Thoughts on the coaching staff

Meet the #MNTwins 2019 Major League Coaching Staff! pic.twitter.com/VlW8UVfUGW

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) November 16, 2018

There's still a coach to be named, but the Twins this weekend largely filled out the coaching staff. A few thoughts:

* The era when coaches were largely the drinking buddies of the manager are clearly past, at least in Minnesota. It appears that the only one of these seven with a previous connection to Rocco Baldelli is Derek Shelton, and he's a holdover who's probably only with the Twins until he can land a managerial job elsewhere.

* A concept the Twins had emphasized a few years ago when restructuring the coaching staff -- positional coaches -- seems to be less of a focus. Last year, for example, Jeff Smith had the catchers, Gene Glynn the infielders and Jeff Pickler the outfielders. There is no former catcher on the staff right now, and Tony Diaz and Tommy Watkins were identified as third-base and first-base coaches respectively.

* Baldelli answered a question at his introductory presser with a brief commentary on the need for a highly diverse coaching staff. This crew has at least three guys with skin too dark to be acceptable in the pre-Jackie Robinson era, two native Spanish-speakers and a career college coach who apparently never played pro baseball. Yeah, this is a staff of varied backgrounds.

* Jeremy Hefner is identified not as "bullpen coach" but as "assistant pitching coach." Perhaps he'll be stationed in the bullpen during games, perhaps not. I rather suspect that the holdup on the final coach is that they'd like it to be Chris Gimenez, and Gimenez is checking to see if there's still a playing opportunity first.   

Mining the colleges

Sources tell @TheAthleticMIN that the #MNTwins will name the University of Arkansas’ Wes Johnson as their new pitching coach. https://t.co/2OKaImkmFN

— Dan Hayes (@DanHayesMLB) November 15, 2018

Updated: Sources say the #MNTwins will hire Wes Johnson as their new pitching coach and Jeremy Hefner will take over as the team’s bullpen coach. Hefner spent the past 2 seasons as the Twins' advanced scout.@DerekWetmore was 1st on Hefner. https://t.co/2OKaImkmFN

— Dan Hayes (@DanHayesMLB) November 15, 2018

Johnson is believed to be the first major league pitching coach to be hired out of the college ranks without serving a minor league apprentanceship first. Such cross-pollination between the pros and college is routine in football and basketball but rare in baseball.

But cross-pollination -- a variety of backgrounds and experiences -- seems to be something this front office is prioritizing. Hefner has pitched in the majors, been a video guy, been an advanced scout. (And is only 32.) 

As for Johnson, this from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's Whole Hog Sports website story on Johnson's departure: 

Johnson is known for developing power pitchers. His two Arkansas staffs finished with a combined 1,238 strikeouts in 133 games, and several Razorbacks saw significant increases to the velocity of their pitches as a result of Johnson's emphasis on lower-body workouts and pitch-mechanic analytics.
At Johnson's urging, prior to the 2017 season Arkansas installed a radar system called TrackMan that records and analyzes 46 data points for pitchers on every pitch.
“If you get into biomechanics, you find out really fast that a pitcher cannot repeat his delivery," Johnson told WholeHogSports in 2017. "You’ve got over 600 muscles in the body. To think that the roughly 240 that we use in pitching are going to fire at the same time - you’ve got a better chance at winning the lottery. TrackMan gives me a chance to show guys a consistent release height and some things we can repeat."

The Twins installed TrackMan at their minor league facilites a few years back, during the Terry Ryan administration. but they are hardly unique in that. 

And that said, none of this has been officially announced yet. As of this morning, the Twins website has changed only the manager on its coaching staff page.

Thoughts on the coaching staff

Derek Shelton didn't land the Texas Rangers' managerial job. That went to Chris Woodward, who had been the bench coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

That obviously improved the Twins' chances of retaining Shelton on their coaching staff. He was Paul Molitor's bench coach last season and, I believe, the guy charged with running things when Molitor was absent.

A few days after Rocco Baldelli was named as Molitor's successor, the Star Tribune reported that most of the 2018 staff had been let go. The only retentions were the hitting coaches, James Rowson and Rudy Hernandez, and, presumably, Shelton. But almost a week after that report, the Twins have made no official announcements, and their website continues to list only one change, Baldelli as manager.

Presumably they are waiting to make the new staff known when they have all their hires made.

But let's say that Shelton is returning to the staff. Teams hiring a competely novice manager -- such as Baldelli -- frequently supplement him with an older bench coach with a deeper managerial background who can serve as a mentor and advisor. Shelton doesn't quite fit that prototype, although he is a about a dozen years older than Baldelli.

And that, beyond Shelton's unsuccessful managerial candidacy, might be part of the holdup. Do the Twins want to fit Shelton into a different role -- and how would that a different role sit with Shelton himself?

Shelton came to the Twins off a job in Toronto as "quality assurance coach," which, as it happens, was the same title Baldelli had in Tampa Bay last season. Shelton, who was open about his managerial ambitions, took the Twins job because he thought the bench coach job was a step up and a useful addition to his resume. I don't know if he would welcome a similar assignment a year later.

Clearing the coaches

The Twins didn't make any official announcments, but the Star Tribune reported Tuesday that most of the coaching staff under Paul Molitor won't be back.

Specifically gone are:

• Third base coach and infield instructor Gene Glynn
• Pitching coach Garvin Alston
• Analytics liason and outfield instructor Jeff Pickler
• First base coach and catching instructor Jeff Smith
• Bullpen coach Eddie Guardado

Returning are the two hitting coaches, James Rowson and Rudy Hernandez. And while management reportedly wants to retain bench coach Derek Shelton, who was a finalist for the managerial job that went to Rocco Baldelli, Shelton is apparently a candidate for the manager;s job in Texas.

I'm most surprised to see Pickler and Alston axed; they were brought into the organization by the Derek Falvey-Thad Levine regime, and Alston got just one year in the job. Glynn, Guardado and Smith were in the organization before Falvine arrived, and in that sense their departure two years in is of a piece with Molitor's ouster. But Guardado is a longtime fan favorite, and Glynn is from my part of the state, and I dislike seeing either ousted.

But just as managers are hired to be fired, so are coaches. Glynn has been a coach or manager, in the majors or minors, with five organizations (Montreal, Colorado, San Francisco, Cubs, Minnesota); his reputation is such that I suspect he won't be jobless for long.

---

The Twins officially declined their options on Logan Morrison and Ervin Santana, two veterans who had injury-wrecked 2018s. Neither move is any sort of surprise.

Contemplating Butch Davis

A few hours after I posted these thoughts on the division of labor on the new Twins coaching staff, the team announced the hiring of Butch Davis to be the first base coach, completing the crew.

He has the three characteristics I proposed for the job: He's a former outfielder, he's black, and while his major league record doesn't show it, he had a pair of 40-steal seasons in a long minor league career, so he knows something about that aspect of the game.

Davis is a true outside hire. He's been toiling in the Orioles farm system for 20 years, was never a member of the Twins organization, was never a teammate of Paul Molitor's.

Davis had a odd career. His minor league record says he was a player. He began his big-league career with a bang -- he hit .344 in a 33-game callup with Kansas City in 1983 -- and then fizzled. In 1984, almost the same number of at bats, he hit .147. It was almost a decade before he got another 100 major league at-bats, and by then he was 35.

Davis hit .299 in more than 3,500 Triple A at-bats, but just .243 in 453 major league at-bats. The difference between the levels isn't that great. He had a shot in '84 to take a job and run with it, and his shoelaces were tied together at the starting line. He never really got a shot after that.

Aaron Hicks has gotten more opportunity with less reason than Davis.

The coaching roles

A couple of winters ago, when the Twins dismissed half of Ron Gardenhire's underlings (Steve Liddle, Rick Stelmaszek and Jerry White) and reassigned two-thirds of the holdovers, the front office called the new jobs for Joe Vavra and Scott Ullger "infield coordinator" and "outfield coordinator" respectively.

It took a while for most of us to realize that they were also to be the base coaches during games, Vavra at third base and Ullger at first. (That arrangement decayed during the 2014 season because Vavra's hip went bad; for much, maybe most, of the year Ullger coached third and Paul Molitor first.)

This offseason, Gene Glynn was announced as the third base coach, Back to the established nomenclature, it appears.

Glynn was an infielder during his playing days, and he made his rep as a roving infield instructor for the Montreal Expos. I rather expect that he will inherit the infielders duty from Vavra, and that the next first base coach will be handed the task of finding a defensive outfielder in Oswaldo Arcia.

Molitor, as bench coach, was in charge of the defensive shifts the Twins employed in greater number last season, and Molitor made it clear in his introductory presser as manager that the shifts will continue. But Molitor's old job has been converted to an assistant hitting coach. I figure he'll delegate the shift work to new bench coach Vavra.

So as the Twins seek to complete the coaching staff, I would expect the final piece to be:

• a former outfielder;
• preferably with some base-stealing expertise; and
• preferably non-white, to increase the staff diversity.

That's a combination that almost has to come from outside the organization.

Goodbye, Swarzak

Anthony Swarzak
has a career ERA
of 4.48.

The Twins on Tuesday outrighted Anthony Swarzak to Triple A. That move took him off the 40-man roster and gave the former second-round draft pick the right to declare free agency, which he is expected to do.

It was time for the Twins to move on. Swarzak has averaged more than 90 innings of work in each of the past four seasons, and he's been unable to establish himself in any sort of truly useful role.

In what Baseball Reference defines as "high leverage" situations over his career, Swarzak has allowed a batting average of .308 and an OPS (On-base Plus Slugging) of .823. In "low leverage" situations, those numbers improve to .262 and .724.

Yes, Swarzak ate up a lot of innings in long relief. But they were innings that didn't matter in terms of winning games, innings that he worked because the starter failed. Good teams -- the kind of team the Twins want to be -- don't need 90-plus innings of mop-up work. And Swarzak never worked his way out of that role. Given a chance to start, given a chance to pitch in game situations, he almost always faltered.

And now, going into his second year of arbitration eligibility, he figured to get a salary around $1.4 million if retained. That's way too rich for a mop-up guy. They can fill that role with somebody cheaper.

The Twins now have 39 players on the 40-man roster. The open slot might be used in the Rule 5 draft in a couple of weeks. Or it might be filled with a free agent signing.

---

The Twins also on Tuesday officially announced the hirings of Neil Allen, pitching coach, and Eddie Guardado, bullpen coach, moves already widely reported. They also announced that Joe Vavra will be retained from the Ron Gardenhire staff; he'll be the bench coach.

This was not anticipated at all. I had expected that the bench coach would be a elderly ex-manager assigned to whisper strategic advice into Paul Molitor's ear. Or, alternatively, a young, analytics-savvy up-and-comer. Vavra doesn't fit either stereotype.

Adding to the bafflement was that Vavra's duties will apparently include catching instruction. Vavra's playing background was as a middle infielder. He certainly hasn't the catching pedigree of Terry Steinbach (who will not be retained). And if Steinbach couldn't smooth out Josmil Pinto's defensive flaws, I doubt Vavra can.

There remains one coaching job to fill, first base coach/outfield instructor.

Neil Allen, pitching coach

Neil Allen's 1987 baseball
card. Allen went 58-70,
3.88 with 75 saves
in 11 MLB seasons.

The Twins haven't made a formal announcement, but it was widely reported during the weekend that Neil Allen has been hired as the pitching coach.

Allen pitched in the majors for 11 years for five teams, seeing time both as a starter and as a reliever. He has no previous connection to the Twins and was never a teammate of Paul Molitor's. He's about as much an outside hire as you can get.

What I remember of Allen from his pitching days in the 1980s is that he was the major piece the St. Louis Cardinals got from the New York Mets when Whitey Herzog decided Keith Hernandez was too coked-up and had to go. As I remember it, Allen wanted to be a reliever, Herzog wanted him to be a starter, and the fans wanted him to be Keith Hernandez. It didn't go well.

The Twins hired him out of the Tampa Bay organization, where he's been the pitching coach at Triple A Durham and helped shepherd a string of pitchers to the major leagues.  He's also worked in the Toronto and Yankee organizations, with one season (2005) as the Yankees bullpen coach.

Hiring Allen probably doesn't mean a conscious effort to move away from the throw-strikes-and-let-the-defense-get-the-outs approach. No pitching coach advocates walking hitters. But I expect that the Twins will walk more hitters going forward. The team has been uncommonly low on walks throughout Rick Anderson's tenure as pitching coach, and practically every significant pitcher on his staffs had higher walk rates with other organizations. I have absolutely no doubt that Anderson is part of that. The question is whether Twins pitchers will have higher strikeout rates under a different coach.

For what it's worth, Durham last year was middle of the pack in the International League in walks allowed.

At this point the Twins have filled five of the seven coaching slots:

Pitching coach: Allen
Bench coach: (Vacant)
Third base coach: Gene Glynn
First base coach: (Vacant)
Hitting coach: Tom Brunansky
Asst. hitting coach: Rudy Hernandez
Bullpen coach: Eddie Guardado

Gene Glynn, the coaching staff and the minor league managers

Gene Glynn wears a Rochester Red Wings cap while
visiting the baseball park in his native Waseca before
spring training in 2013. (Free Press photo by Pat Christman)

The Twins on Wednesday announced two hires for the major league coaching staff, Waseca native Gene Glynn will be the third base coach and Rudy Hernandez will be assistant hitting coach.

Two points about Hernandez before I move on to Glynn.

• Hernandez is a 14-year veteran of the minor league system and a native of the Dominican, which makes him, I believe, the first native Spanish speaker on the coaching staff since Tony Oliva retired. 
• The "assistant hitting coach" title is new to the Twins, but it's pretty much the norm for the "seventh coach" around baseball. Teams were permitted seven uniformed coaches starting in 2013. (The number is capped because uniformed coaches accrue service time in the pension plan.) The Twins didn't add the seventh coach until 2014 (Paul Molitor) and gave him different duties. Now they're joining what has emerged as the conventional alignment.

Glynn, of course, is the headline hire here. He's been the manager at Triple A Rochester the past two years and was interviewed last month for the managerial job that went to Molitor. Now he'll be on the major league coaching staff and, as is the fate of all third base coaches, blamed by fans every time he sends a runner who gets thrown out and every time he holds a runner who never scores.

I presume Glynn will also have a hand in infield instruction, his forte for years in the Montreal Expos farm system. And he has several years of experience as a scout with Tampa Bay, which I find intriguing because I've long had doubts about the Gardenhire staff's aptitude for evaluating current ability.

Glynn has also been working for a few winters now as a coach in the Venezuelan Winter League, which leads me to believe that, while not a native Spanish speaker, he probably has some ability in that language. 

The Twins still have four coaching slots to fill: Pitching coach, bullpen coach, bench coach and first base coach.

With Glynn moved to the big league staff, the Triple A job is open. A popular theory has Doug Mientkiewicz ticketed for that position. That may happen, but I think the organization would be better off with Mientkiewicz at Double A Chattanooga, which is where Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, Jose Barrios, Jorge Polanco and a host of other important prospects figure to open 2015. Chattanooga figures to be the most important job in the farm system. 

The estimable Seth Stohs thinks Jake Mauer, who has run teams at three levels for the Twins, is a likely successor to Glynn in Rochester. I can see that. The Twins have also gone outside the organization repeatedly for Triple A managers, and that might well be the route they take. 

Putting together a coaching staff

Tom Brunansky
will be the hitting
coach again in
2015. It is apparently
a one-year deal.

The Twins on Thursday announced that Tom Brunansky will be kept on as hitting coach. One coach hired, six to go.

Bruno was probably the one incumbent most likely to be retained, but there are a couple others I can imagine returning. And couple I can't imagine being back, those being Rick Anderson and Scott Ullger.

Let's sort things out a bit:

Pitching coach: Probably the most crucial of the seven, especially considering that new manager Paul Molitor has never handled a pitching staff.
Bench coach: On some teams a sounding board on in-game moves, often the liaison between the analytic department and the manager.
Bullpen coach: On many teams, an assistant pitching coach. That was likely the role played the past two years by Bobby Cuellar; his predecessor, Rick Stelmaszek, was probably more of a coach to the catchers.
Hitting coach: Brunansky, of course.
Third base: Traditionally the first assistant manager, many of those roles have moved to the bench coach. The Twins the the past couple of years designated Joe Vavra as "infield coordinator,"
First base: Frequently involved in working on base stealing. Ullger was designated "outfield coordinator."
???: The seventh coach in many organizations has been turned into an assistant hitting coach. The Twins have not applied that designation to a coach. Molitor last year was entrusted with defensive positioning and baserunning; roles during the games were juggled because of Vavra's midsummer hip replacment surgery. What role the seventh coach would have under Molitor is unknown.

A few names, hardly comprehensive, to watch in all this:

Rick Renteria, ousted last week by the Chicago Cubs as manager to make room for Joe Maddon, might be a logical choice for bench coach. He's managed in the majors and minors, he's bilingual, he's available and he's already getting paid manager money by the Cubs.

Chris Bosio's 1987 Topps
card. He made his major
league debut in 1986/

Chris Bosio, currently the pitching coach of the Cubs, was a longtime teammate of Molitor in Milwaukee. While he still has two years on his contract in Chicago, Maddon may want his own guy in the role.

Frank Viola, 1987 World Series MVP and 1988 Cy Young winner with the Twins, has been working as a pitching coach in the Mets system for years.

Cuellar is an experienced pitching coach, is bilingual and might be a fit in either his current job or as Rick Anderson's replacment.

Doug Mientkiewicz was reportedly unhappy at being passed over for the big-league job. I suspect the organization will be better served if Dougie Alphabet is the manager at Double-A to guide the likes of Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano and Eddie Rosario, but it's possible they might put him on Molitor's staff.

Gene Glynn, another internal applicant, could be a fit at any of three spots -- bench, third base, first base. He has particular expertise in infield coaching, and if Danny Santana is to be the shortstop, there's a lot of work to be done there.

Eddie Guardado strikes me as a possible bullpen coach.

I don't see Jack Morris as the pitching coach. He lacks Viola's experience at working with a staff full-time. And given Molitor's complete inexperience in that aspect of the game, I would expect experience to be considered a necessity.

About the coaching staff

Terry Steinbach:
Manager, coach or
moving to Arizona?

When the Twins dismissed Ron Gardenhire as manager on Monday, they also put the seven coaches "in limbo." They have contracts through this calendar year, but no assurance that they will be on the new skipper's coaching staff.  Terry Ryan said Monday that he will not block any of them from moving on to another interested team in the meantime.

It should be said that managers no longer have the final say over their coaches, as they once did. That is one of many battles front offices have fought and won over the dugout bosses. Managers do have some say over coaches -- probably most strongly over pitching coaches -- but the general managers have the final say. It's no longer enough to be the manager's drinking buddy.

It wasn't Ron Gardenhire's idea to bounce Jerry White and Rick Stelmaszek for Tom Brunansky and Bobby Cuellar two years ago, after all.

I rather expect some of the seven coaches to remain on the Twins staff. Indeed, were I involved in the hiring process, I would need a really strong reason to go with a candidate who intended to replace Brunansky or Paul Molitor.

Let's go down the list and take a guess at their fates:

Rick Anderson, pitching coach: Can't see that he's returning. Ryan will almost certainly let his new manager have his pitching coach of choice. And it may well be that even if Anderson is the pitching coach of choice (if, say, Molitor or Steinbach gets the job), that Ryan will strongly suggest that a different coach be chosen.

Tom Brunansky, hitting coach: I want him to stay. The improvement of the Twins hitters from 2013 to 2014 was impressive. I can't prove that Bruno was responsible for that improvement, but the improvement was there.

Bobby Cuellar, bullpen coach: Might be considered for the pitching coach job. Might be kept as bullpen coach, Might be cut loose. My guess is he stays in the bullpen job. Sole Spanish speaker on the current staff, so naturally he was as far from the Latin contingent as possible.

Paul Molitor, baserunning/defensive positioning/first base: Conventional wisdom has him as the front runner for the managerial job. The interesting puzzle is: What if somebody else gets the top job? Would the Hall of Famer be willing to serve on a Doug Mientkiewicz staff? I hope so.

Terry Steinbach, bench coach: Also seen as a managerial candidate. The New Ulm native has also been connected to the Arizona Diamondbacks, where Tony LaRussa has installed Steiny's old Oakland battery mate, Dave Stewart, as a (relatively weak) general manager and is now looking for a new manager. Manager or coach, I expect Ryan to want to keep Steinbach; if the D'backs make a rapid offer, that might not be an option.

Scott Ullger: Jack of all
coaching trades,
master of none.

Scott Ullger, outfield/first base/third base: Can't see that he's returning. Ullger has been around since the Tom Kelly regime and has been given a variety of assignments over the years: Hitting coach, first base, third base, dugout, fill-in manager, outfield defense. He didn't do any of them so well that he kept the responsibility for long. Ullger has long struck me as the most dispensable member of the staff.

Joe Vavra, infield/third base: Longtime hitting coach, had hip replacement surgery during the season and spent most of the second half in the dugout. My guess is that he'll be offered the minor league hitting coordinator job he held before Brunansky was elevated to the major league job. (The Twins early in September dismissed Bill Stoneman, who had held the minor league coordinator post for eight years.)

Bottom line: Even if one of the current coaches is chosen Gardenhire's successor, I expect substantial turnover on the staff this winter. The relative stability that accompanied Gardenhire's assent 13 years ago is not going to be repeated.

A seventh coach

When Ron Gardenhire's contract extension was announced Monday, Terry Ryan said the six coaches were all "invited," and expected, to return. But a seventh coach is likely to be added, and some duties may be shuffled as a result.

Presumably somebody will be a second, or assistant, hitting coach, a growing trend around the majors. Of course, the Twins have, besides incumbent hitting coach Tom Brunansky, two coaches who have held the hitting coach position already in Joe Vavra and Scott Ullger. Their current job descriptions are infield instructor/third base coach (Vavra) and outfield instructor/first base coach (Ullger). 

The infield defense was much better this year than the previous two years. Trevor Plouffe, while still no threat to win a Gold Glove, was improved at third base. Pedro Florimon committed too many errors but showed impressive skills. And Brian Dozier was a revelation at second base. All of this suggests that Vavra did well at his new assignment.

The outfield defense, on the the other hand, was quite poor, and Ullger's background as a player (primarily first base) never suggested that he was particularly qualified to pass on the nuances of outfield play. 

I can imagine Ullger moving again to hitting coach chores and the new guy, whoever it may be, getting the outfield instruction duties.

However the Twins assign duties, I hope that a priority will be hiring a native Spanish speaker. The Twins had a number of young Latinos on their roster this year with limited grasps of English (Oswaldo Arcia, Florimon, Josmil Pinto) and they have more Latinos on their way up (Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario, Jose Barrios). These are not bit players. A Spanish-speaker who's in the dugout and dealing with position players (a description that does not apply to bullpen coach Bobby Cuellar) figures to be valuable.

That priority, to be sure, doesn't leave room on the major league staff for some otherwise likely in-house candidates: Paul Molitor, Gene Glynn, Doug Mientkiewicz, Jake Mauer. But it might be a good idea for the Twins to go out of the organization for once anyway. 

New trends in the dugout, Part II

Wally Joyner, who hit .289 in a
16-year career, will be an
assistant hitting coach for the
Philadelphia Phillies next year.

Major league teams are permitted up to six full-time uniformed coaches. The limit appears to be motivated by the fact that the uniformed coaches are eligible for and piling up pension eligibility.

Less obvious to many of us on the outside is what exactly these coaches do. Since the sixth coach became the norm back in late 1990s, most teams have identified a coach as the "bench coach." Pitching coach, hitting coach, third base coach, first base coach, bullpen coach, bench coach.

The duties of two are obvious in the title; the bullpen coach, I suspect, is largely there in order to have an authority figure hanging out with the relief corps; the base coaches generally have other duties than waving at baserunners, but they can differ from team to team. (I assume that's why the Twins last month identified the new duties of Scott Ullger and Joe Vavra as outfield/baserunning instruction and infield instruction, respectively.)

And the bench coach? His duties are even more vague.

This fall, a number of teams have turned to identifying a coach not as bench coach but as "assistant hitting coach."

• The Kansas City Royals, having fired hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, hired Jack Maloof as hitting coach and Andre David (who played for the Twins in 1984 and '86) as assistant hitting coach.
• The Los Angeles Dodgers hired Mark McGuire as hitting coach and John Valentin as his assistant.
• The Boston Red Sox haven't hired any hitting coach for 2013, but they intend to have two.
• The Philadelphia Phillies have Steve Henderson and Wally Joyner as his assistant.
• The Tampa Bay Rays were at least considering such a move. (This link is particularly useful for detailing a rationale for two hitting coaches.)

The Twins aren't following this trend -- officially. Terry Steinbach is listed as catching instructor/bench coach.  But they do have two former hitting coaches on their staff in Ullger and Vavra, and new hitting coach Tom Brunansky has suggested that Vavra, who held the job last season, will be helpful to him.

The revamped coaching staff

Terry Steinbach (background) has worked with catchers
in spring training for several years, but now will be a
full-time coach.

There will be a native of southern Minnesota on the 2013 Minnesota Twins coaching staff — just not the one generally expected.

Gene Glynn of Waseca will remain the manager at Triple A Rochester. Terry Steinbach of New Ulm will be the bench coach/catching instructor.

The Twins announced the new staff Monday, and the rest of it shaped up more or less as projected once three of the incumbents were cut loose:

• Rick Anderson remains the pitching coach;
• Scott Ullger (bench coach), earlier designated the outfield instructor, will be the first base coach during games and presumably remains the manager-designate when Ron Gardenhire is ejected;
• Joe Vavra (hitting coach), earlier designated the infield instructor, will be the third base coach;
• Tom Brunansky (Triple A coach) will be the hitting coach; and
• Bobby Cuellar (Triple A coach) will be the bullpen coach.

When the Twins started this process the day after their season ended, I suggested two specific areas that I thought could use shoring up:  Somebody fluent in Spanish, and an experienced infielder to work on infield defense. Terry Ryan, the Twins general manager, also cited the language aspect, mentioning that two in-house shortstop options (Pedro Florimon and Eduardo Escobar) have relatively little English.

Vavra was a middle infielder in his playing days, and presumably he fits the latter bill.

Cuellar is described as fluent in Spanish. That's a step up from the previous staff, but I think it's fair to question how useful a Spanish-speaking bullpen coach will be in communicating with a couple of middle infielders. Florimon and Escobar aren't in Cuellar's area of responsibility, and Cuellar won't be in the dugout during games.

I also think it's fair to question Ullger as the successor to Jerry White as outfield/baserunning instructor; White was a speed-oriented outfielder in his playing days and Ullger wasn't. Ullger's presence on the staff strikes me as more about giving Gardenhire a No. 2 he's comfortable with than about specifically improving his assigned area.

What the Twins didn't do may be as significant as what they did do: They essentially made their coaching changes from within. Cuellar has been in the Twins organization for years (and has had major-league coaching gigs in Seattle, Texas and Pittsburgh as well); Brunansky has been in the Twins system for three seasons, working his way up the minor league ladder as a coach; and Steinbach has been a spring-training staple in Fort Myers since ending his playing career.

Staying in-house rather than going outside may not please those convinced that the "Twins Way" is outdated, but it fits Ryan's history.

Infield flies, wild cards and coaching changes

Umpire Sam Holbrook embarrassed himself Friday with a
wrong-headed infield fly ruling. Atlanta fans embarrassed
themselves by trashing the field.

My take on the bizarre infield fly ruling in the eighth inning of Friday's National League wild-card game:

I think the St. Louis shortstop, Pete Kozma, was trying to deke the runners into believing he would catch the fly ball. Whether he deceived the runners or not, he got something better: the umpire bit.

Kozma headed out to left field after the ball, stopped facing the infield and waved his arms as if trying to warn off the left fielder. His actions, I believe, led left-field umpire Sam Holbrook to make the call. But Kozma wasn't within five feet of where the ball hit when it landed, and he was already dashing in to the infield.

Holbrook insisted after the game that he got the call right and that his colleagues agreed with him. I'm not buying that. He got fooled.

---

One of my colleagues suggested to me that the one-game wild card format is unfair to the teams. My response: If they won't want to be in that situation, they should win their division title.

A longer wild card series would be unfair to the division winners, who would have to sit around and wait for the wild card teams to get done. This format rewards teams for finishing first. Bravo for that.

---

I surmised in Friday's post that the reassigned Twins coaches, Scott Ullger and Joe Vavra, were going to be working in the minor league system. Not so. They remain on the major league coaching staff, but with different duties.

I have several thoughts on what Terry Ryan had to say Friday, not all of them complementary, but I plan to devote the Monday print column to the topic, so I won't delve into the topic here.

The coaching chopping block

Joe Vavra, on the job
for seven seasons, was
the newbie on the
coaching staff.

It was quite the purge at Target Field on Thursday, the day after the Twins completed a second-straight season with the worst record in the American League.

By the time Terry Ryan finished meeting one-on-one with the coaching staff, only manager Ron Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson were left in their accustomed positions — and they on one-year deals.

Bullpen coach and spring-training scheduler Rick Stelmaszek, who joined the coaching staff while the team was still playing at Metropolitan Stadium, was the first to get the ax — and when that word broke, the implications were obvious. If Stelly was getting pushed out, nobody was safe.

Rick Stelmaszek
had been with the
Twins for 32 years.

Also gone: third base coach Steve Liddle, first base coach Jerry White, and trainer Rick McWane. Bench coach Scott Ullger and hitting coach Joe Vavra are being reassigned to outfield instruction and infield instruction respectively; these do not figure to be major league positions, but I suspect we'll get a fuller spelling-out of things today, when Ryan, owner Jim Pohlad and team president Dave St. Peter meet with reporters.

This kind of purge is fairly common with other organizations, but not with the Twins. Even when the managers changed under Pohlad ownership, the coaching staffs remained largely intact.

Scott Ullger, at
various times, has
been the first base
coach, the hitting
coach, the third base
coach and the
bench coach.

From my perspective, the coaching staff the past several years has had two significant omissions: First, there was no native Spanish speaker. I suspect that part of the problem the Twins have had with such players as Francisco Liriano, Carlos Gomez and Alexi Casilla has been communication.  Second, the only infielders on the staff since Al Newman was fired after the 2005 season were the manager and the hitting coach, neither of whom should be expected to be focused on making sure the shortstop is properly positioned or on refining the second baseman's pivot.

Removing five of the six coaches opens plenty of opportunity for new faces. It is being widely assumed that the Triple A staff — Gene Glynn, Bobby Cuellar and Tom Brunansky — will be brought in, and Paul Molitor has apparently indicated an interest in returning to the coaching staff, which he left when Gardenhire became manager.

Let's see:

Jerry White had the
longest major league
playing career on
the staff: 11 seasons.

Manager: Gardenhire
Pitching coach: Anderson
Bench coach: Molitor (replacing Ullger)
Hitting coach: Brunansky (Vavra)
Third base coach: Glynn (Liddle)
First base coach: ? (White)
Bullpen coach: Cuellar (Stelmaszek)

Glynn and Molitor are former infielders, so that concern of mine is met. I don't know that the Spanish speaker concern is. 

Molitor would likely become the backup manager, a role Ullger has filled under Gardenhire — taking over after ejections or if Gardy is ill. And if the belief that Gardenhire is now on a short leash is correct, Molitor might be the new manager in waiting.