Pic of the Week

Todd Helton acknowledges the ovation
in Los Angeles before his final at-bat.

A goodly number of players, whether they know it or not, saw their major league careers end last month. The Ozzie Guillen line comes to mind: "Good players retire. Bad players get released. I got released."

Todd Helton, like Mariano Riveria and Andy Pettitte, retired, only with a lot less fanfare and publicity. Of course, Helton spent his career in Denver, not in the Big Apple.

Hitting numbers are and always will be inflated by Coors Field (or, more accurately, by the altitude in Denver), but Helton is the best player the Rockies have had in their short history. He ends his 17-year career with a slash line of .316/.414/.539. Taken at face value, his stats would not be an embarrassment to the Hall of Fame, but I don't think he's going to get there.

I find this coincidence intriguing: Helton was a quarterback at the University of Tennessee. As a junior in 1994, he inherited the starting job when the starter was injured. Three weeks later, Helton himself was injured, and a true freshman stepped into the lineup. That was Peyton Manning. And Helton's career path to baseball rather than football was set.

Today, of course, as Helton's career ends, Manning is the quarterback in the city where Helton spent his career. Manning, in a sense, was there for the beginning and the end.

Notes, quotes and comment

Doug Bernier appeared in 33 games for
the Twins, with a slash line of
.226/.339/.283.

The Twins on Friday outrighted infielder Doug Bernier, who thus becomes a minor league free agent. This officially reduces the 40-man roster to 35, but the unofficial tally of 37 is more accurate, since it accounts for Wilkin Ramirez and Sam Deduno, who are on the 60-day disabled list.

This was certainly the most glorious season of Bernier's professional career: He got to spend almost three months in the major leagues after hitting .295 in a half-season as the primary shortstop for the Rochester Red Wings.

The Twins never really had a role for the 33-year-old — no matter how thin his bench, Ron Gardenhire always seems to have somebody who doesn't have much purpose sitting around — but I'll guarantee you, Bernier preferred that to playing every day in Triple A.

His removal from the 40-man roster was inevitable. It's possible that the Twins will seek to retain him as Triple A roster depth, but Danny Santana figures to be the primary shortstop in Rochester next season, and Eddie Rosario may be the primary second baseman if the Twins don't return him to the outfield or use him in a trade, and then there's James Beresford, who's considerably younger than Bernier, as a utility guy.

There may not be a place for Bernier in this organization. And at his age, it's not going to be easy to find a place to keep his dreams going.

Dusty Baker has managed the Giants, the Cubs and
the Reds into the playoffs over the years, but has
never managed a World Series winner.

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The Cincinnati Reds surprised a lot of observers Friday by dismissing Dusty Baker as their manager.

Baker's been around a long time — he is 16th on the all-time managerial wins list — and even at age 64 he doesn't appear inclined to go into retirement. He still wants to manage, and I suppose somebody will give him a job.

But he's not a manager I'd be particularly interested in having run my team. Even discounting his often-bizarre statements about the game (such as his complaint that hitters who draw walks merely clog up the basepaths), his tenures have been marked by a rather hands-off approach to player behavior, and inevitably there are incidents that appear to be the direct result of players knowing there will be no ramifications for immature behavior.

Cincinnati and Washington are two clearly win-ready teams with managerial openings. Those kinds of jobs aren't often available.

Gardenhire stays, Sveum goes

Dale Sveum had two years as the dugout boss of the
rebuilding Cubs — the worst two year stretch in team history.

The Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs had identical records in 2013: 66-96. (The Cubs will pick fourth in the amateur draft next June and the Twins fifth because the Cubs had the worse 2012 record.)

On Monday, as we know, the Twins announced that Ron Gardenhire was getting a new two-year contract as manager after 12 years on the job. Also on Monday, the Cubs announced that Dale Sveum was out as their manager after two seasons.

It's an interesting contrast, one worth exploring.

The Cubs are, and have been since Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer took over the operation in October 2011, in acknowledged tear-it-down-and-rebuild mode. The Twins have been roughly as bad as the Cubs over the same period, but Terry Ryan (who returned to the Minnesota general manager job about a month after Epstein parachuted into Wrigley from the Red Sox) has sent mixed messages about the short-term expectations.

Sveum's priority was to establish and nurture young players as the foundation for the future, specifically shortstop Starlin Castro and first baseman Anthony Rizzo. Both players regressed in the just concluded season, and Epstein/Hoyer decided Sveum was part of the problem:

"There has to be tough love, but there has to be love before there's tough love. You have to be patient with them. There has to be a clear, unified message. You can't be getting different signals from different directions. And collectively — myself included — we failed to provide that."

Thus spake Epstein on Monday about Sveum. It's worth noting that Castro and Rizzo each played at least 160 games despite their struggles, which sure appears patient to me — certainly more so than the yo-yoing of Oswaldo Arcia between Rochester and Minneapolis or the mid-summer plug-pulling on Chris Parmelee and Aaron Hicks.

The Twins, whatever else the top execs may say or imply, are not likely to take a great leap forward in 2014. The priority next year should be picking the right time to install Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton into the lineup, should be establishing Arcia and Josmil Pinto, should be regenerating Hicks and Kyle Gibson as legitimate prospects. It should be about getting that talent to flourish. It's not quite that nothing else matters, but it's close.

Terry Ryan presumably knows that's Job One. Presumably he's also confident Ron Gardenhire's the manager to do that.

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.