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.

Phasing out Blyleven

With the World Series wrapped up, teams are now free to start making moves and announcments.

The Twins had already replaced their manager. They still have a coaching staff to name and a bunch of roster moves to make. And the question of Joe Mauer -- retiring or returning? -- remains unanswered.

But the big news of Monday was about the TV broadcasts. Bert Blyleven is being phased out as the main analyst -- 80 games in 2018, 50 in 2019, 20 in 2020.

That news actually came from the 67-year-old Blyleven, who first tweeted that he's putting his condo in downtown Minneapolis up for sale, then explained that the Twins and Fox Sports North "offered me less games for the next 2 seasons because they said they are going in another direction. I agreed to their request."

I am too old to be part of FSN's target demographic, and a captive audience anyway. Nobody is picking analysts to try to get me to tune in. But as fond as I am of Blyleven the pitcher, I long ago wearied of  his constant complaints about how the game has changed since his day. The same applies to Jack Morris.

I've suggested a few times here that a quality local broadcast reflects the outlook and priorities of the organization. I don't believe the Twins broadcast analysts, TV or radio, have consistently met that standard since the Terry Ryan era ended.

A deserving champion

And thus ends the 2018 major league baseball season, with a deserving champion. The best team won October's torunament. The Boston Red Sox won 108 games in the regular season and went 11-3 in the postseason, defeating two other 100-win teams in the AL playoffs. The only loss they had in the World Series took 18 innings.

There should be no quibbling about the Series. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts took a lot of heat (and will continue to do so) for his pitching moves, but with the exception of that 18-inning Game 3, it really didn't matter much who he used. The Red Sox hit them, and the Dodgers bats couldn't keep up.

What stood out in the pitching line was how heavily Alex Cora leaned on his starters to relieve between starts. Each of his four nominal starters relieved at least twice during the tournament, with Nathan Eovaldi being worked so hard in relief he didn't actually make a World Series start.

Eovaldi is an ... interesting ... topic. He's had a injury-plagued career, with two Tommy John surgeries. He has a career ERA of 4.16. He has always had outstanding velocity but lower strikeout rates than one would expect from a starter who can hit 100, but he seems to have finally developed secondary pitches that can miss bats.

He's not yet 28 and headed into free agency. And I am curious how that will play out this winter. His willingness -- even eagerness -- to put his career at risk during the Series was apparently inspirational to his teammates, and was matched by David Price who was similarly hard-used/abused by Cora. But Price is getting paid and will get paid for years to come. Eovaldi's future is nowhere near as secure.

People persons and managers

Rocco Baldelli, 37, is the youngest manager
in baseball. Derek Falvey, background,
who hired him, is younger.

Rocco Baldelli's introductory press conference as Twins manager on Thursday played well with this audience of one.

I particularly liked his fencing with Patrick Reusse about his former team's innovative pitching strategy, which Reusse said is "ruining baseball as we know it." Baldelli led into his response by observing that "openness and curiosity" are good things in any field.

But as I watched a replay of the presser later I found myself thinking about the internal tensions built into the job. Baldelli spoke at length of the need to build relationships and how much he values and enjoys that. I think it's clear that he wants to be a "people person." I also think it's clear that that's a big part of why he got the job.

I am less certain that that's a valuable necessairy trait in a dugout manager. I can rattle off a number of managers of sterling accomplishment who insisted on keeping an emotional distance from his players. Earl Weaver, who may well be my notion of the ideal skipper, would be one such. He spent years managing in the minors before getting the Baltimore job, and a big part of that experience was, in his words, "stomping on dreams." 

Guys with Weaver's background aren't getting a lot of major league opportunties right now, although Brian Snitker has the Atlanta job and Toronto just tabbed Charlie Montoya. but, having noted those exceptions, today's new wave front offices seem to prefer younger candidates who can "relate" to the players. That's Baldelli.

And that's also Alex Cora in Boston, and Dave Roberts in Los Angeles, and Aaron Boone in New York, and Craig Counsell in Milwaukee, and A.J. Hinch in Houston. To a large degree, front offices want the manager to be a conduit between the analytics department and the athletes. That's more likely to work if the manager has good people skills. And obviously, that approach is successful right now.

People skills can't mean simply being agreeable. The manager has to establish authority in some manner, or the whole thing runs aground. Conflict is inherent in sports (and other endeavors, to be sure), and no manager can long afford to try to avoid it. Baldelli, as a manager, has yet to deal with that necessity. 

Which doesn't mean he can't. Pretty much the worst thing a manager can do to his career -- and his team -- is get a reputation among the players for "blowing smoke." Managers can't shy away from honest confrontation with players. That's the people person challenge. 

What's at second?

The Red Sox now carry a 2-0 lead in the series across the continent. And a dilemma.

Mookie Betts is the likely MVP in the American League. Mike Trout is still the best player in the game, but the MVP voters are very much behaving these days as a different set of voters did in the 50s and 60s -- who can we find to give the award to other than Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle?

This year the obvious non-Trout option is Betts. True, he didn't hit as many homers or drive in as many runs as teammate J.D. Martinez, but Betts plays a brilliant defensive outfield (Martinez seldom sees the field) and had superior on-base and slugging percentages. Betts does well the things Martinez does well, and he does well the things Martinez does poorly. Betts is clearly the better player.

Betts and Martinez are clearly the two best hitters in the Boston lineup, and that poses a World Series problem. There will be no DH in Games 3, 4 and 5, which means (at least according to some voices on the internets) they either

• bench Martinez, or
• sharply weaken their defense in both the infield and outfield by moving Betts to second base and putting Martinez in the outfield.

There is a middle ground, which involves sitting Jackie Bradley Jr. and moving either Betts or Andrew Benitendi to center to fit Martinez in an outfield corner. I think option "C" is the more likely approach, even if JBJ was deemed the MVP of the championship series. It would weaken the outfield defense, but not the infield defense.

Then there's this aspect, gleaned from listening to the Red Sox radio feed for Game 2: The announcers said Martinez isn't moving all that well on the bases after rolling his ankle running the bases in Game 1. That, they suggested, might serve to dampen any enthusiasm for wedging Martinez into the outfield for the Los Angeles games.

The question is, which is more valuable, Bradley's glove or Martinez' bat? That is a challenge for the Boston analytics department. And I don't know that there's an answer that is clearly correct for one or three individual games. It can be a different answer on Friday than on Saturday.

I'm a bit curious about what that analytics department makes of the Betts-to-second idea, but this probably is a case in which the analytics won't matter. Yes, Betts was a second baseman in the minors, and a highly regarded one; he wound up in the outfield because second base was blocked by Dustin Pedroia. But it's been years since Betts played second on anything more than an emergency basis. How comfortable would he be to return to second for the biggest games of the season?

Alex Cora might consider the move if Betts, unprompted, came to him and volunteered. Short of that, or sheer desperation because of injuries, I can't see the manager taking that risk in the middle of the World Series.

---

Late reports Wednesday/this morning that the Twins have settled on Rocco Baldelli as their new manager.

I'm neutral. I like the age (37) but don't particularly care for the complete lack of managerial experience. He's been a player, a front office exec and a coach, all with Tampa Bay, but hasn't managed in the minors or, I believe, in winter ball.

It's a good bet that he's analytics friendly. Everything else about him as a manager is, like an iceberg, submerged and out of my view.

#OldFriends (Infielders)

The Twins traded Eduardo Nunez to the Giants soon after he made the All-Star team in 2016. He was traded in midseason by the Giants to the Red Sox last year and is likely to be a free agent after the World Series. There is a team option, but I suspect the Red Sox will figure they can find a bench alternative they like more.

It's been a weird year for Nunez. He hasn't played all that well. His OPS+, a rough measurement of how productive his season was at the plate, was a career low, and his fielding has always been deemed subpar. But he still got more than 500 plate appearances for a 108-win team, so he couldn't have been holding the Red Sox back that much.

Alex Cora didn't fit the right-handed Nunez into the starting lineup against the left-handed Clayton Kershaw. He played the left-handed hitting Rafael Devers at third and right-handed Ian Kinsler at second. Kershaw was pulled in the fifth, and the Dodgers didn't use a lefty again until the seventh, when Alex Wood entered to face Devers with two on.

Except, as you probably know, Nunez pinch-hit and clubbed a three-run homer to break the game open.

Had Nunez started at third, it might have been Devers pinch-hitting for him in the seventh, but against a righty. Or, possibly, Devers might have replaced Nunez sooner, and the pinch-hit matchup might have disappeared.

Not a bad way to make his World Series debut.

---

Brian Dozier, seldom seen in the postseason for the Dodgers, was not only in the starting lineup for L.A. in Game One, he was the leadoff man. He drew a walk, he scored a run and he was unable to turn a critical double play pivot in the fifth inning.

The Dodgers obviously sought to load their lineup with righties against Chris Sale. They could have had someone like Chris Taylor, who led off for them throughout last year's postseason run, in the leadoff spot. I wonder if the fact that Dozier has three career homers off Sale entered into the decision to put him in the maximum at-bat spot.

I would think that the Dodgers analytics department is sharp enough to know that batter-pitcher matchup numbers aren't a reliable indicator. Dozier isn't the same hitter in October 2018 that he was when he hit those homers. And Sale probably isn't the same pticher right now, either.

---

Finally, a former Twins infielder who isn't involved in this year's Fall Classic. Eduardo Escobar reupped Monday with the Arizona Diamondbacks -- three years, $21 million.

That feels a bit light to me, but Escobar probably didn't want to get frozen out in the marketplace, as happened to a number of veteran free agents last winter.

The MLB.com story on the signing says the D'backs don't have a specific position for Escobar right now, but his versatility gives them a variety of alternatives as they remake their roster.

Here's the thing: He's not quite as versatile as they apparently think. Age -- he turns 30 this winter -- has made him less playable at shortstop. His outfield experiences were rough enough that the Twins quit trying that pretty quickly. And supposedly he's not comfortable playing second base, although that might be his second-best fit (behind third base).

I had hoped to see Escobar return to the Twins, but he never actually reached the free agent market. 

Beantown vs LaLa Land

Boston vs. Los Angeles. East Coast vs. West Coast. Highest payroll in the game vs. the third highest (the Giants are second).

This is certainly the series Fox was hoping for (and anything Fox wants I almost reflexively oppose). And while it's not necessarily the best agains the best, it's pretty close to that.

Boston, as we know, won 108 games in the regular season and really didn't have much trouble dealing with a pair of 100-win teams in the division and championship series. We can find flaws if we want, but the Red Sox were pretty clearly the best team in the American League, and the AL seems to be superior to the National League.

Which, in my AL-centric way of viewing thing, makes the Red Sox the favorite to win the World Series.

But I've been watching baseball since 1969, and the one thing I'm absoutely certain of is that the lesser team always has a good shot at winning a short series. This is why the best records so seldom even reach the World Series in this era of multi-layered postseasons.

And we should remember about the Dodgers: This is basically the same team that won 104 games last year and looked until the last month like an historically great team. It is basically the same team that took Houston to the seventh game of the World Series and could easily have won it.

They won "only" 92 games in the regular season, but their run differential suggests they "should" have won 102, which would look a lot like 2017's record. They didn't have the best record in the National League, but they easily could have.

It should be a good series. I don't find either franchise particularly fun to root for, and I won't have any emotional investment in the series, but I'll turn the TV sound off, put one on the radio feeds on my iPad and enjoy two outstanding teams going for the title.