Beginning the roster purge

Josh Roenicke:
3-1 with one save
in 62 innings.

The subtext to Monday's announcement that Ron Gardenhire would return as manager was: The Twins' lousy record was the result of a bad roster, not the result of subpar managing.

The first purge of that roster came Wednesday, as four players were outrighted from the 40-man major league roster (in a sense, 42-man roster, since the Twins have two players on the 60-day disabled list).

Getting the ax on Wednesday were outfielder Clete Thomas and pitchers Cole De Vries, Shairon Martis and Josh Roenicke. All will be minor league free agents; I suspect the Twins will re-sign at least one of De Vries and Martis as Triple A fodder, maybe both.

The closest thing to a surprise here was Roenicke, 31, who was on the big league roster all season and made 63 appearances out of the bullpen with a 4.35 ERA. He had a poor walk-to-strikeout ratio (36 walks, 45 strikeouts) and pretty much fell apart in September (ERA of 2.91 on Sept. 3, but he closed with 12 earned runs allowed, plus an unearned one, in his final 6.1 innings). The process was ugly all year, and it finally caught up with him.

These are, again, just the first loppings. There will probably be a couple dozen players out of the 42 removed from the major league roster over the next several weeks, as Terry Ryan works against the old adage that you fire the managers because you can't fire the players. We're about to see a lot of players fired.

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. 

Into the postseason

David Price and catcher Jose Molina
celebrate after Game 163.

The official postseason begins in a few hours as I compose and post this, last night's Game 163 notwithstanding. (And a marvelous performance by Tampa Bay's David Price it was, a complete-game takedown of the Texas Rangers.)

What we get first, of course, are a pair of win-or-go-home wild card games. Tonight, Cincinnati at Pittsburgh; Wednesday, Tampa Bay at Cleveland. My thoughts:

NL: My rooting interest here is easy. The Pirates have Francisco Liriano starting tonight and presumably Justin Morneau at first base. The Reds have Dusty Baker as their manager and a fan base/media too dimwitted to comprehend the brilliance of Joey Votto. (The Votto bashing in the Rhineland is much akin to the Mauer carping here.)

So I'm rooting for Pittsburgh. But I think Cincy is going to win, because I don't trust Liriano to keep his composure under this spotlight. I hope I'm wrong. Liriano certainly had a superb year.

AL: I'll root for Cleveland, with misgivings. I would love to root for the low-budget Rays, who are testimony for the theory that tight budgets can be a blessing for sharp management; if you haven't money to burn, you don't make expensive mistakes. Parsimony has freed the Rays to make wise moves rather than splashy ones.

But the latest market inefficiency exploited by the Rays, to be blunt, is low-life scum. Tampa Bay's roster is dotted with people I wouldn't want hanging around, starting with convicted sex offender and bullpen piece Josh Lueke and moving on through the likes of Delmon Young, Yunel Escobar and Luke Scott. Cheering for these guys (and I very well may at some point this month if they move on)  will make me feel a bit slimy.

As for the game: Both managers are putting their team's season in the hand of talented but inexperienced starters — Alex Cobb for the Rays, Danny Salazar for the Tribe. A very intriguing matchup.

My sense is that Tampa Bay has the better team, so I'll pick the Rays to win Wednesday. But in one game, anything can happen.

Gardy stays; now what?

Ron Gardenhire has 998 wins as
manager of the Minnesota Twins.
He'll get the chance to add to that total.

The news leaked out Monday morning and was made official in the afternoon: Ron Gardenhire gets a two-year extension, and the entire coaching staff is "invited" to return.

Although I suggested in the Monday print column that the Twins would benefit from a different set of managerial priorities, I can live with this decision.

The column specifically cited Gardenhire's reluctance to platoon and my sense that Brian Dozier's skill set as a hitter is being misread.

But I can also make this argument: A platoon-oriented manager could be an ill fit for an organization anticipating a wave of truly young and truly talented hitters. Oswaldo Arcia, Josmil Pinto this year, guys like Miguel Sano, Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario in the next year or two, even Aaron Hicks despite his struggles this year -- these are guys with star talent, and there's no upside to platooning them. This year's team might have benefited from a manager looking to platoon, but that's now past, and this extension is about the future.

As for Dozier: There was only one player on the 2013 roster who truly deserved to be in the upper half of major league lineup, and that was Joe Mauer. Gardenhire can only put Mauer in one lineup slot a game, and couldn't put him in any in September. I can't complain about Dozier hitting 1-2-3 this year; I will if that happens when the five or six hitters listed in the previous paragraph are up.

This was the first major decision of the offseason, and one of the few that was essentially entirely in the Twins hands. Another that deserves early attention, preferably next on the agenda, is what position Joe Mauer will play henceforth.

In terms of preparing the position player roster for 2014, a lot hinges on whether Mauer's a catcher or a first baseman. I'm inclined toward the Mauer-to-first proposition, and that may be the way Ryan's thinking, but Mauer himself is going to have some say on the matter.

It didn't come up in the Monday press conference, and even if it had, the answers probably wouldn't further illuminate matters. A Mauer position switch figures to be diplomatically arranged. Whichever way it goes, catch or first base, a decision probably ought to be made before the World Series ends and the free-agency/trading season begins.

Gardenhire without Anderson? Not likely

Rick Anderson (left) and Ron Gardenhire were
teammates in the Mets organization in the 1980s,
and Anderson has been Gardenhire's pitching coach
for 12 seasons in Minnesota.

Long-tenured managers tend to be linked to long-tenured pitching coaches. Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan. Bobby Cox and Leo Mazzone. Tommy Lasorda and Ron Perranoski. Tom Kelly and Dick Such.

And, yes, Ron Gardenhire and Rick Anderson. Anderson has been Gardenhire's pitching coach all 12 seasons that Gardenhire has managed the Twins

We can expect a decision soon, perhaps today, on whether Gardenhire will remain the Twins dugout boss. One bit of speculation has Terry Ryan telling Gardenhire he can stay — but Anderson cannot.

Gardenhire, who can reasonably expect to get other job offers if he is out in Minnesota, would probably reject that proposition. I doubt Ryan would make such an offer, partly because I don't think Ryan is Machiavellian enough to make the offer with the intent of making Gardenhire be the one to cut the ties with the Twins.

For better or worse, and quite probably for better, managers get more say on the pitching coach than on the other members of the staff. Friction between the manager and the pitching coach, be it on a personal level or professional, is too obviously counterproductive. 

When Kelly retired after the 2001 season, Ryan dismissed Such almost immediately, either to clear the position for the choice of the next manager or because Ryan wanted Such out. It's impossible to imagine that Ryan would have fired Such had Kelly remained.

Such was Kelly's pitching coach. Anderson is Gardenhire's. Period, end of sentence. If Gardy stays, Andy stays.

Pic of the Week

I'd say these three were giving each other a piece of
their minds, but if you added it up you might still
be shy a fully functional brain.

What we have here are three guys in the wrong.

You probably know this incident already: On Wednesday Carlos Gomez hit a long home run off Atlanta southpaw Paul Maholm. The two apparently have had a contentious past — Maholm, I know, has hit Gomez twice with pitches — and Gomez stood at home plate for a good while to admire his blast. The he jawed with various Braves on his slow trot around the bases (which, if you'll recall, is rather unlike Go-Go, who is known from sprinting out his homers).

And when Gomez approached home plate, there was Brian McCann, the Atlanta catcher, blocking the path and spoiling for a fight. Which then broke out.

Paul Nauert is the home plate ump in the photo. Why he stood by as McCann set out to toss a lighted match on the gasoline Gomez had spread over the game is a mystery. How it is that he ejected Gomez but not McCann is even more baffling. (The first base ump, Doug Eddings, was credited with tossing two Braves after the ruckus, first baseman Freddie Freeman and reserve catcher Gerald Laird.)

Gomez got a one-game suspension. McCann was fined an unspecified amount. It's not public information if anything was done about the umpiring crew that let things get out of hand, but were it my call, none of the four would be working a postseason game.

Ex-Twins watch: Jamey Carroll

Jamey Carroll has
just four hits in 42
at-bats since the
Twins sold him
to Kansas City.

Jamey Carroll picked up the 1,000th hit of his major league career Friday. One thousand hits is a lot for a career utility infielder — Nick Punto, for example, has 757 hits — and testifies to Carroll's longevity and perseverance.

There probably aren't a lot more hits in his future, quite possibly none. He's 39, and the decline in his numbers is obvious: a .290 batting average in 2011, .268 in 2012, .211 this season. The Royals hold a $2 million option for 2014; I can't imagine they'll exercise it.

If this is the end, it's still been quite the impressive career in its own way. He didn't make his major league debut until he was 28, but he still carved out a 12-year career and, by Baseball Reference's reckoning, earned more than $18 million in the process.

Not a great player by any means, but not everybody is cut out for greatness. Carroll found a niche he could fill, and did so competently for more than a decade.