Thread: Beat the Rush: Fire Gardy and Terry Ryan Now!

Originally Posted by mike wants wins

Seth, my brother, the farm system dropped off because of Ryan.....smith acquired some talent as GM. He made two awful trades, but the lack of young players on this team the last few years is all on Ryan. I am grateful that Smith was GM when sano was available, and not Ryan.

Ryan has gutted the payroll, such that adjusted for baseball inflation, it is no higher now than the dome days. He clearly will not sign players, even after promises to ticket holders and tax payers. He willfully ignores numbers, see Correia, for scouting. How many 90 loss seasons and lining the owners pockets should the taxpayers and fans put up with?

I love the strawman of 200 million in another post. If Ryan had spent to 100 million this year, the team would likely be much, much better.

How many years of not using money on payroll, and being awful, should be tolerated before asking for new leadership?

So Terry Ryan sets the Payroll? Ryan might not have Baseball Reasons for not wanting long-term Free Agent Contracts on a 65 Win Team? Whether Kevin Correria was a good signing or not I can't say. I'm also not going to scream the Sky is Falling about his contract.

Originally Posted by mike wants wins

Seth, my brother, the farm system dropped off because of Ryan.....smith acquired some talent as GM. He made two awful trades, but the lack of young players on this team the last few years is all on Ryan. I am grateful that Smith was GM when sano was available, and not Ryan.

Ryan has gutted the payroll, such that adjusted for baseball inflation, it is no higher now than the dome days. He clearly will not sign players, even after promises to ticket holders and tax payers. He willfully ignores numbers, see Correia, for scouting. How many 90 loss seasons and lining the owners pockets should the taxpayers and fans put up with?

I love the strawman of 200 million in another post. If Ryan had spent to 100 million this year, the team would likely be much, much better.

How many years of not using money on payroll, and being awful, should be tolerated before asking for new leadership?

Two horrible trades you are right. Didn't he also sign some guy from Japan? How did that work out? I don't get the Smith love. Lets give him credit when Sano gets to the majors and is a star. I do hope he is a star, but it is a little too early to give a guy credit for signing a kid who has not even landed in AA yet and strikes out over a quarter of the time.

I understand some wanting a change in management. After two bad seasons most teams would have fired the whole front office. The fact that we didn't makes me proud to be a Twins fan.

P.S. Everyone is calling for TR and Gardy's head, but also hate the ownership. So if those guys get fired, who leads the charge and hires new personel? Who is to say that ownership won't mess it up even worse and we are stuck in a pattern of firing guys every two years until we get lucky enough to get a good GM...when TR is as well respected a GM in the league as any. Gardy would be a free agent for like 15 minutes before a team would throw a big salary deal at him...My brother

I don't love Smith, he was bad at his job imo, my point is, the lack of young players on the roster the last three years is on Ryan, because it takes 4-6 years to get to the majors. Blaming the lack of AAA talent and young MLB talent the last few years on Smith is bogus. That is all on Ryan's tenure....not on Smith's tenure. Yet people keep typing "they minors fell off under Smith" and such stuff. Saying AA and AAA were bad under Smith is an indictment of Ryan, not Smith.

Originally Posted by mike wants wins

Seth, my brother, the farm system dropped off because of Ryan.....smith acquired some talent as GM. He made two awful trades, but the lack of young players on this team the last few years is all on Ryan. I am grateful that Smith was GM when sano was available, and not Ryan.

Ryan has gutted the payroll, such that adjusted for baseball inflation, it is no higher now than the dome days. He clearly will not sign players, even after promises to ticket holders and tax payers. He willfully ignores numbers, see Correia, for scouting. How many 90 loss seasons and lining the owners pockets should the taxpayers and fans put up with?

I love the strawman of 200 million in another post. If Ryan had spent to 100 million this year, the team would likely be much, much better.

How many years of not using money on payroll, and being awful, should be tolerated before asking for new leadership?

complaining of strawman arguments while offering one, cute.

Originally Posted by rk83071

While he was out I do recall there were a couple of major transactions that went down that could have really helped this organization if they were handled the right way (santana deal, and letting Torii walk without trying to move him).

Both of those were on Ryan. Torii became a free agent the same offseason Ryan left...so if he was going to be moved, it would be on Ryan. Ryan didn't offer Hunter a deal until August of 2007 and Hunter became a FA at the end of the 2007 season.

Ryan could have signed Santana earlier or traded him while he was still GM. The Luis Castillo trade that Ryan did put the nail in the coffin as far as resigning Hunter or Santana. Santana pretty much said he wasn't going to pitch anymore for us. Yes, Smith could and should have gotten more for Santana, but everyone knew the Twins weren't going to be able to keep him past 2008 anyway, so it's not like we had too much bargaining power to begin with...and that's on Ryan

What was my strawman? Because if I made one, sorry.

Ryan has gutted the payroll, yes, no?
The young talent on the roster takes 4-6 years to make the majors, so that is on Ryan, not Smith.
The team would likely be better if they spent $20MM more on pitching.
Correia was signed due to scouting, not numbers.

I don't disagree with the premise that Ryan and Gardenhire should be fired. If the Twins were going to do that before the 2013 season they would have done it immediately after the season was over.

The dip in talent in the Twins system isn't entirely Bill Smith's fault. Even if you believe TR had basically no meaningful voice in Smith's cabinet, some of the bad drafts and busts in the minor leagues was on TR's watch before Smith even started.

As for Gardenhire, I think that it makes sense to bring in a new manager with all the new players the Twins will have coming up in the next two years. Gardenhire himself came in just when the Twins had an influx of talent.

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Both of those were on Ryan. Torii became a free agent the same offseason Ryan left...so if he was going to be moved, it would be on Ryan. Ryan didn't offer Hunter a deal until August of 2007 and Hunter became a FA at the end of the 2007 season.

Ryan could have signed Santana earlier or traded him while he was still GM. The Luis Castillo trade that Ryan did put the nail in the coffin as far as resigning Hunter or Santana. Santana pretty much said he wasn't going to pitch anymore for us. Ryan could and should have gotten more for Santana, but everyone knew the Twins weren't going to be able to keep him past 2008 anyway, so it's not like we had too much bargaining power to begin with.

Agreed 100%. These situations were created by Ryan's refusal to either sign or trade them, and their belief that he would always play for the future that never came. Their words about why they wanted to leave....

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Ryan could have signed Santana earlier or traded him while he was still GM. The Luis Castillo trade that Ryan did put the nail in the coffin as far as resigning Hunter or Santana. Santana pretty much said he wasn't going to pitch anymore for us. Yes, Smith could and should have gotten more for Santana, but everyone knew the Twins weren't going to be able to keep him past 2008 anyway, so it's not like we had too much bargaining power to begin with...and that's on Ryan

Of course the Twins only had him until 2008 because Ryan might be the only GM that wouldn't love to lock up a 26-year-old left handed Cy Young award winner for more than 4 additional years at a reasonable price.

Originally Posted by nicksaviking

Of course the Twins only had him until 2008 because Ryan might be the only GM that wouldn't love to lock up a 26-year-old left handed Cy Young award winner for more than 4 additional years at a reasonable price.

Do you suppose "reasonable price" is often stated about Santana's salary in Mets' team meetings?

Originally Posted by mike wants wins

Agreed 100%. These situations were created by Ryan's refusal to either sign or trade them, and their belief that he would always play for the future that never came. Their words about why they wanted to leave....

Ryan's actually starting to resemble Charlie Brown. Appearnces aside, Lucy would call them both wishy-washy. Ryan was just too indecisive about these matters, it often seemed he waited for a situation to present itself because he didn't want to be agressive and make a mistake. Usually he waited too long and the window closed.

As for the payroll, the owner and GM have said repeatedly that Ryan can spend what he wants to spend. I can only take them at their word on that.

Gardenhire shouldn't be fired because of the last 2 seasons. He should be fired because of his record against the Yankee's.

Originally Posted by CDog

Do you suppose "reasonable price" is often stated about Santana's salary in Mets' team meetings?

What does his contract with the Mets have to do with it? His previous contract wasn't anything close to the price he required after the 2004 season when he was still working on his first arbitration year and had yet to win his 2nd Cy Young. Ryan bought out three arbitration years and got only one free agency year, he should have extended him six years as I'm sure most other GM's would have.

Originally Posted by mike wants wins

Seth, my brother, the farm system dropped off because of Ryan.....smith acquired some talent as GM. He made two awful trades, but the lack of young players on this team the last few years is all on Ryan. I am grateful that Smith was GM when sano was available, and not Ryan.

Ryan has gutted the payroll, such that adjusted for baseball inflation, it is no higher now than the dome days. He clearly will not sign players, even after promises to ticket holders and tax payers. He willfully ignores numbers, see Correia, for scouting. How many 90 loss seasons and lining the owners pockets should the taxpayers and fans put up with?

I love the strawman of 200 million in another post. If Ryan had spent to 100 million this year, the team would likely be much, much better.

How many years of not using money on payroll, and being awful, should be tolerated before asking for new leadership?

With all due respect, mike wants wins, my brother, I just gotta aske you: given that the Twins drafted in the BOTTOM THIRD of the draft order for a decade; given that the top TEN prospects are the ones that have an astronomically higher chance of becoming really good players (this is empirically supported by many); given that the Twins have NOT had a top ten choice, until last year, since Mauer; given that both times they did, they hit a grand slam in the opinion of almost everyone with Buxton and Mauer; given that the Twins farm system, despite bottom third draft order, has for the most part maintained at least middle of the road calibre according to the rankers all through the lean times; given that the Twins have FIVE DOZENpeole in the scouting and development department, and that Ryan has been very influencial throughout his long tenure with the Twins through lean times and the current fabulous period for the farm system; given that the pre-Target Field budget probably hampered these five dozen pros; given that, like every single other organization, the Twins must live with a few bad decisions (BJ Garbe) and some bad luck (Alex Wimmers?); given the fact that you have absolutely zero grounds for your opinion that Smith should get individualcredit for Sano, andthat Ryan and others deserve NONE; given the fact that, under Ryan this year, The Twins sined the #7 and #22 ranked interational prospects (Minie and Silva);

So, mike, given ALL this, do you STILL want to discredit Ryan by blaming him for a drop-off of the farm system that has NEVER been even remotely as bad as you have characterized it over the last couple years? And exactly how much CREDIT are you graciously extending to Ryan now that the farm system is one of the very very very best?

Do you understand why I think you're choosimg to be unbalanced and unfair in your criticism here? In reality doesn't supprt your opinion on this subject, my brother.

Originally Posted by birdwatcher

So, mike, given ALL this, do you STILL want to discredit Ryan by blaming him for a drop-off of the farm system that has NEVER been even remotely as bad as you have characterized it over the last couple years? And exactly how much CREDIT are you graciously extending to Ryan now that the farm system is one of the very very very best?

I don't accuse Ryan of mistreating the farm to the extent that Mike does, in fact I'll split the credit of the current state of the farm 50/50 between Smith and Ryan, but in his first stint as GM, Ryan almost always shied away from upside arms in favor of safe college pitchers. That did hurt the farm and it's the reason this team has only had two pitchers with anything resembling top of the rotation material this century, and both of those guys were acquired in trades.

Blaming the Twins draft position (bottom third of the draft order since, like, forever!) is lazy, partially incorrect, and nothing but excuse making. Other teams find good players in the bottom of the first round, not to mention the rounds after that.

Ryan deserves credit for the trades....but how much credit does he really deserve for buxton? Had he taken Zimmer or Gausmann, the system would rank the same. That part of the system improvement is on the team sucking at the MLB level. If you will not sign free agents, you need to be better than the other teams at drafting and developing players. You can find good MLB players in the 20s.....if you cannot, then you are not better than the other teams, you are the same or worse. So, if Ryan's strategy is to only build through the draft and trades, his choice, then they need to be better than they have been. Or, you can accept that team's have to be this bad, and live with it.....but if that is the strategy, why are Willingham and Morneau still on the roster?

I do not buy the argument that teams cannot draft good players and develop them later in round 1. Not great, but good players.

I'd like to know which upside arms Ryan passed up on in his first stint as GM that turned into top of the rotation starters. Anyone know?

Originally Posted by USAFChief

Blaming the Twins draft position (bottom third of the draft order since, like, forever!) is lazy, partially incorrect, and nothing but excuse making. Other teams find good players in the bottom of the first round, not to mention the rounds after that.

I'll agree mostly with that but there is a lot of luck involved, particularly past the first round.