even won a game since ’04.

Using a .500 baseline winning percentage (not saying the Twins are an average playoff team, just letting the law of averages play out) we should have advanced to the ALCS one out of every two playoff appearances, advanced to the World Series 1 out of 4, and won the World Series 1 out of every 8 appearances. How is that not reasonable to expect?

The have underperformed in the playoffs to an embarrassing degree. The players have changed, hell even the stadiums have changed, but we continue to suck in the playoffs and the only constant is Gardy. Some of the heat he is getting for the playoff futility of the Twins is indeed warranted.

But like I said Gardy is one of the best managers in the American league, and while it is a manager’s responsibility to set the attitude of the team and the attitude of this team come playoff time is really poor, the players deserve as much flak as Gardy. Hell this playoff futility might also be an organizational problem. But to make people that disagree with your opinion of Gardy out to be complete and utter morons is pretty pathetic. It is a low blow. I expected better of you and of the TwinkieTown community.

Apparently we’re one of the top 3 teams in Latin American scouting now days. Unfortunately, those benefits won’t be felt for another 4+ years probably but it’s certainly very encouraging for the future.

I think there’s a lot of merit in the idea of forcing the issue in the playoffs, and to be fair it’s certainly something the Twins haven’t done.

Nice to see you’re still around.

I think this is a good point, although I don’t think it’s quite the “laying down the body to stop a puck” equivalent in the baseball postseason. I think one issue is that Gardy’s even keel approach (along with Mauer, etc), while great for the regular season, does not appear to work for the playoffs. I’m by no means saying we should fire Gardy, but any team certainly needs to step up once the regular season ends, and the Twins simply have failed to do that. Before this year, I thought the problem was a generally young team without a real veteran presence. But with Pavano, Thome, Hudson, etc this year it doesn’t appear to be the case. Which suggests something much more systemic.

I agree completely, Mr. Federer!

1. Again, it slices both ways. How can you say Gardy is responsible for getting the Twins to the playoffs 6 out of 10 years and then exempt him from blame when the Twins fail miserably in the playoffs time and time again?

If it is all on the players in the playoffs, then the players are the only reason that the Twins make the post season and it has very little to do with who is managing them.

2. Gardy is loved by upper management because he doesn’t cause any waves. This is slightly disheartening as well. I’m not saying that a manager needs to throw fits ala Billy Martin or Ozzie Guillen (who for all the criticism proffered here still has something that Gardy does not—a world series ring—granted that this happened prior to him going off the deep-end), but I think someone who challenged the front office on particular issues would be preferable.

how dare he seem complacent?! … oh wait.. isn’t he always sitting stoically like a log? Don’t most managers? When have you ever seen a manager doing anything in the dugout?

No, seriously, I get what you are saying and it often felt like he was not very animated. It’s certainly not his way, but I would think as a manager you would want to show some poise and confidence and fire your guys up a bit.

The TBS announcers (take this with a grain of salt) continually talked during Game 2 about how Gardy was constantly going around to players, saying “we’re going to get them this inning, I can feel it”, etc. So apparently he was cheerleading, but I never saw it on camera.

I dunno, I certainly wouldn’t base Gardy’s demeanor off the few shots of him I saw on TV.

Is this supposed to be sarcastic too…? I hope so.

What about the TF Facebook page?

How does losing to the Yankees again make you feel?

Anything constructive to say except bitching and moaning?

I have no expectations for the Twins. That way, every win is like an extra gift I wasn’t even expecting!

Why should I have expectations over something I have absolutely no control over? If I expect the Twins to win the World Series and they do, yeah! But I’d be happy even if I hadn’t expected that (probably happier, actually). If I expect the Twins to win the World Series and they don’t, I am going to be wasting my time mad over something I had absolutely no control over. That’s just stupid, and rather depressing.

If you’re so sick of the Twins Way and Twins Fans, then get off this message board. We really don’t give a rat’s ass what you think.

A better analogy for the tone of most of us on this site is being proud that your kid graduated with honors, rather than screaming at your kid for not being valedictorian.

You’re pissed off we got swept. We get that. But try setting up actual arguments instead of using insults and straw men. No one here “loves mediocrity.” And believe it or not, people actually do want to win a world series, shocking as that may be to you.

Shows your intellect!

http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/ <—-This site would appreciate comments like that even more!

How big a piece depends on being able to pinpoint his role in the failures. And unfortunately, it’s difficult if not impossible for any of us to identify specific actions without being in the dugout. This year, I can’t point to any crazy decisions Gardy made that caused us to lose. So the only thing is his perceived lack of ability to motivate the players in the postseason or in the regular season against the Yankees. And without first hand insight, I’m not in a position to say this. If Gardy had made a number of terrible decisions with the lineup or pitchers, I’d be all over him. But he pretty much went chalk throughout.

Mauer through Hardy […] had guys on base at key moments and they failed to deliver

should lead anyone directly to:

The blame starts with Gardy

as the Yankees were a superior ball club by pretty much any measure coming in. Even more so since their weaknesses (4-5 starters, long relief), and our pitching depth was minimized with the short series and off days. The Yankees “should” have won, even though the Twins had what appears to be as good a chance as ever to win the series…on paper. However, I don’t think we “should” have gotten swept though…and it’s not like we played well and ended up swept.

Someone press reset and let’s see if this works!

Weren’t doing enough preperation, now they were doing too much?
…

It’s going to be a long winter.

Too slow for even DH and useless in the outfield. Also, zombies have very slow reaction times, a fast ball would get him every time. He also hasn’t played baseball since 1995. We’d be better off with Manny.

At least you tried to be constructive this time instead of pointless bitching. Kudos.

..according to the statements made by our owner this past weekend. But let me entertain your question for a little while, for your satisfaction. I’ll go out on a limb and assume that you’re tired of hearing that Gardenhire has as .550 W/L record as a manager, only one season with a losing record, has won 6 of the 9 division title in his tenure, and has been runner-up in the manager of the year voting 5 times – and these are simply numbers, not to mention being highly regarded throughout all of baseball as one of the finest managers in the majors (just listen to any visiting team’s broadcast of a game against the Twins next chance you have, they WILL bring it up). You’re only focusing on the fact that we’ve lost 12 playoff games in a row, right? 6-21 in postseason play is all you’re focused on?

 OK – got it, you’re upset, we’re all upset. Now since all of the regular season stats have no meaning to you, you’re coming with an argument of “The only thing I can think of is…Gardenhire’s ‘Twins Way’”….

This is your argument?

How is this any more valid than “I think Gardenhire is doing a great job!”?

The fact of the matter is that of all other 13 teams in the American League, the only 4 we lost the season series to were the top 4 in the AL East division, and even then our worst mark was never worse than .333. This team can, and did, beat good teams – including a .700 mark against the Rangers, and the list of other teams we beat in more than 70% of our meetings this year includes the Angels (I know you’re tired of hearing about the Royals and White Sox, so I won’t purposefully shove that in your face). We also won a road series against the WS favorite Phillies. So to think our system is broken, well, I don’t see that argument really holding water.

But that’s not your question, is it – you want to know why we lost to the Yankees. You want to know why we can’t advance past them in the playoffs. Well, I’m sorry chief – I don’t think I can answer that for you, nor do I think anyone else can give satisfactory answers to why we were outplayed by them again either. We just were.

 And to think that the preparation was incomplete – yeah, I’m sure these guys are changing their routines for post-season play after going through 162 (+ pre-season) games….now I’ll admit, I’ve never been in a locker room before a game, I’ve never shadowed a major leaguer’s day during the regular or post-season, I’m just using my own common sense – REALLY? You really think these guys are preparing any differently for the playoffs than they did during the regular season? You think they don’t watch videos of their competition, like this is technology that eludes them, or they don’t see any value in it? Again, I don’t know exactly what they’re doing, but that just sounds pretty naive, now doesn’t it?

They were at least a .500 team against the Yankees this year.

Oh yeah….They didn’t even make the playoffs.

we got Favre’d. :(