Perhaps now we know why the Twins didn’t give the Orioles permission to interview Mike Radcliff for their GM position last week.
The Twins will be holding a 4:30 pm CT press conference to announce that Terry Ryan will take over as interim GM of the Twins, replacing current General Manager, Bill Smith, according to Tweets from mlb.com Twins beat reporter Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger).
We’ll update this post as more information becomes available, but in the mean time, if you aren’t following Bollinger on Twitter (which you should already be doing, by the way), now would be a very good time to start!
– JC
I never had much confidence in Smith, but this surprises me. And, honestly, I can’t help but feel a little bad for the guy. He’s been the Twins GM for 4 seasons. In the first 3 seasons, his team won or tied for 1st place in the Central (partly because of a weak division, but still). Then his team has one lousy season, and an organization that almost makes a fetish of management stability is giving him the axe?
Yeah, he screwed up the bullpen, and he shouldn’t have traded Hardy (although Gardy deserves share of the blame for that move). He’s made a few moves in previous years that failed to work out, too. Still, nearly everyone seems to agree, including the club mouthpieces, that the team was sunk mostly by injuries and bad luck this season. I’d guess that’s one big reason why Gardy will be back, although this wouldn’t be the first time another club might have found cause to fire him. So it’s a little weird that the Twins are firing the GM for one year of disappointment.
When was the last time that’s happened?
I think Gardy is getting off pretty easy because he clearly played a major role in the moves made last offseason that backfired.
I also get the feeling that the differences between Smith and his bosses had a lot to do with payroll going forward… as in, Smith felt the need to continue spending money and the ownership wants to slash.
Scary thought, actually.