Should Derek Falvey and Thad Levine be looking for a new manager for the Minnesota Twins? I know, I know, they signed him to a new deal after last season right after the Twins made the playoffs after a seven-year absence.
I can’t believe that Paul Molitor is their guy, and they in essence had no choice but to sign Molitor or get run out-of-town. The Twins are playing terribly, way below expectations in spite of good starting pitching. The bullpen started out decent but Molitor’s bullpen management quickly put an end to that.
You can’t put all the blame on Molitor but you can’t get rid of the players so the easiest thing to change is the manager. This team needs new leadership before the problem gets even more serious. The team doesn’t look like it is having fun or even takes the losses very seriously. Come on now, eight walk-off losses in 50 games, that is crazy.
Too many injuries? Every team has injuries, you just need to know how to manage them. Miguel Sano has been terrible so far and I think a part of that is because of Jorge Polanco being out due to suspension and not much can be done about that. Sano and Polanco are best buddies from way back and when I watched them this spring they were like joined at the hip, if you saw one you saw the other.
Falvey and Levine aren’t blameless in this fiasco this year either. If Polanco is out, and Nick Gordon is tearing it up in AA and now hitting well in AAA why not bring him up and see what he can do and see if he can kick-start this anemic offense? It obviously is not breaking any barriers to bring up a guy from AA with little to no time in AAA.
Having said all this, Falvey and Levine deserve a chance to determine their own fate and that is difficult to do if you don’t have “your guy” managing your team. I know that Paul Molitor was a heck of a ballplayer, is in the Hall of Fame and is a local boy made good but that does not necessarily make him a good manager. Thank him for his service and let’s move on. Baseball is about winning, if you can’t do the job, its next man up. I am waiting to see of Falvey and Levine will “man up”.
You can’t solely blame Molitor for this mess of the first 50 games. I do question some of his moves, or lack there of. We should be playing more small ball… get this anemic offense moving by making things happen on the base paths. Lets see how Molitor untangles the mess we are in now. Then we judge whether he has what it takes to be a top-tier manager.