Notes, quotes and comment

The signing of Jason Castro became official Wednesday. The Twins now have a full 40-man roster and have the first pick in the upcoming Rule 5 draft, so we should expect a deletion shortly.

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The Rule 5 draft is held at the end of the winter meetings, and there had been rumblings that the meetings would be called off if there was no labor agreement; Wednesday was the last day of the expiring pact. But the deal was announced late Wednesday.

Details were still trickling out during the night, but some notable tweaks to the major leagues as we know them:

• The season will open five days earlier than "usual," giving the players a handful of extra days off during the season. This is not necessarily good news for fans in northern climes (like me), but the bizarre travel patterns created in part by an ever-increasing number of teams (expansion and interleague play) to fit into a 162-game schedule were a quality and health issue.
• Smokeless tobacco is banned, with current users grandfathered in. So the chaws and snuff may be gone from the game in my lifetime, depending on how long I live.
• The All-Star Game will no longer determine home field in the World Series. Proof that Bud Selig really is retired and not running things from behind the curtain.
• There will be no international draft. This is the first instance I can think of in which the players union didn't sell out the amateurs who will someday be union members but are now merely future threats to their individual jobs. Good job. union.
• The roster rules remain as they were: 25 March through August, 40 in September. Good; I don't care to see 14-man pitching staffs.
• The free agent compensation rules got still more complex. They already made my head hurt.
• The 15-day disabled list becomes a 10-day disabled list. My brain still occasionally latches onto the old 21-day DL, so I may have a long time fully adjusting to 10. 

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Terry Ryan is moving on. He joined the Phillies as a special assignment scout, so he's reunited with Andy MacPhail, the man who brought him to Minnesota about 30 years ago.

I wouldn't have minded seeing Ryan remain with the Twins in such a capacity, but I also understand the rationale behind going elsewhere.

Today it begins

"It" being a new era in Twins history. In terms of running the operation, there have been two distinct eras: The Calvin Griffith years (1961-1984 or '86) and the MacPhail/Ryan years (1986-present).

Griffith transplanted a uniquely bare-boned, nepotistic operation from Washington to Minnesota. He was primary owner and served as his own general manager. A brother, Sherry Robertson, ran the farm system for years; two other brothers and a brother-in-law were also team executives. (The siblings were nieces and nephews of Clark Griffith, who had no offspring of his own; he formally adopted the oldest boy and the oldest girl but was guardian to the others as well.)

When Carl Pohlad purchased the franchise during the 1984 season, Howard Fox, one of the few non-relatives in Calvin's inner circle -- death had thinned his generation down down -- became general manager. He didn't hold the position long. Andy MacPhail was named general manager in 1985, spent 1986 getting a handle on things, and that offseason drastically reshaped the operation, bringing in Bob Gebhardt from the Expos as assistant general manager, Terry Ryan from the Mets as scouting director and promoting Tom Kelly as field manager.

And the Twins promptly won the World Series the next year (famous Gebhardt line: "We were just trying to get organized and we won the World Series") and did it again in 1991. Gebhardt left to become the first general manager of the Colorado Rockies. MacPhail left after the 1994 season to become president of the Chicago Cubs, and Ryan inherited the big job and held it, with the exception of 2008-11, when he stepped aside and Billy Smith was general manager.

Today Derek Falvey and Thad Levine are to be introduced as chief baseball officer (Falvey) and general manager (Levine). Presumably the operation is to get another face lift. We'll see if the new era is as long lasting as the first two.

Good bye, Terry Ryan

So Terry Ryan is out, fired as the head of the Twins baseball operations. Rob Antony, his assistant, takes over less than two weeks before the trading deadline.

That Ryan is out isn't all that shocking. I thought there was a 50 percent chance that he was going to leave, either of his own volition or because Jim Pohlad meant it in April when he ascribed the major league team's horrific start to a "total system failure." But I thought that departure, if it came, would come in September, or at least after the trading deadline.

Ryan's firing makes sense only if Pohlad and the others atop the organizational pyramid intend to revamp the baseball side. Pohlad and team president Dave St. Peter said Monday that Antony was not ruled out for the permanent position, but really ... the best reason to dump Ryan would be the ingrown nature of the team's front office. Elevating Antony would do little if anything to address that.

Pohlad said the new general manager would have to accept Paul Molitor as his manager in 2017. The wisdom of that edict is debatable, but I doubt that somebody who really wants the job and is a good enough candidate to get a multi-year commitment from the Pohlads would let one year of an incumbent manager get in his way.

It has been said often of managers: They are hired to be fired. That applies, in most organizations, to pretty much everybody. Managers, scouts, coaches, minor league staffers ... and general managers. The new GM comes in and sweeps a big broom and installs his own people -- and in many cases, in four years or so, a fresh GM is installed with an equally big broom. Nobody on the baseball side is safe when there's a new sheriff.

The Twins have avoided that for almost 30 years. 1986 was, really, the only big broom in franchise history, when Andy MacPhail took over baseball ops, cleared out the remnants of Calvin Griffith's "organization" and brought in people from other organizations. One of those was Ryan, who became the scouting director.

MacPhail modernized the Twins front office. Thirty years later, it probably needs modernizing again. Monday was only the beginning.

The front office and the pitching surplus

I am increasingly being asked as I go around town: Are the Twins for real? The pessimist in me says no. I do not trust Mike Pelfrey and Kyle Gibson's low strikeout rates. I am skeptical of Danny Santana's erratic defense. I am wary of Aaron Hicks' balsa-wood bat. I can go on with things to be concerned about: Torii Hunter's age, Joe Mauer's decline, a bullpen stuffed with mediocre track records.

And behind all that, I have come on some level to mistrust the front office. At the core of my pessimism is my sense that Terry Ryan and Co. will misread these first two months success.

Here's the thing: There are solutions available to almost all the pitfalls I see (Mauer's decline being the exception). I'm just not sure the organization is willing to take advantage of those solutions.

For example: The Twins at the moment have a surplus of starting pitchers. Tommy Milone has allowed one stinking earned run in four starts in Triple A, and there's no room for him in the rotation. Plus Ervin Santana is starting his second spring training in preparation for a return from his PED suspension. Plus it's hard to see from here what more J.O. Berrios has to do to move up the ladder.

This is a good problem to have, but it's still a problem; Milone cannot be happy about his current status, and at some point frustrating him will become counterproductive. It's also an opportunity. There are, or will be, deals to be made in the coming weeks. Starting pitchers are valuable commodities.

My fear is that Ryan will seek to extend Pelfrey rather than move him this summer. (On the other hand, Pelfrey is represented by Scott Boras, and Boras's clients seldom do midseason deals.)

Now, it's be clear about what I'm NOT saying. I'm not saying the Twins should be frantically trading Pelfrey (or Milone, or Ricky Nolasco) for the first offer they get. They can be, should be, patient. This pitching surplus is almost certainly temporary. Pitchers get hurt; that's almost a third certainty in life (behind death and taxes). Move one guy now, see another go down next week, and suddenly this excess has evaporated.

But they have to be willing to seize the opportunity when it's there. Ryan's often-laudable sense of loyalty (or determination to see his previous moves succeed) may need to be set aside to do that.

Terry Ryan has cancer

Terry Ryan at a spring training game last spring

Terry Ryan, general manager of the Minnesota Twins, announced today that he is undergoing cancer treatment and will not be going to Fort Myers for spring training. At least not for the start; the statement's wording does not preclude an eventual arrival.

Skin cancer would figure to be an occupational hazard of baseball scouts, and Ryan said he has squamous cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer, in his neck, but it apparently in a lymph node. His statement says it has not spread and is treatable, so presumably this is not something that will force him out of the job.

Also presumably, this underlines one of the advantages of the Twins baseball ops stability. Ryan's lieutenants -- assistant general manager Rob Antony, special assistant Wayne Krivsky, manager Ron Gardenhire, farm director Brad Steil -- know the plan, know the philosophy, know the expectations. There will be plenty of consultations and discussion, and even if Ryan is too indisposed on occasion to deal with things, his aides can handle things.

Still, having Ryan out of the picture this spring (assuming he's not in Florida at all for training camp) does not figure to benefit the team. I would think, for one thing, that it sharply reduces the chances of a "bold" decision this spring -- such as deciding that Miguel Sano is ready for the show now. Sano is not, and was not, likely to come out of camp with the third base job, but it it were to happen, Ryan would have to be enthusiastically on board. That's unlikely if he's not there to monitor the situation.

Notes, quotes and comment

The Tsuyoshi Nishioka farce will continue,  more or less.

Terry Ryan told the beat writers Thursday that Nishioka is staying despite the horror show he put on in Cleveland:

"He had a very difficult game yesterday and we all saw it but the only way to find out how he’ll respond up here is to play him."

Ryan went on to:

• imply that Nishioka's status depends on Trevor Plouffe's availability; Ryan appears inclined to send Plouffe on a rehab assignment before activating him. (This would allow Plouffe to test the thumb under game conditions without restarting the disabled list clock if the thumb needs more time);
• deny that Ron Gardenhire was under orders to play Nishioka;
• insist that Nishioka got the call-up not because the Twins have so much invested in him as because he was the most logical player to fill the spot. (Sean Burroughs and Pedro Florimon were injured, and Eduardo Escobar, acquired in the Francisco Liriano trade, couldn't be recalled because he had been optioned out less than 10 days earlier and there was no injury involved.)

The beat writers have interpreted all this as: Nishioka's on the roster, but only until Plouffe returns, and he's not going to play. We'll see; that phrase about the only way to find out is to play him suggests something different to me. 

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Baseball America has this piece about possible affiliation changes in Triple A, with the Rochester-Minnesota connection prominent.

In a nutshell: The Red Wings like the way the Twins deal with them but isn't happy with the teams they've been given in recent seasons. So they're keeping their options open.

Here's the fear for the Twins: Buffalo (now affiliated with the Mets) is expected to hook up with Toronto (which is now affiliated with Las Vegas). The Mets would doubtless rather shift to Rochester than Las Vegas, which has a number of drawbacks and may be the least attractive of all the Triple A affiliations.

Working in the Twins favor: The reason Buffalo is eager to cut ties with the Mets is that the Mets haven't provided winning teams, so Rochester isn't necessarily improving its chances of having a quality squad by changing affiliates. 

BA figures the Red Wings will stick with the Twins for two more years. And the Mets will wind up with Vegas.

Further thoughts on the return of Terry Ryan

Terry Ryan reportedly asked for the "interim" tag
on his title, but his superiors are hoping he's back for years.

One of the initial takes Monday on the return of Terry Ryan as the Twins general manager was the sense of 'We're bringing the band back together." Not only is Ryan back atop the baseball hierarchy, but Wayne Krivsky, who had been Ryan's No. 2, is returning to the organization.

It's not precisely the same bunch in the same jobs as a decade ago, when the Twins began a long stretch as the dominant franchise in their division, but it's close.

And the needs and status of the club have changed. Target Field has lifted the Twins to baseball's middle class. Ryan indicated that the 2012 payroll will be around $100 million, which is (a) considerably more than he had to play with in his first go-around as GM and (b) some $15 million less than Bill Smith had for a payroll in 2011.

A whopping chunk of that $100 million is dedicated to Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, and the Twins have about $82 million already committed. Having $18 million available to fill out the roster almost certainly means Michael Cuddyer, Joe Nathan and Jason Kubel will get more lucrative offers elsewhere. That may prove, in the long haul, to be a blessing, but in the short term it makes the job of improving the team more difficult.

I've said repeatedly that the first key to 2012 is the health of Mauer and Morneau. If the M&M Boys are as unproductive as they were in 2011, nothing else matters. The front office shuffle doesn't change that fact. It may bring change to how conditioning, rehab and treatment are handled.

Smith was publicly protective of the medical staff, at times oddly so, even as projected returns for injured players were consistently erroneous and even as that staff seemed sometimes to go out of its way to make players, Mauer in particular, look bad. Ryan on Monday took note of the problem getting injured players back on the field. Recognizing the problem is the first step in fixing it.

Bill Smith out as Twins general manager

Bill Smith and Terry Ryan in 2007, when Smith took over
for the semi-retiring Ryan. Now Ryan is stepping in for
the fired Smith.

Terry Ryan is back in charge of the Minnesota Twins on-field product, at least for now; Bill Smith's future with the club is uncertain, but he isn't the general manager anymore.

Verrry interesting, given that Jim Pohlad had implied that the 2011 disaster was not sufficient reason to clean the organizational house -- an assessment with which I largely agreed. So what changed?

From CEO Pohlad:

The Twins' goal is to get better in 2012 and beyond. Bill was equally motivated to achieve that goal but we differed in the scope and approach that was required.

I infer from that portion of Pohlad's statement that there was division within the organization over where the club stands. Are they realistic contenders in 2012, or is it time to tear it down and rebuild? If the former, it's reason to bid heavily to retain Michael Cuddyer; if the latter, it's reason to wish him well and move on (Cuddyer being one concrete example of how that abstract question applies to the immediate offseason).

I don't know where Smith stood on that basic question. We'll see as the winter progresses what the operating consensus is.

Perhaps more pertinent: I don't know, not being a fly on the wall, how the player evaluation process worked with a GM who was more an administrator than a scout. The talent evaluators around Smith -- in particular Ryan, Mike Radcliff, Tom Kelly, the already-departed Joe McIlvane -- were by and large the same people evaluating players when Ryan was on top of the heap. I doubt everybody involved agreed on every move, and perhaps -- perhaps -- there was a growing sense/realization that Smith was consistently making the wrong choice when confronted with diverging opinions.

One other thought about Monday's move: That Ryan is being described as "interim" general manager suggests that he's not truly invested in getting back into the job. I wonder if the pending return of Wayne Krivsky -- who, as I said during the weekend, probably would have been Ryan's successor after the 2007 season had he not already taken the Cincinnati job -- is intended to get him familiar once more with the Twins organization before turning the reins over to him. Another in-house possibility would be Radcliff, who was blocked from interviewing for the Orioles job. But if the intent is to make Radcliff the top dog, there was probably no need to install an interim GM.