Happy Thanksgiving

The years pass along, but my turkey photo lives on.

I've been thinking as this Thanksgiving approached of the zero-sum aspects of baseball. Somebody wins, somebody loses. A manager gets fired, another one gets hired. One player gets released, another gets a chance.

Thinking about Neil Allen, the Twins new pitching coach, a recovering alcoholic who had 11 years in the majors and almost 20 years of being a pitching coach in the minors. I saw a quote from him in the days before his selection became known, something along the lines of It's time for me to get off the buses and back on the airplanes.

The comments from others in the game, including other candidates, when Allen got the job almost always included a variation of He's been through a lot. Yes he has, notably the death (from an aneurysm) in September 2012 of his wife Lisa. Besides being a pitching coach, he's a single father to a 15-year-old son, and in terms of the travel involved in Allen's occupation, it may not matter if he''s on a bus or a jet. It can't be easy.

Thinking, too, of Scott Ullger, who has spent almost his entire adult life in the employ of the Minnesota Twins. Signed as a player out of college in 1977, he got 85 big league plate appearances back in 1983 and hit .190. While the Kent Hrbeks and Gary Gaettis and Frank Violas and Tim Laudners were laying the foundation of 1987's World Series team, Ullger was hitting his ceiling as a player.

He went back to the buses, first to continue playing, then as a manager -- seven years managing farm teams in the Twins system, never with a losing record. He worked his way back to the big leagues as a coach. And he stuck for 20 years in a variety of assignments: Hitting coach, first base coach, third base coach, bench coach.

And now he's 59 and looking for another job. I don't quarrel with the decision to replace Ullger; I have been known to question the value he brought the team, although I recognize that I'm too distant to know what he brought to the table. He's been fortunate to have such a long-term job in such a transient occupation. But now that job is gone, and as a fellow 50-something, I can identify with that.

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.

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.

Scott Ullger's managerial ambitions

Scott Ullger: Will his
managerial ambitions
be fulfilled?

This post from Hardball Talk on the Blue Jays' managerial job springboarded my thoughts into the managerial prospects in the Twins organization.

We know that Scott Ullger wants to be a manager someday. He applied for the Twins job when Tom Kelly retired, even though it was generally assumed that the choice would be between Ron Gardenhire and Paul Molitor. He's had one or two interviews since, but obviously didn't get hired.

This may be a big winter for managerial changes. The Cubs, the Jays, the Braves, the Marlins, the Diamondbacks -- all already have either interim managers or retiring ones. There's widespread expectations that the Mets and Brewers will be changing skippers. Dusty Baker is leaving the door open to leaving Cincinnati. 

I would think that, in an era when the Twins are widely viewed as a model organization, that people like Ullger would be hotter prospects than they are. But I don't see any speculation in that direction out there.

Ullger has been Gardy's fill-in for years, and I assume is the guy who'd take over if Gardenhire got hit by a bus tomorrow. Whether he's really the best long-term managerial candidate in the organization is beyond me.

I'm quite sure that there are plenty of Twins fans who would love to see Ullger land a managerial job elsewhere just to get him out of Minnesota's third-base coaches box. I don't know how much blame for the base running blunders he deserves, but he certainly had a role. 

Not that an erroneous decision to try to score Jason Kubel from first on a double has any bearing on what Ullger offers as a manager.

Out by a mile

The denouement of Sunday's game was another lesson in "be careful what you wish for." I had grumped here that third base coach Scott Ullger was too passive early in Friday's game. On Sunday, J.J. Hardy was ... well, the title to this post says it.

The postgame explanations from the Twins camp are consistent: With the drastic overshift on for Jim Thome, there was no way for Alexei Ramirez to get into position to take the Juan Pierre's throw, and neither Ullger nor Hardy expected Mark Teahen to vacate third base to serve as the relay man.

Hardy, as a shortstop, ought to know something about who handles relays.

I am loathe to criticize Ullger for sending Hardy. When I saw the ball hit the wall, I expected Hardy to be waved home. I did not expect to see an infielder with the ball as Hardy rounded third.

But then, I'm not sure what use Teahen would have been had he stuck to the "expected" role of covering third. The only base there could be a play on that ball was home.

A few points about the play that you won't see in the game stories, because it involves noting weaknesses of players:

*Juan Pierre made a strong throw from the warning track. Teahen may nor may not be the planned relay man; the point is that the throw got to him on the fly. I didn't think Pierre had that in him.

* Ullger may have learned something from that play about Hardy's baserunning speed. Yes, he's a middle infielder; no, he's not a burner. (For that matter, the same is true of Orlando Hudson.)

* Most third base coaches move well down the line to get an angle on the relay and the runner, giving them a chance to put up a late stop sign. Ullger didn't do that. Instead, he hung around third base — and was actually on third base as the play went on.

Jim Margalus of Sox Machine suspects Ullger was trying to fake Teahen into believing that he was the base runner. There's no question: Ullger shouldn't have been where he was. It's illegal.

Oh well. A 5-2 record on this road trip is nothing to be bummed about. My Sunday's post looked on the dark side of the Twins' record; today is henceforth for positive thoughts. It's the home opener, I have tickets, and I will not fret further about baserunning or Jose Mijares.