Notes, quotes and comment

Byron Buxton had surgery Thursday on his fractured finger, He's expected to be ready for spring training, and we can only hope that a new calendar year will be kinder to the young man and his career than 2014 has been.

I no longer expect Buxton to head the offseason Top 100 (or 50, or whatever) prospect lists. The injuries that wrecked this year for him ought not be long-term (although the concussion may have ramifications we can't know today), but the year of development is gone forever. He's never going to be 20 again.

Point is, he -- and Miguel Sano -- remain prime prospects, and that doesn't change if Kris Bryant is ranked above them on Baseball America's list. What matters is sharpening their skills and getting them into the major league lineup.

---

Rick Renteria guided the Cubs to a 73-89 record.

The Chicago Cubs on Friday fired manager Rick Renteria for the sin of not being Joe Maddon, who they officially hired within hours.

There has been some consternation in the Twins blogosphere over whether the Twins made an effort to entice Maddon and if so how seriously they pursued him. I never really thought Maddon would see the Twins as a good fit.

Renteria might be another matter. He's 52, bilingual, and in his one season as Cubs manager he got the season's most important task done: He got Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo, the first two pieces of the team's rebuilding process, back on track. Their fades in 2013 got Dave Sveum axed.

The Cubs graduated several more pieces of the project to the big club late. Not all of them thrived immediately, but that can scarcely condemn Renteria as a manager for a club in transition -- which is what the Twins are, or should be, next year.

There was a national report linking Renteria to the Twins. Hiring him seems more plausible than hiring Maddon.

Joe Maddon and the Twins managerial opening

Who, me? A few days ago, Joe Maddon was saying he
was going to remain with Tampa Bay; now he's fled.

Joe Maddon has built himself a reputation as one of the sharpest managers in baseball in his nine seasons at the helm of the Tampa Bay Rays.

On Friday he made himself a free agent, opting out of his contract with the Rays on the departure of his boss, Andrew Friedman,

Only one other team is without a manager at this point. The Twins.

Maddon's reputation is such that other teams will be willing to create an opening in order to land him. That might be a delicate operation, however, since the ethos of the managerial trade holds that one does not pursue a job someone else holds. The choreography involved in getting Maddon into the dugouts of the Cubs or Dodgers -- to name two teams immediately connected with him -- will be interesting indeed.

This is, no doubt, part of why some clubs (notably the Dodgers, where Friedman is now in charge of baseball operations) have already publicly declared that they won't pursue Maddon. What else are they going to say? Yeah, if we can get him, we'll fire our guy in a heartbeat, but until we do, our guy is still our guy. That might be the honest answer, but it's not one any general manager can give. For one thing, it would kinda dampen the enthusiasm of the incumbent.

Terry Ryan is the one GM without that problem. He indicated Friday that he'll at least gauge Maddon's interest in the Twins job. That, I'm guessing, is where it will end. Not because of money necessarily, but because of the circumstances.

It's worth noting that Maddon is not particularly young -- he's 60, a few years older than Ron Gardenhire and Paul Molitor and 20 years older than Doug Mientkiewicz. One might well doubt his interest in tackling a project as opposed to a ready-to-win club, all the more so since all indications are that Ryan intends to slow-play the arrival of Bryon Buxton and Miguel Sano.

If Maddon wants to play in a sandbox with a flock of young talent, he can probably go to the Cubs (who have a manager in Rick Renteria but no deep commitment to him) and have them in the majors without waiting. If he wants to manage a veteran squad, the Dodgers probably would rather than him than Don Mattingly.

Managerial search news and a World Series prediction

Word Monday was that the field of candidates for the Twins managerial job was narrowing.

SOURCE: Sandy Alomar Jr. has been told he's OUT. Reported last week same on McEwing. Toronto Sun reports Demarlo Hale out too. #mntwins
— Darren Wolfson (@DarrenWolfson) October 21, 2014

If so, the known candidates are down to the three insiders (Gene Glynn, Doug Mientkiewicz and Paul Molitor) and one outsider (Torey Lovullo of the Boston Red Sox).

Other Twitter reports of note:

@MikeBerardino And #orioles bench coach John Russell still hasn't been contacted for an interview, I'm told
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) October 21, 2014

Person with direct knowledge confirms second meeting set for Tuesday between Paul Molitor and Terry Ryan regarding #MNTwins mgr opening.
— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) October 20, 2014

I'm still rooting for Mientkiewicz to get the job, but these reports hint that Molitor's going to get the job.

----

It's been easy to forget over the course of the long layoff, but the World Series starts tonight.

I expect this series to ultimately boil down to the power arms of the Kansas City bullpen versus the fastball-hitting middle of the San Francisco lineup. How good are the Giants against high velocity?

SF hitter ranks (among 150 qualified in MLB in '14) vs. fastballs of 95+ mph: 6. Pence, .373; 10. Posey, .344; 29. Sandoval, .322.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) October 20, 2014

Yeah, they're that good.

I frequently see a series like this as turning on a strength vs. a weakness. In this case, I see a strength versus a strength. That's harder to call. I'll take the Royals in this  matchup, but I'm not particularly comfortable with that call.

Competing inferences from a prolonged managerial search

Ron Gardenhire was ousted as Twins manager on Sept. 29. Three weeks and at least eight candidates later, Terry Ryan is apparently still not ready to make a hire. With the World Series starting Tuesday and the usual pressure from the commissioner's office to avoid significant moves during the series, it seems likely there will be no hire before November. 

This is, presumably, not a good sign for the internal candidates, who were the first to be interviewed. Ryan pledged a wide-ranging and diverse search, but we might reasonably infer that, at this point, Ryan still hasn't found what he's looking for.

Or there's this possibility: Ryan is using the opportunity to grill prospective managers from outside the system to gain new ideas and insights more than to actually select the next skipper. The Twins have been criticized in some quarters as too ingrown and rooted in its own culture. 

All the known outside candidates -- Sandy Alomar Jr., Chip Hale (out of the running), Demarlo Hale, Torey Lovullo and Joe McEwing -- come from American League teams. They may be telling Ryan things about the Twins that he hasn't heard from within, giving him an outside perspective on his operation -- knowledge that may be useful even if he hires one of the insiders. 

Even if Ryan waits until November to make his selection, it will still be faster than the process that resulted in Ron Gardenhire getting the job. That hire didn't come until January 2002.

DeMarlo Hale's managerial influences

DeMarlo Hale, currently the Toronto Blue Jays bench coach, apparently got a under-the-radar interview a few days ago with the Twins for the managerial vacancy.

Hale, 53 and black, gives the Twins a second minority candidate for the job.

Hale was a minor league infielder in his playing days who never rose above Double A in five seasons in the Boston and Oakland organizations in the 1980s. Most of that time was spent in the Red Sox chain; only in 1988 was he with the A's. I don't know how much contact if any he would have had with Tony LaRussa, who was the A's manager at the time. None of his minor league managers skippered in the majors.

He had a nine-year run as a minor league manager (1993-2001), mostly with the Red Sox but also with Texas, and had had a series of of major league coaching jobs since then.

Among the managers he's worked for as a coach: Buck Showalter in both Texas and Baltimore; Terry Francona in Boston; and John Gibbons in Toronto.

Subtract one candidate, assess

Chip Hale has 2,728 fewer managerial victories
than the man to his left in this photo, Tony LaRussa.

One candidate for the Twins managerial job was scratched Monday. Chip Hale took the job in Arizona.

Which leaves the Twins with six known candidates and perhaps more to come.

We know of inside candidates Gene Glynn, Doug Mienkiewicz and Paul Molitor, and of outside candidates Sandy Alomar Jr,, Torey Lovullo and Joe McEwing. There's a very real chance that the search is now on hold while one or more candidates now coaching teams in the playoffs -- specifically John Russell of Baltimore and perhaps Jose Oquendo of St. Louis -- finishes the season.

It would be unfair to pin a specific label on any of the six -- unfair but tempting. They are all, without doubt, unique blends of personality and experience. Yet we can slide each into an individual slot:

• Glynn is the proven instructor and minor league veteran.
• Mientkiewicz is the young gun, just five years removed from his own playing days.
• Molitor is the Hall of Famer, with all the respect that carries.
• Alomar Jr. is the Spanish speaker.
• Lovullo is the guy from the sabermetric organization.
• McEwing is Mientkiewicz from the outside.

If Russell -- who was the first outsider to be specifically tied to the search in media reports -- is indeed a candidate, his pigeonhole would be "the recycled manager."

Again, these guys all are more complex than those brief sentences.

My (emphatically outside) view on this group:

• I prefer Mientkiewicz over the field.
• Of the outside candidates, including Russell, I prefer Alomar Jr. because of the language component. The Twins have so many Latin players of importance coming up, but their track record with such talent under Ron Gardenhire was spotty.
• I still expect Molitor to get the job, in part because it's easier to imagine Mientkiewicz on Molitor's staff than vice versa.

Joe McEwing's managerial influences

Joe McEwing has been the
White Sox third base coach for
the past three seasons.

"Super Joe" McEwing, third base coach for the Chicago White Sox, was added to the list of Twins managerial candidates last week and reportedly interviewed during the weekend.

He's 41, not quite the youngest of the known candidates (Doug Mientkiewicz is a bit younger), and had a nine-year major league career as a utility man with four teams.

His major league managers:

1998-99 (St. Louis): Tony LaRussa (1999 was the one season in which McEwing saw something close to everyday playing time.)
2000-02 (Mets): Bobby Valentine
2003-04 (Mets): Art Howe
2005 (Kansas City): Tony Pena (33 games), Bob Schaefer (17 games), Buddy Bell (112 games)
2006 (Houston): Phil Garner

McEwing spent the 2007 season at Triple A for the Red Sox, so he was probably exposed to Terry Francona during spring training.

His major league coaching career has been entirely on the staff of Robin Ventura, a teammate of his for a while with the New York Mets.

What strikes me about McEwing's list is that I can't recall LaRussa being on any other candidate's list. Considering LaRussa's longevity and his stature in the profession, that surprises me. I would have thought that a good list of managerial prospects -- and I believe the Twins have compiled a pretty good one -- would bear more LaRussa fingerprints.

Sandy Alomar Jr.'s managerial influences

Sandy Alomar Jr. was reportedly interviewed during the weekend for the Twins managerial job. His candidacy may be made moot soon; he's reckoned one of four finalists for the Arizona job as well, and the Diamondbacks are expected to make their hire as early as today, whereas Terry Ryan has hinted that he may take until November to pick a winner.

Alomar is from a baseball family. His father, Sandy Alomar Sr., was a durable good-field no-hit second baseman in the 1960s and '70s who went on to be a coach for several teams. His brother Roberto was also a second baseman, one of the 10 best in MLB history. The Alomars are Puerto Rican, and Sandy Jr. is the first known Twins candidate who (a) is of minority heritage and (b) is a native Spanish speaker.

Sandy Jr. was a catcher who carved out a 20-year career and was named to six All-Star teams but also had just four seasons of 100 or more games played. We remember him mainly as part of the great Cleveland lineup in the 1990s, but he also played for San Diego, the White Sox (three different times), Colorado, Texas, the Dodgers and the Mets.

Twenty years and lots of teams equals a ton of managers played for, And so it is:

1988-89 (San Diego): Jack McKeon
1990-91 (Cleveland): John McNamara
1991-99 (Cleveland): Mike Hargrove
2000 (Cleveland): Charlie Manuel
2001-02, 2003 (White Sox): Jerry Manuel
2002 (Colorado): Clint Hurdle
2004, 2006 (White Sox): Ozzie Guillen
2005 (Texas): Buck Showalter
2006 (Dodgers): Grady Little
2007 (Mets): Willie Randolph

Two current managers, Showalter and Hurdle, are in that list, and at least one (Guillen) who wants to be back in the mix.

As a coach in Cleveland, Alomar Jr. has worked under Manny Acta and Terry Francona. He was the interim manager for six games after Acta's dismissal in September 2012.

Torey Lovullo's managerial influences

Torey Lovullo was
once a well-regarded
prospect in the Tigers
chain, but he never
became a regular in
the majors.

Continuing a series on the Twins managerial interviewees:

Torey Lovullo, 49, is now bench coach of the Boston Red Sox, an organization that long ago put an emphasis on analytics. He was also an itinerant infielder for more than a decade, bouncing from team to team, organization to organization, getting a month in the majors here, half a season there. Only once did he get more than 100 games in a season.

So his list of managers is fairly extensive and marked with names of prominence:

Detroit, 1988-89: Sparky Anderson
Yankees, 1991: Stump Merrill
Angels, 1993: Buck Rodgers
Seattle, 1994: Lou Piniella
Oakland, 1996: Art Howe
Cleveland, 1998: Mike Hargrove
Philadelphia, 1999: Terry Francona

Anderson, of course, is in the Hall of Fame, and Francona, as mentioned in the Mientkiewicz version of this post, is on that kind of track. Piniella has a case for enshrinement. I can't help noticing that Buck Rodgers is on yet another of these lists. He had Gene Glynn in the minors, he had Paul Molitor with Milwaukee.

A lot of Lovullo's minor league managers were obscurities, but two names popped out for me: Pat Corrales, former major league manager, and John Wockenfuss, who seemed to rise up the Tiger chain as a manager at the same rate Lovullo rose as a player. Lovullo got more exposure to Wockenfuss than any other professional manager.

Chip Hale's managerial influences

A Chip Hale card from his days as a
Triple A player in the Twins system.

The Twins today are to interview Oakland bench coach Chip Hale for the managerial post.

Hale spent 10 seasons as a player in the Twins organization, 1987-96, then had a year apiece with the Dodgers and the Cardinals. His major league employment record since is scattered; he's had stints as a minor league manager, including winning the Pacific Coast League title one year with the Diamondbacks' Triple A affiliate.

There is some disputation in the on-line world as to whether Hale counts as an "outside" candidate. I figure there's got to be some sort of statute of limitations. Yes, Hale spent most of his playing career with the Twins; he hasn't drawn a check from them since.

Managers Hale played for in the majors:

Minnesota, 1989-90, 1993-96: Tom Kelly
Los Angeles, 1997: Bill Russell

Managers Hale has coached under in the majors:

Arizona, 2006: Bob Melvin
New York Mets, 2009: Jerry Manuel
Oakland, 2011-present: Melvin again

Possibly notable names Hale had as minor league managers:

Phil Roof, Scott Ullger, Russ Nixon. (Roof was a long time Triple A manager for the Twins and still helps with the minor league catchers in spring training; Ullger, of course, has been on the Twins major league staff for years; and Nixon managed without success in the mjaors for two full seasons and parts of three others.)

Kelly probably has competition from Melvin for the "title" of most influential figure on Hale as a potential manager.

Gene Glynn's managerial influences

Gene Glynn at spring training in Fort. Myers.

Gene Glynn, currently the manager of the Twins' Triple-A affiliate and candidate for the major league job, is something of an athletic legend in the Mankato area: Mr. Basketball at Waseca High in 1975, a star at Mankato State in both basketball and baseball.

Unlike the other known in-house candidates who've had interviews, Glynn never played in the majors. He played seven years in the Montreal Expos farm system, then went into coaching.

He had 13 years as a coach in the majors for four teams -- but oddly enough, really only two managers:

1994-98: Colorado Rockies, under Don Baylor.
1999: Montreal, under Felipe Alou.
2000-02: Chicago Cubs, under Baylor. (Baylor was fired in midseason; Rene Lachemann had the reins for one game, then Bruce Kimm was named interim manager.)
2003-06: San Francisco Giants, under Alou.

After that, he scouted for Tampa Bay before taking the Rochester job for the Twins. He's kept the Red Wings at or above .500 in each of his three seasons.

Glynn's minor league skippers, as listed by Baseball Reference, are Bob Bailey, Larry Bearnarth, Rick Renick, Buck Rogers and Alou. Rogers and Alou, of course, managed major league teams for years; Rogers shows up on Paul Molitor's list as well. (The manager for Glynn's first season is not listed on BA.)

I view Glynn as a dark horse candidate. Unlike Molitor and Doug Mientkiewicz, Glynn hasn't been directly involved in the development of prime prospects Byron Buxton or Miguel Sano, nor of such secondary prospects as Kennys Vargas, Eddie Rosario or Jorge Polanco. (He has had Danny Santana, Josmil Pinto, Alex Meyer and Trevor May.)

What he does bring to the table is  experience at instructing (his role in the Montreal system before being hired for the Colorado job) and scouting (Tampa Bay).

Notes, quotes and comment

Bob Nightengale, national baseball writer for USA Today, tweeted this Friday:

Doug Mientkiewicz has emerged as the favorite, ever so slightly over Paul Molitor, as the next #Twins manager.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) October 3, 2014

And that is everything I know about that statement. No idea how credible Nightengale's source(s) are or if he's merely sucking up to a future possible source or if he dreamed this.

Then there's this from LaVelle Neal:

Paul Molitor has had multiple interviews with the Twins
— LaVelle E. Neal III (@LaVelleNeal) October 4, 2014

I take Terry Ryan seriously. He said he would look at outside candidates and he said diversity was important in this search. So far it appears he has interviewed two white guys from the organization. There will be more to this search.

---

On Friday I detailed the major league managers Mientkiewicz played for. Here are Molitor's:

1978-80, 85-86 (Milwaukee): George Bamberger
1980-82 (Milwaukee): Buck Rogers
1982-83 (Milwaukee): Harvey Kuenn
1984 (Miwaukee): Rene Lachemann
1986-91 (Milwaukee): Tom Treblehorn
1992 (Milwaukee): Phil Garner
1993-95 (Toronto): Cito Gaston
1996-98 (Minnesota): Tom Kelly

Not quite as distinguished a group as Mientkiewicz's.

---

Via Peter Gammons, this story about Torey Lovullo, Red Sox coach who has been oft-mentioned as a managerial possibility. The Texas Rangers have announced a list of eight candidates who have been or will be interviewed for their managerial vacancy; Lovullo is one of that group.

Life after Gardy

Ron Gardenhire at Monday's press
conference.

Ron Gardenhire didn't go kicking and screaming when fired Monday, He took part in the press conference, made a few jokes, and even said removing him from the managerial job might be the best thing for the team: "A different voice, a different face."

Meanwhile, Terry Ryan emphasized that the next manager may not be a current Twins employee. When Gardenhire was hired in the wake of Tom Kelly's retirement after the 2001 season, the known candidates were on the coaching staff: Gardy, Paul Molitor and dark horse Scott Ullger.

There's no shortage of legit in-house candidates this time around, starting with current coaches Molitor and Terry Steinbach. Ullger is known to want to manage but probably has no chance at the job. From the minors, there's Doug Mientkiewicz. (Jake Mauer is also racking up an impressive resume in the farm system, but the presence of his younger brother on the roster probably precludes Jake as a serious candidate in Minnesota.) I've seen Gene Glynn and Jeff Smith mentioned, but I can't believe either would rate above Mientkiewicz.

If Ryan and Company go outside the organization, a name to be aware of is Dave Martinez, currently bench coach for the Tampa Bay Rays. Martinez, as Joe Maddon's understudy/protege, figures to be more openly attuned to the analytic approach to running a team than was Gardenhire (who was, I am convinced, more aware of the numbers than he wanted us to believe.) There are plenty of other outside possibilities being floated -- Torey Lovello from the Red Sox, Chip Hale (former Twin form the Tom Kelly era) from Oakland, Jose Oquendo from the Cardinals -- and almost all come from more openly sabermetric operations than the Twins.

I do not take the Ozzie Guillen chatter seriously; that's just talk radio nonsense. I do want the revamped coaching staff -- and there are likely to be changes -- to include at least one native Spanish speaker. There are just too many young Latin players of importance in this organization to allow things to get lost in translation.

My guess right now is that Molitor and Mientkiewicz are the two most likely choices, but that sense stems in part from past practice. My personal preference would be Mientkiewicz, who would be the most likely to have a decade-plus tenure. But I think it's more likely that Molitor would be the pick with Mientkiewicz added to the coaching staff.

Managers of the future

Tragic number update: Eight. The Tigers had just enough padding on the scoreboard in Cleveland Thursday night to survive Fernando Rodney in the ninth inning.

---

It's a rather pointless exercise, but I sometimes try to guess what current players will someday become major league managers.

It's pointless because relatively few of today's managers had long major league careers as players. Consider the five in the AL Central this year. Ozzie Guillen had a real career as a player. Ron Gardenhire had a brief major league career — 285 games, one season as the Mets regular shortstop. Eric Wedge (Cleveland) had 39 games in the bigs, which was 39 more than Jim Leyland (Detroit) or Trey Hillman (Kansas City).

Still, I see three guys on the Twins current roster who I have no trouble imagining as big league managers some day.

Michael Cuddyer appears, at least from this distance, to be an effortless leader, a guy who knows when to ease the tension (magic tricks) and when to focus his mates on the job at hand. Certain metro columnists have drunk deeply of the Torii Hunter-is-a-leader Kool-Aid, but it appears to me that Cuddyer is better at the job, because he buys into the Twins approach completely.

Mike Redmond, unlike Cuddyer, fits one of the two prevalent molds for managers — he's a catcher, and thus has some experience working with pitchers as well as the offensive side. He's also seen Leyland work up close; the LaRussa-Leyland branch of the managerial tree rooted in Ned Hanlon and John McGraw has already proven influential in the field.

Nick Punto fits the other mold — pepperpot infielder. (Cuddyer would represent a strain popular in the 1960s and relatively rare today — an outfielder/first baseman who can project an air of quiet strength. Think Walt Alston or Gil Hodges.)

My guess is that Cuddyer would be the best manager of the three, but that's strictly a guess.

It's entirely possible that none of them would even want to try it. Each has made a few million dollars, and the prospect of riding the buses in the Midwest League while learning the ropes generally holds little appeal to those who don't really need the job.