Molitor no longer the Minnesota Twins manager

 

Derek Falvey Executive Vice President, Chief Baseball Officer of the Minnesota Twins, speaks to reporters during a news conference announcing the firing of Twins manger Paul Molitor at Target Field in Minneapolis Oct 2, 2018. (Photo/Craig Lassig)

A lot of writers have written that they are surprised by the Minnesota Twins move yesterday to fire Paul Molitor as manager and offer him another position in the organization. To me this seemed obvious and surely would have happened at the end of the 2017 season had the Twins not been handed a wild card spot.

Paul Molitor

I am not a fan of Paul Molitor the manager but am a fan of Paul Molitor the player, two completely different things. This move was inevitable, you knew it was coming, just like you know the Sun will rise in the East every day. The only question was when and we got our answer yesterday.

No Head of Baseball Operations wants an inherited manager under his watch, his job depends on that manager. Baseball is like any other business, if the people under you fail then you will fail too. Derek Falvey like most everyone else in his position has a large ego and they want to be surrounded by people who agree with their style and their way of thinking. Falvey seems to have a very hands on managing style and working with a Hall of Famer probably made that more difficult and uncomfortable. Having a coaching staff that was split between loyalty to Molitor and himself compounded the problem. If you can solve that problem for a little over $3 million why not jump on it? Falvey can now feel comfortable being in the position knowing that if he fails now, he has only himself to blame.

I think Falvey and the new manager whomever they select will be in a good place with a young team that will bounce back next season and have a legitimate shot at contention in the weak AL Central Division. They desperately need Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton to succeed if they want to get better quicker. Having said that, remember that neither one of these players was brought into the organization by Falvey. He finds himself in a good spot with these two players because he can reap the rewards if they turn out to be the players that they are expected to be and if things don’t turn out well, he can always say I had no part in bringing them in. Life isn’t fair, get used to it.

It is going to be an interesting next few months for Twins fans. From here on in the ball is in Derek Falvey and Thad Levine’s court, I can’t wait to see if they are up to the challenge. The Twins have built a huge front-office under the Falvey regime and they have more analysts and bean-counters than they can count but in baseball when all is said and done all that really counts is wins, and you need good players on the field to get wins. It is not a game played on the computer with the team with the best analysts winning.

The Twins also let the following people go:

Perry Casstellano – Strength and Conditioning Coordinator
Erik Beiser – Strength and Conditioning Assistant
Alan Rail – Chattanooga Trainer
Chad Allen – AAA hitting coach
Ivan Arteaga – AA pitching coach
Henry Bonilla – Low A pitching coach
Asdrubal Estrada – Dominican Republic hitting coach

Twins minor league player of the week

Miguel Sano Chattanooga 2Chattanooga (AA) infielder Miguel Sano is the Twins Minor League Player of the Week. Sano played in eight games for the Lookouts, hitting .379 (11-for-29) with four doubles, three home runs, eight RBI, three walks and a .438 on-base percentage. After hitting .159 (10-for-63) in 18 April games, he has hit .321 (18-for-56) in 16 May games getting his average up to .235.

Sano just turned 22 a few days ago but he has been in the Twins minor league system since 2010 and is coming off Tommy John surgery which caused him to miss the entire 2014 season. It is good to see the Dominican born Sano start to hit because Twins fans here in Minnesota are still hoping to see the big guy in a Twins uniform sometime this season, hopefully by the time the All-Stars gather in Cincinnati.

Sano impresses hitting coach

Previous winners of Twins POW this season are right-handed pitcher Tyler Duffey, left-handed pitcher Stephen Gonsalves, Byron Buxton and infielder Trey Vavra.

Twins Minor League Report 051715

Twins rookies with 100 or more hits

A quick look at Twins rookies over the years and how many hits they had in their rookie season. To make the list they had to have 100 or more hits in their first season in the big leagues.

Oliva, Tony 6

Rk Player H Year Age G AB R 2B 3B HR RBI SB BA
1 Tony Oliva (RoY-1st) 217 1964 25 161 672 109 43 9 32 94 12 .323
2 Rich Rollins 186 1962 24 159 624 96 23 5 16 96 3 .298
3 Lew Ford 170 2004 27 154 569 89 31 4 15 72 20 .299
4 Kirby Puckett (RoY-3rd) 165 1984 24 128 557 63 12 5 0 31 14 .296
5 Kent Hrbek (RoY-2nd) 160 1982 22 140 532 82 21 4 23 92 3 .301
6 Chuck Knoblauch (RoY-1st) 159 1991 22 151 565 78 24 6 1 50 25 .281
7 Bernie Allen (RoY-3rd) 154 1962 23 159 573 79 27 7 12 64 0 .269
8 Luis Rivas 150 2001 21 153 563 70 21 6 7 47 31 .266
9 Rod Carew (RoY-1st) 150 1967 21 137 514 66 22 7 8 51 5 .292
10 Carlos Gomez 149 2008 22 153 577 79 24 7 7 59 33 .258
11 Tim Teufel (RoY-4th) 149 1984 25 157 568 76 30 3 14 61 1 .262
12 Joe Mauer 144 2005 22 131 489 61 26 2 9 55 13 .294
13 Zoilo Versalles 143 1961 21 129 510 65 25 5 7 53 16 .280
14 Marty Cordova (RoY-1st) 142 1995 25 137 512 81 27 4 24 84 20 .277
15 Butch Wynegar (RoY-2nd) 139 1976 20 149 534 58 21 2 10 69 0 .260
16 Bobby Darwin 137 1972 29 145 513 48 20 2 22 80 2 .267
17 Chad Allen 133 1999 24 137 481 69 21 3 10 46 14 .277
18 Jimmie Hall (RoY-3rd) 129 1963 25 156 497 88 21 5 33 80 3 .260
19 Bob Randall 127 1976 28 153 475 55 18 4 1 34 3 .267
20 Tom Brunansky 126 1982 21 127 463 77 30 1 20 46 1 .272
21 Dan Ford 123 1975 23 130 440 72 21 1 15 59 6 .280
22 Ron Washington 122 1982 30 119 451 48 17 6 5 39 3 .271
23 Cesar Tovar 121 1966 25 134 465 57 19 5 2 41 16 .260
24 Ben Revere 120 2011 23 117 450 56 9 5 0 30 34 .267
25 Gary Gaetti (RoY-5th) 117 1982 23 145 508 59 25 4 25 84 0 .230
26 Jerry Terrell 116 1973 26 124 438 43 15 2 1 32 13 .265
27 Bobby Mitchell 113 1982 27 124 454 48 11 6 2 28 8 .249
28 John Castino (RoY-1st) 112 1979 24 148 393 49 13 8 5 52 5 .285
29 A.J. Pierzynski 110 2001 24 114 381 51 33 2 7 55 1 .289
30 Willie Norwood 109 1978 27 125 428 56 22 3 8 46 25 .255
31 Mark Salas (RoY-8th) 108 1985 24 120 360 51 20 5 9 41 0 .300
32 Corey Koskie 106 1999 26 117 342 42 21 0 11 58 4 .310
33 Lyman Bostock 104 1975 24 98 369 52 21 5 0 29 2 .282
34 Dustan Mohr (RoY-8th) 103 2002 26 120 383 55 23 2 12 45 6 .269
35 Steve Lombardozzi 103 1986 26 156 453 53 20 5 8 33 3 .227
36 Rick Sofield 103 1980 23 131 417 52 18 4 9 49 4 .247
37 Denard Span (RoY-6th) 102 2008 24 93 347 70 16 7 6 47 18 .294
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/10/2014.

Who will be the next Twins rookie to join this list?