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You might have missed it, but the Twins fired GM Terry Ryan on Monday and named Assistant GM Rob Antony as the interim GM. This is kind of important because the trade deadline is just two weeks away, and the Twins should be sellers (big time). It’s now up to Antony to make those deals, and heck, he is also still in the running for the Twins next top general manager.
So who is Rob Antony? What is he about?
First of all, Jesse actually interviewed Rob many times for this website, including earlier this year. You can read Part I of that interview here and Part II of that interview here. Below are some relevant clips from these interviews.
On trading Aaron Hicks for John Ryan Murphy:
It was very difficult because there were a lot of clubs who were in the same boat as us, looking for catching. We thought it was important to strike early, because the free agent market wasn’t really a way to address what we wanted to do – and that was to acquire somebody that was more than just a one-year fix or a band aid. We were looking for somebody that could be around for a while. So when the opportunity came along, we wanted to be aggressive there because it’s hard to pry away young catching a team. Fortunately for us, the Yankees had some depth in that area, and we wanted to try and get something done with them when the opportunity was there, knowing that it would only get more difficult as there were a lot of teams who were going to be in the market for catching.
On not signing free agent relievers (warning—this might enrage you with 20/20 hindsight):
Yeah, I think if the right one or two-year deal had presented itself we might have had interest. But at the same time – a year ago we didn’t have Kevin Jepsen in the bullpen, a year ago we didn’t have Trevor May as an option in the bullpen. Them, along with Casey Fien and Glen Perkins, you start to look and go "Okay, there are four guys at the back end of our bullpen." Guys that we’re comfortable with. Then you’ve got Pressly and Graham and some others that we think would be able to handle that role in the middle innings. So we didn’t want to get too carried away or spend a ton of money and commit a lot of years to guys, when we have in-house guys who we think can be better than those options in the not-too-distant future.
On pitching depth and run-scoring:
We need to score more runs than we did last year. We think our pitching is going to be better this year, there’s more depth in our rotation. We’re comfortable with how the bullpen is shaking out. [Editor’s Note: ouch.]
But we do believe we’re going to score more runs. This is a team that’s going to strike out, but there are also going to be days where we can put up a lot of runs and put together some big innings and some crooked numbers. Extra base hits are a key to scoring multiple runs and improving your offense.
Rob Antony says much more in the interview, which you can read yourself and big out. In addition, Jesse interviewed Antony in previous years, as linked to below:
Twinkie Town 2015 Q&A with Rob Antony: Part I
Twinkie Town 2015 Q&A with Rob Antony: Part II
Rob Antony was not available in 2014