HireGardy.com
Posted: March 10th, 2010 | Filed under: Baseball | 104 Comments »
I expect that this is one of the few places on the Internet — or really anywhere else — where Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire is proudly celebrated. And because of that, this has become a good spot for Gardy doubters and Gardy haters — and, apparently, they are legion — to congregate. That’s cool, of course. But I do find it striking that whenever I write even two consecutive nice words about Ron Gardenhire, I am guaranteed to hear from people who want the opportunity to bash.
Of course, it’s not really an equal opportunity. Best I can tell, there really aren’t many “Gardy is Awesome” websites out there. This seems to be one of the closest things. On the other hand, there is the FireRonGardenhire Blogspot. There’s the apparently more official FireRonGardenhire Website. There’s the more informal firegardy.com. My dear Kansas friend Ken Tremendous wanted to know if Gardenhire was the worst manager in baseball, an astonishing question considering that was the year the Twins would go on to win 96 games and Dusty Baker’s Cubs, with the third biggest payroll in baseball, would lose 96.*
*Not to say that Ken and the boys failed to take Sir Dusty to task from time to time.
I’m not entirely sure why there isn’t much Gardy appreciation out there. Yes, I understand that Gardenhire will make his share of bizarre decisions — for instance he is the guy who keeps giving Nick Punto a staggering number of at-bats. Yes, I feel confident that if I watched him every day, point by point, I would be annoyed by many of his managerial habits. Yes, I feel sure that people who follow Gardy on a daily basis can send me a long, long list of Gardy transgressions — I feel sure about this because my email is filled with such lists.
But, I don’t know, it seems to me that the guy has managed the Twins to five division titles in his eight years, or, to put it another way, THE GUY HAS MANAGED THE TWINS TO FIVE DIVISION TITLES IN HIS EIGHT YEARS. I mean, sure, you would expect a good manager to manage the Twins to at least six division titles in eight years, but, doesn’t he get SOME credit for this? He’s done this even though the Twins have never in those years had a payroll in baseball’s top half. And only once in all those years, in 2003, did the Twins have even the highest payroll in the low-paying division. Last year, the Twins had the lowest payroll.They won. Gardy won a division title in 2002 and a division title in 2009, and he did not have any of the same starting players. It seems pretty good to me.
Sure, you could say that the Twins success comes from their scouting, from their player development, from their star players, from anyone BUT Gardy, and I would not be able to prove you wrong. Maybe the Twins win year after year despite Gardy. Maybe he’s the guy who keeps making the $40-$60 million payroll Twins underachieve year after year. I don’t know. I don’t see it that way.
I bring this up now because in my recent post about Joe Nathan, I mentioned — just mentioned — that I would not doubt Gardy’s ability to find a solution. After all, his team did win the division title last year even though Joe Mauer missed a month, Justin Morneau missed a month and the starting rotation was basically dreadful. This led to the following comment from Brilliant Reader Chris …
I know this isn’t a post about Ron Gardenhire, but I have to comment on this.
I find this argument wholly unconvincing. For one thing, I think we can all agree that the Twins won the Central simply because the Tigers fell apart down the stretch. Yes the Twins had to win some games of their own, but if the Tigers play just .500 ball down the stretch the Twins are done.
And secondly, yes Mauer was out for the first month of the season, but for the rest of the season he was the best player in all of baseball (if you want to say Pujols was better, I would argue that Mauer being a catcher makes him more valuable). Does that have anything to do with Gardenhire? I would argue no.
I know you love Gardenhire, but this argument did nothing for me. Mauer was out for a month, but for the rest of the year he was unbelievable. Losing Morneau hurt, but the last month of the season was only set up by the Tigers’ collapse. And starter’s ERA doesn’t do anything for me without context. How does that compare with other teams, specifically the Tigers? Again, I know this wasn’t a Gardenhire post, but that paragraph bothered me as being lazy, from a writer who usually is not.
Now, I’m not going to lie to you. I found this comment to be exceedingly grating. And one of the reasons I found this to be exceedingly grating is because it seems to me that these are the paper thin arguments people typically make against Gardy.
FIrst, we don’t ALL agree that the Twins won simply because the Tigers fell apart. The Twins won 17 of their last 21 games including the one-game playoff against the Tigers to win the title. Yes, the Tigers did fall apart. Yes, the Tigers went 8-10 in their last 18 games. Yes, if the Tigers had played better they would have won the division. So what? They didn’t play better. The Twins were virtually unbeatable at the right time. The Twins won 87 games. The Twins won the division.
Secondly — I have no idea what the Mauer point is. Joe Mauer was really good the rest of the year so the fact he missed the first month doesn’t matter? I would think that makes it matter MORE … the point is that the Twins were without the best player in the league for a month and still won the division. Yes, looking back, I’m pretty sure that was the point.
Also, I’m not sure what you mean by saying that Mauer’s great season had NOTHING to do with Gardenhire. I mean, I’m not saying that you have to give Ron Gardenhire any credit for Joe Mauer being a great player. You don’t. But why the hostility? Mauer has blossomed into the best player in the league, and Ron Gardenhire has been his big league manager the whole time.
Thirdly, I have no idea how losing Justin Morneau was in any way set up by the Tigers’ collapse. I don’t follow that. What I do know is that Justin Morneau is a very good hitter, a star, and he missed the last month or so with an injury and the Twins won 17 of 21 games without him to win the title. That seems pretty straightforward.
Fourth, the Twins 4.84 starter ERA is lousy — it’s lousy on its face, and it’s lousy compared to the Tigers starters (which was a half run better) and it’s lousy compared to league average.
I don’t mean to pick on one comment — the point is we get a LOT of seemingly angry anti-Gardy stuff like that around here. And a lot of it just seems petty to me. Look, I think he’s a great manager. A lot of people think he’s a fraud. That’s fine. I can point to five division champions. A lot of people can point to his weak division and playoff failure. That’s fine. I can point to a team that has consistently won and players who consistently play well for him as the season goes along. A lot of people can point to Gardy’s bizarre individual decisions and they would rather credit other people for the Twins’ success. That’s fine too.
And I’m not saying I’m right. But I’m not saying I’m wrong either. I guess the Gardy anger just seems a bit out of place to me. I’m just telling you, he could manage for me any day.
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free gardy!
Circle me St. Louis Park
“Yes, the Tigers went 8-10 in their last 18 games. Yes, if the Tigers had played better they would have won the division. So what? They didn’t play better.”
Couldn’t agree more. I always had trouble figuring out why people use that as an excuse. The Tigers didn’t do their job at the end of the season, and they lost their playoff spot. The Twins DID do their job. They kept playing well, and the Tigers didn’t. People seem to forget that you have to actually play the entire season, not just stop with a month left to go.
Sort of like when the Chiefs went to the playoffs in the 2006-07 season. If I can remember correctly, we had to defeat the Jaguars in Week 17 and needed losses from the Titans, Bengals, and Broncos. Somehow it actually happened, and Herm got upset when people accused us of being “lucky”. The Chiefs did their job and won the game, and the other teams did not. So we deserved to get playoff spots over them.
As someone who does watch Gardy every day, and does get annoyed with him from time to time, you’re absolutely correct.
Five division titles in eight years — and he lost a one-game playoff, 1-0, in another year.
The Twins have been playing meaningful baseball virtually the entire time Gardenhire has managed them.
There’s no one else I’d rather see managing the Twins.
“The Twins DID do their job. They kept playing well, and the Tigers didn’t. ”
The Twins did their job – VERY WELL. If Gardy sucked, or had ‘lost the team’, they would have checked out with 21 games to go and the Tigers would have won the division with their impotent 8-10 record.
Mauer the best player in baseball? I think there’s a fellow in St. Louis who might still have claim to that title, especially because of his track record. (Unless you meant AL, in which case there’s a fellow named Jason Kendall who’d probably contest your description as well.)
What’s problematic about all these debates is the uncertainty (statistical or otherwise) regarding how much influence a manager has on his team’s performance. Obviously lineup/PT/pitching decisions matter, but probably not enough to make a world of difference. So Gardy’s success – or lack thereof – rests solely on the intangible effect he has on his team, which no one has yet quantified. (It could be nothing; it could even be negative.)
gardy is no trey hillman or tony pena, and as a twins fan, that’s all i need.
I wonder how much of the anti-Gardenhire sentiment come from fantasy baseball folks? I know I often find myself getting irritated by the playing time decisions of various managers (yes, I’m looking at you Mr. Scioscia). Prior to getting into fantasy baseball I only criticized Indians managers. Now, all AL managers get me riled up at some point or another.
jack, I agree the the impact of a manager is hard to quantify, but I don’t think it rests solely on intangibles. There are very tangible moves-playing the splits for lineup construction, pitcher substitutions, and pinch hitting, and bringing in a relief ace in high leverage, non-save situations, to name a few. The problem I see with the mismeasurement of man(ager) is that with all the information we have, there is often an objectively/statistically optimal scenario to be played. If you accept that conjecture, then the best manager is the one that takes the least away from the optimal outcome. Thus, all managers inherently suck, and the best ones just suck the least. This kind of thinking ignores a lot of the less tangible aspects of the game (player happiness/confidence, clubhouse camaraderie, yada yada-assuming you think these actually have an impact on outcome), which leaves room for some actual praise for managers. But it seems to me that the statistical revolution has turned the manager into the baseball equivalent of a calculator-not the modern kind, but the kind that was actually a person doing math operations before computers were capable. The best they could do was not mess up. For managers today, the same seems to be true.
This debate, and all other managerial debates*, boil down to two questions:
1) What is the value of a good manager?
2) How can you judge the difference between a good manager and a bad manager?
*That’s probably an exaggeration. There some questions, like whether certain managers destroy arms, or refuse to acknowledge major elements of baseball strategy over it’s history because they are somehow convinced it’s new-age computerized mumbo-jumbo, that are pretty cut-and-dry.
At this point, the discussion is an awful lot like discussing defense a few years ago. Any statistical evidence is sketchy, and most of the discussion boils down to personal opinion.
For example, this situation could be compared to Joe looking at Gardenhire’s “errors” and “fielding percentage” with some “Web Gems” to really impress him. Others who watch the Twins on a regular, day-to-day basis are saying that those do not show the reality of the situation.
This could be the next great frontier in sabermetrics if someone can figure it out.
Right now though, it’s all opinion. I know that if someone asked me to pick a manager from the last 25 years who be a stereotypical, Hollywood-movie “manager”, it would probably be Gardenhire. Does that make him qualified to run a team? There’s no real way of knowing yet.
I started falling for Gardenhire at his Major League debut on Sep. 1, 1981. He just looked so determined when fouling off lots of pitches. I was 11. The relationship was sealed when I was at Shea the next Sunday and he made two 2 nice plays. I told all my friends he’d be in the Hall. Suddenly, 25 years later, that dream was resurrected. Go Gardy!!
“For one thing, I think we can all agree that the Twins won the Central simply because the Tigers fell apart down the stretch.”
I love this line…not only do we not all agree with this, I would disagree with it from both the Tigers’ and Twins’ vantage points.
First, the Twins did not win the Central simply because the Tigers fell apart…they went 17-4! Pretty sure they had at least a small part in winning the division.
Second, the Tigers falling apart is a ridiculous statement – certainly 8-10 isn’t good, but it’s not terrible either for a team that finished 86-76. Pretty sure the fact that they lost 3 out of 4 is clouding this guy’s memory. And don’t forget that the Tigers were 8 games above .500 at the end of August and ended the regular season 10 games over .500. Not exactly falling apart.
Not sure what’s left for us all to agree on…
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by calltothepen: Once again, Joe Poz makes me smile. @JPosnanski Do I love Gardy? Yes, I love Gardy. So sue me. http://bit.ly/cgBiBs...
As a White Sox fan, I hate the Twins. Also as a White Sox fan, I am terrified of Gardy, because he always has the Twins in contention. Every year, I look at their lineup and their rotation, and I think to myself, “There’s no way they contend this year,” and somehow they’re at or near the top.
Gardenhire is basically the anti-Eric Wedge, who doesn’t seem to do anything wrong, and whose teams statheads always loved, yet his teams perennially underachieved.
As a White Sox fan, I hope all those Fire Gardy websites achieve their objectives, because the Twins will be worse off for it.
I have no idea what we should use to evaluate managers, or if there’s anything that people really get behind.
What I like is to use the Pythag record, as that really does seem like the best way to do it; the games in the margins are where a manager shows what he’s got.
Twins’ official record under Gardenhire: 709-588.
Twins’ Pythagorean record under Gardenhire: 728-569.
So, he’s been worth 2.4 wins to his team each year.
That’s pretty good.
I think the reason the Twins won the Central had a lot more to do with the following numbers than the Tigers September breakdown…
46-27 Twins vs AL Central (19 games over)
39-34 Tigers vs AL Central (5 games over)
Not to mention, the Twins were 12-7 in head-to-head matchups against Detroit. So not only were the Twins beating down their division behind them, but they were better than the Tigers all year anyway.
Among Twins fans, there seem to be two widespread Gardy sins (actually there are probably more, but these are the ones I seem to read about most often).
Allegation 1: Gardy is very “traditional” in how he uses his closer. Meaning, he strictly doesn’t/didn’t like to use Joe Nathan earlier than the 9th inning. But curiously, Gardy has no problem with using Nathan in blowouts to “get his work in.”
Yes, this happens, and it’s frustrating, and I think Gardy deserves some criticism there. But you could probably say the same thing about almost any MLB manager. I’m not sure that any Gardy replacement would not do the exact same thing. Call it La Russa Syndrome. It’s contagious.
Allegation 2: Gardy has an irrational affinity for light-hitting but gritty middle infielders, especially Nick Punto. In particular, he likes to have one batting second. The leading hypothesis is that Gardy likes these guys because he was once one of them.
As far as I can tell, the primary evidence for #2 is Nick Punto continuing to start at 3B in 2007 despite having an absolutely dreadful season (he later admitted he was playing hurt). There could be truth to this allegation, but then again, Twins have been the type of team that is always going to have light-hitting infielders getting plate appearances. Since the Punto ’07 debacle, I haven’t really found much fault with how Gardy has managed the infielders he had available. I will concede that he might need to be more open-minded about the second spot in the lineup. He also needs to tell Punto to quit sliding into first base, because that’s just stupid.
Now, if you have to have a manager with faults, those aren’t too bad. I don’t recall seeing Gardy heavily criticized for mismanaging the pitching staff, handling injuries poorly, running young pitchers into the ground, alienating veterans, etc. He generally seems to be regarded as at least an okay in-game manager. Taken as a whole, I wouldn’t prefer anyone else to manage the Twins.
these comments leave me a little sad. Huge poz fan but some of these readers follow blindly by whatever he says. Notice not one person is defending the gardy is a bad manager. I have no preference either way on the debate but it kinda makes me sad that no one has the guts to stand by their argument bc its hard to believe one small blog post changed all those people’s mind.*
*I was going to say we ALL know that one blog post changed their mind but i didnt want to get grilled on that.
The Twins have only had two managers in the last 25 years, and they’ve done pretty well. Stability counts. They almost always have a stable of good relievers, so I don’t think they’ll miss Nathan too much. The ballpark adjustment will be interesting.
It seems the argument against “Gardy” is that the Twins could be better without him. I wouldn’t take that chance.
Joe, just want to say that I love the website and I didn’t mean to grate you.
See, I knew I shouldn’t have posted that, because I knew I didn’t make my points quite clearly enough, and my points weren’t that great to begin with, and it wasn’t even a Gardenhire post so why bother with it. I just felt you were giving Gardenhire more credit than he deserves, and it bothered me at that moment, so the damage is done.
Anyways, yes I realize that a starter’s ERA of 4.84 isn’t great, but it felt out of place without context. Stupid to argue about, but at the moment it bothered me. As for Mauer…don’t you think having such a fantastic player at the catcher position is a big advantage for a manager? Trey Hillman has to throw out Jason Kendall this season, for gosh sakes. A stupid point, I know, because any manager who wins is going to have good players.
I don’t have an irrational hatred for Ron Gardenhire. I don’t like him or dislike him necessarily, except for the Nick Punto thing, which does drive me crazy. It just seemed like you were giving him too much credit for last season, when the Tigers had a lead going into the final month and fell apart. I realize in retrospect I made some pretty dumb points. So anyways, keep up the good work.
Mark: That’s because it’s difficult to defend weakly-supported arguments.
Negativism is an attention-seeking device. It’s really about that simple.
@15 Mike K.
A couple of issues with that stance. First, we’re assigning the manager credit for what well could be randomness. Maybe he does have something to do with it, but deviation from Pythag doesn’t prove it. Secondly, the numbers you posted show the Twins underperformed their expected W/L record during Gardy’s tenure. If you’re putting stock in that, you’d say he hurt the team, not helped it.
Articles like these are the ones that make me lose interest in sports. There is one simple reason for that; they make sports seem more complicated than they really are. The managers job is to admire the talent his GM assembles then get the hell out of the way and not interfere too much. Joe, your post on Jose Reyes illustrates as much:
The teams that followed were not much better — until the 1969 Miracle Mets and the 1973 Ya Gotta Believe Mets. Then, the late 1970s, another dreadful lull, that time when Joe Torre came to understand that it’s hard to be a genius with Lenny Randle at third, Doug Flynn at second and Craig Swan as your Opening Day starter.
How many instances can you name in recent history where a significantly less talented team won the title? Pistons over Lakers? Upon further reflection, the Lakers were more reputation than execution. Cards over Tigers? The Tigers errors lost that series more than anything LaRussa did. Giants over Pats? Miracle catch by Patten.
Chris: Just wanted to say that I’m impressed that you took your beating so well. While reading the post I was wondering if I’d see a comment from you, and I thought you handled it wonderfully.
I think a good share of the criticism is because Gardy had to follow Tom Kelly who gave the the Twins their two world championships. Now,,,, the thing about Gardy and his teams is that they are never out of a ball game. He is such a stickler for fundamentals and wins with defense, base running and getting the hits with men in scoring position. The Twins haven’t had a big bopper since Harmon Killebrew.
Ok,,, had to get this out from Fox.
Consider some of the players taken after Gordon in ’05:
4. Ryan Zimmerman.
5. Ryan Braun.
7. Troy Tulowitzki.
12. Jay Bruce.
23. Jacoby Ellsbury.
42. Clay Buchholz.
Now consider some of the players taken after Hochevar in ’06:
3. Evan Longoria.
7. Clayton Kershaw.
10. Tim Lincecum.
11. Max Scherzer.
I am also a Royals fan,,, but OMG,,, that is an impressive list of solid young stars!!
The Gardy haters will come out in force this year with the Twins first losing streak. They will claim that all his success was due to the dome. Personally, I see playing outdoors in chilly MN in April and May as a Twins advantage for Gardy style baseball. We got stronger up the middle with Hudson and Hardy and it will be nice to see what Thome can do. Keep an eye on this 3B prospect Valencia,,,
I prefer Ned Yost.
@15 Mike K.: Those numbers actually suggest that Gardenhire has *cost* his team 2.4 wins per season, because they are underperforming their Pythag.
In other words, I think your measure of managerial effectiveness (which is as reasonable as anything else I’ve seen) should be actual minus Pythag, not vice versa. Right?
(Full disclosure: I’m a Twins fan and I kind of like Gardy.)
Oops, Kevin S. @23 beat me to it.
Dear MN Gardy-haters:
Eric Wedge.
Signed,
– Recovering Indians Fans Everywhere
PS: Manny Acta.
I would love to have Gardy in KC. And he can bring Mauer with him.
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I am of the opinion that managers in baseball get way too much credit for having intangibles and “coaching up” his team. These guys are professional athletes, not college or little league. 99% of them are trying their hardest 100% of the time.
I feel like managers should be judged on two things (in order of importance):
1. How they manage in-game decisions (line-ups, bullpen, bunts/hit-and-runs, positioning)
2.The intangibles
#1 should be weighed far more than #2. The only real evidence you can use for #2 is like when a manager comes out and defends his player, both against umpire arguments and the media (Bobby Cox is great at this). And even the effect of that is nebulous and indefinable at best. In-game decisions are far more important because they are directly affecting the action, and if Gardenhire, as some Twins fans are saying (I don’t know one way or the other as I don’t watch the Twins), is bad on the in-game decisions, then I’d have to call him a bad managers.
But, even with that all said, I still don’t think a baseball manager has much to do with a team’s success. You’ve got guys like Ozzie Guillen and Dusty Baker who are bad and sometimes absolutely terrible with the in-game stuff, yet they’ve had success at certain times as a manager. I’d go so far as to say that personnel is almost the only factor in a team’s success (to quantify it, I’d say it’s about a 95%-5% split, maybe even more skewed than that).
Joe, I don´t follow the Twins so I don´t have an opinion either way, but I think one of the problems with your pro-Gardy arguments is that you don´t focus on things he´s actually done to improve the team. Of course it´s impressive what the Twins have been able to do, despite the limits of their payroll, and losing key players, and so on, but to me (and, I assume, some other readers), it´s not enough to say “well, Gardy probably had something to do with that”. I want to know what exactly it is he did, what decisions he made, etc. They don´t even have to be tangible… give me “leadership” and “cohesion” if you want. But give me something… I want to hear what he did, not what he didn´t not do.
I agree with DJ @10. Other than W-L and championship rings, how do we know a good manager from a bad one? It seems that so much of a manager’s success comes down to the hand he’s dealt. When you get dealt a full house (i.e. New York, Boston, etc) it seems like the idea is to not screw things up.
Put it another way: Could Gardy or Trey manage the Yankees to the World Series? Could Torre, LaRussa, or Francona manage the Royals to .500 (or better)?
Frankly, the idea that there’s an anti-Gardenhire movement shocks me. As a fan of the Tigers, I have watched Gardenhire’s teams twice in the last 4 years come from out of nowhere and steal the division title by one game on the last day of the season. If Twins fans really want to complain about his quirks and about Nick Punto, I would welcome him into Detroit with open arms. The reason that they haven’t had much playoff success is that they haven’t been a very good team most of the time. Therefore it’s all the more to Gardenhire’s eternal credit that he has managed to get this team into the playoffs so often.
I’m a long time Twins fan, and I think to the extent that Gardenhire takes criticism is the reason any manager takes criticism from a team’s fans: when you are hanging on every game, inevitably you find things to nitpick, and it’s easy to blow them out of proportion.
Gardenhire does some things very well. He almost always gets good work from his bullpen over the course of a season. He keeps his players engaged; the Twins are usually better in the 2nd half of seasons, and have made 2 mad dashes to division titles, in 2006 and last year. I don’t know how much credit Gardenhire deserves for that, but at least his players keep playing.
Of course, they often get off to poor starts, and that deserves scrutiny as well. At least part of that is due to roster/playing time choices made in spring training that often make us scratch our heads. Sidney Ponson? Livan Hernandez? The inexcusable decision in 2006 to play Juan Castro and demote Jason Bartlett. That season they started with a left side of Castro and the decaying corpse of Tony Batista. And that season was about when I learned to let some of this stuff go.
I raged at the time that a team intending to contend cannot possibly have an infield with those guys starting. The Bartlett decision in particular was indefensible; frankly Gardenhire barely tried to defend it himself. Eventually, both Castro and Batistsa were cut, Punto had his best season at 3rd base, and Bartlett came up.
It’s not that I accepted those decisions–they were bad choices. But ultimately, I realized that I would never agree with everything any manager did, and that his successes outweigh his failures.
His complete impotence to get Nick Punto to stop sliding into first base on the other hand….
I think the problem with Gardy is the things he does poorly are the obvious things that everyone can see.
1 He doesn’t adjust for platoon splits. Gardenhire has consistently given Mauer day games off after night games independent of the starting pitchers in those games. In 2009, Mauer had an OPS of .910 against lefties and 1.103 against righties. Mike Redmond had an OPS of .762 against lefties and .485 against righties. Jason Kubel was the DH and would sometimes be benched in those day games so Mauer could DH. Kubel’s had an OPS of 1.014 against RHP and .643 against LHP. Looking at those numbers, it is pretty obvious that Mauer’s rest should come against LHP where Mauer could DH and Redmond could catch. Instead, Gardy’s platoon is day/night.
2 He insists on having a middle infielder batting second. You’ll hear that batting order doesn’t matter much and that may be true. It is still frustrating to see a really crappy #2 hitter hitting in front of Joe Mauer at the #3 spot. I don’t know where to find information on batting statistics by batting order but I’m pretty sure you’ll find that the Twins have consistently been bottom five in the #2 spot and top five in the #3 spot (Mauer).
3 He plays favorites. Most of the blame for the Garza/Bartlett for Young/Harris trade has been placed on the GM but people that follow the Twins know that Gardy had a lot to do with it. He didn’t like Garza or Bartlett. That trade went a long ways towards TB’s success.
I’m not going to go as far as to say that Gardy is a bad manager. I think there are many things he does well . His players generally play hard and play well for him. Other than Garza and Bartlett, you don’t see too many players having more success after they leave the Twins. The problem is that the things he does poorly are the easy things that I think anybody could do. It’s filling out the lineup card that he screws up.
My frustrations with Gardy are probably the same frustrations that he had with Bartlett. Bartlett will occasionally boot the routine grounder but he made up for it with his arm and range. I guess that makes me no better than him!
A lot of the anti-Gardy guys have learned a few guys’ batting average with men on base, and think they know more than they do. They also think they know more than the people who are on the field and see these players every day and in person.
It gets annoying after a while. The comments that follow a Twins article in the MN papers are often dreadful.
It is a bummer when these same folks make comments on Joe’s articles.
Part of the fun of a ball game is that the manager can make decisions we can debate. Yet I wish these guys would take note that the guys on the field might know what you know, and might have considered that your stat doesn’t seal the decision.
The year the M’s won over 100 games, an M’s fan I knew constantly complained about how they would have won more games with a different manager. Go figure.
Casey Stengel, upon being booed for removing a pitcher:
“Baseball is like church, many attend, but few understand.”
Joe, some serious thoughts on Gardy:
1. Most serious Twins fans (even Seth Stohs and Howard Sinker) will tell you that the Twins have gotten worse at the “little things” the longer Gardy has been in charge. They don’t field as well, they don’t run the bases as well, they don’t do those little things that add a game or two here and there over the season. I think those “little things” are largely culturally/managerially driven.
2. It’s painful to watch your 3rd best RP face the 3, 4, 5 hitters in the 8th (and usually 6th and 7th) so that Nathan can be saved for the close. Painful.
3. He doesn’t seem to get along well with college players that have any confidence/cockiness in them at all. Bye bye Garza and Bartlett. He’s very Tom Kelly that way.
4. There are a million things that would drive you crazy if you watched him every day, and people have sent you plenty of lists.
5. Yet, for all the things that we notice that we don’t like, they do win. Remember when you wrote that piece about rooting for a team, even if they aren’t run the way you want them to be run? That’s been the Twins for me on and off during Gardy’s time here. They don’t run the bases all that well, they miss cut off men, they give way too many at bats to spunky players (or veterans, Gardy loves his veteran presence – and in fairness to Gardy, he doesn’t sign the players, he plays the ones he’s given), I could go on and on. But, the reason I could go on and on is that they win, and I’m still paying attention. I could go on and on because if you watch a team for 120+ games a year, you are going to see things you don’t like. But, if you take a step back, and you just look at what they’ve done, well, I’ve come to the conclusion that whatever it is that Gardy does, it mostly works and produces good outcomes. The process may not be what I’d ideally want, but the outcomes are. That’s enough for me. Win the division around half the time, and make the playoffs? Provide entertainment for the entire season (i.e., don’t be out of it by July)? I don’t know about others, but for me, that’s enough to say that Gardy does help this team win, it can’t be all luck, it can’t all be the players , Gardy must be helping them.
It comes down to this: when the team does poorly, it’s the manager’s fault. When they succeed, it’s to the credit of the players. If the manager makes a bizarre decision and it turns out well, he was “lucky.” If he makes a decision and it turns out poorly, he was “stupid”. They can’t win.
We all don’t agree with all the decisions that the manager makes. We all don’t agree with each other on which decisions were right and wrong, either.
I don’t get the hate toward Gardy regarding his use of Nathan. Has Rivera EVER been called in for the 7th inning of a regular season game since he’s been the closer? How often have Trevor Hoffman and K-Rod been brought in to get 6 out saves? So why the hate for Gardy? Or do other teams with dominant closers complain this much about how/when they get used as well, and I just don’t hear about it?
Don’t get me wrong, I get the rationale behind using your best RP in the highest-leverage situation regardless of inning. I just don’t get why Gardy gets singled out/vilified for not being the exception to the (current) rule?
Oh, and as a White Sox fan, I’m all for the Twins firing Gardenhire. By all means. Do it today, even.
Joe,
I’ve gone back and forth on Gardy over the years. I think that he’s done a very good job with some really weak Twins teams.
The bottom line with this team is that he’s had to do more with less and continually comes out on top. The Tigers have had a payroll of over $100 million for the last 8 years, and 2 times he has brought his team out of the Abyss to catch and pass them on the last weekend of the year. One year (2006) they were a 96 win team that put together the most amazing stretch of baseball I’ve ever seen in my life. That summer was amazing, utterly amazing.
I think that the Gardy detractors make a very similar argument to flip (flop) Saunders. He made the playoffs 8 straight years and only made it out of the first round 1 time. He was crucified in Minneapolis for the last 4/5 years, and I can guarantee that any basketball fan (all 1707 of them) in the Land of 10000 Lakes would take him back in a heartbeat. I think that Minnesotans will miss Gardy when he’s gone, but don’t realize the good thing they have…. And I can say that I’ve been one of the detractors from time to time. But wouldn’t you be when he used to trot out Ravishing Rick Reed every 5th day?
If Gardenhire leads the Twins to a World Series victory will Twins’ fans heads explode?
I think there are just a portion of fans out there that will hate the manager no matter what. I see it in Boston, despite two trophies there are people who can’t wait to stick a knife into Francona.
Yes, the Yankees do sometimes use their closer for more than 1 inning. yes, sometimes he comes in during the 8th.
Not sure why you brought up the 7th inning, that’s a nice red herring.*
*if that is based on my comments, I meant the 6th and 7th hitters in the 8th inning, not the 6th and 7th innings….
The post was about Gardy (and I only really ever watch Twins’ games, so just like Joe doesn’t see Gardy all that often, I don’t see other managers all that often), but if you want, I’ll call out all managers “you should use your best RP in the highest leverage situations and stop saving your closer for the 9th”. *
*Some do argue that the pressure of the 9th is greater, even if you are facing the lower part of the order…..that may or may not be true, but that’s not really the justification most managers use.
[...] problem, though, is the context of that link. He did it in a post called “HireGardy.com” in which he lumps us in with a bunch of crazed anti-Gardenhire internet people. He defends Gardy, [...]
Joe,
I think the reason why many people take issue with these arguments is that Gardenhire is but one piece of the puzzle in the Twins’ success. I know you aren’t trying to shortchange the scouts, player development personnel, and front office, but these “Team X’s manager is the reason they did ____!” discussions come across to me as somewhat shortsighted.
Is Gardy single-handedly responsible for a handful of victories and losses per year? Absolutely. Is he single-handedly responsible for the team he fields? Absolutely not. I know you aren’t arguing that he is the sole reason (or even one of the major contributing factors) in the Twins’ success, and surely he deserves some credit for their record since he started managing.
However, the counter-argument here is that Gardy is not responsible for the fact that he has Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau on his team. He isn’t responsible for the defense plays that his team makes, and he isn’t responsible for the hits they get, pitches they throw, etc.
You may argue strategy, and you may be right — certainly there are times when a manager intervenes in game-critical situations. However, we just flat out have no idea how much these decisions affect the course of a team’s entire season.
Anyway, my point is just that the Twins’ front office, scouts, and player development personnel are as responsible (if not moreso) for their success or failure than Ron Gardenhire. It’s hard to make many bad decisions as a manager when these folks draft and develop or trade for high quality baseball players.
When did this guy start managing the Twins??
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nOc5KvJf5as/SxZmrV2MOiI/AAAAAAAABUk/-bC7EQUYVWo/s400/Grady-Sizemore-s-New-Card_photo_medium.jpg
…or is my dyslexia just getting the better of me agian??
Even the Punto part is hard to argue with. Yeah, he plays Punto too much. On the other hand, the dude wins with Nick fricken’ Punto!
Joe,
I know that you’re a Royals follower and I love all the stuff you write about them because it gives some depth to why they are so awful. It’s easy to say “they’re a small market team” but that’s no excuse to give Farnsworth almost $10 million.
I’ve always thought that the Twins were a great comparison to the Royals in that regard. For all intents they have the same financial resources, a worse stadium (until this year), play in the same division and still compete every year. Can they match up player for player with the Yanks? Of course not. Does that mean that they’ll NEVER get past the Yanks/Red Sox/Angels come playoff time? Well, they stand a much better shot than the Royals do. You gotta be in it to win it as they say.
I think part of the reason people overlook and denigrade the Twins/Gardy is because they are hard to fit into a nice narrative. They don’t subscribe to the Moneyball philosophy (yet they’ve arguably been more successful with similar resources), they don’t play in a charming ballpark and …. they play in Minnesota. People from Minnesota are mostly known for niceness, not bravado (note to people of Minnesota, this is not a criticism. I LOVE people from Minnesota).
For years there’s been so much hyperbole and backlash against Billy Beane, and yet so little written about a team with similar financial constraints that has been in the playoffs more.
I think it’s up to you Joe to take on the task. Who else can trumpet the horn of Twinkie baseball better than you can? As I said, I love the stuff you write about the Royals because it points out their ineptness without being mean. So the next time you dive into a piece about the Royals, throw in a little compare and contrast with the boys from Mini. It’d be nice to see the Twinkies get some pub and I think it’d also remove some of the “Royals can never compete because they’re a small market” nonsense that is taken as gospel these days.
Cause you know, I’m sure you don’t have enough to do
@ mike in MN
No, the 7th inning comment wasn’t related to you specifically. It is however, a complaint I have heard more than once.
And bringing up Rivera and the Yankees might have been a bad example, I’ll admit. My main point though, I think is still valid, even if there is room for disagreement.
- Right or wrong, lots of closers are used the way Nathan has been. Blasting Gardy for it (while constantly winning division titles with teams that don’t seem like they should be able to) seems like nit-picking.
But again, I’m just a White Sox fan who primarily knows Gardy as the guy managing the most frustrating opponent in baseball. I also like Ozzie as a manager. So clearly, what do I know?
I think a lot of the anti Gardy folks must of the younger variety. Meaning, they don’t remember the 90′s. Consistantly winning is good, not bad. Getting rid of a winning professional manager because he doesn’t handle his team the way that a fan would seems odd to me, very odd. Keep winning Gardy, the team has been a lot more interesting to follow in the 2000′s than the 90′s and the only constant has been the coaching staff.
@51 (and earlier):
As someone that has fluctuated in my level of appreciation for Gardy, I’ll admit (as I tried to do in my first post) that many of my complaints should be considered nits at this point. They do win. That said, if you win, and just sit back and don’t try to improve, you aren’t likely to get much better. Some of us that comment on how Gardy does, aren’t saying he’s bad at his job, just that he could be better.
Some people have a really hard time understanding the differnce between ripping a guy, and suggesting that he could be better at his job. You can always do better, always. No process produces perfect results every time. Suggesting things we don’t like about Gardy is not always suggesting he’s bad at his job. For some of us, we are suggesting ways he could be even better than he is.
Interesting take from #52 (not the part about the age of the anti-Gardy fans…but the part about the 90′s).
Was TK a great manager in the late 80′s and early 90′s, but terrible the rest of the 90′s? I mean, does that not show that it is mostly about players, and only partly about managers? They had consistency in the 90′s in the coaching…..but produced very different results as the players changed.
“one of the few places on the Internet — or really anywhere else — where Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire is proudly celebrated”
I really think this should be the slogan of this blog. This just struck me as really funny.
I complain about Gardy a lot. It’s already been touched on, but his Punto fetish and bullpen usage irk me quite a bit, and he doesn’t seem to understand platoons.
However, at the end of the day, if I had to rank managers, I’d probably put him ~8-12th in the league. I can point to others that are better, sure, but I can’t honestly say we should get rid of him. He’s above average, and it’s pretty likely he’s better than whomever the Twins would get to replace him.
@53
Fair enough. And I completely understand and appreciate that view of it. (After all, my manager wants to win games with bunting and having guys like Andruw Jones steal bases. Ugh.) If that’s the way the majority of the people writing/naming/commenting on blogs that include the word “fire” in them, fantastic. Talking baseball with passionate fans is fun! I would, however, suggest that they choose a more accurate (if admittedly less catchy) name.
Hot dang Opening Day needs to get here soon…
Not defending Gardy – I don’t watch enough Twins games to really have an informed take – but I do think that when you say the Twins don’t do the little things as well as they used to you’re talking about a trend that is league-wide.
If you asked die-hard fans of every team “Does your team do the little things as well as they did ten years ago?”, man, I bet fans of three-quarters of the teams in the league would say they don’t.
@54- do you disagree with the age premise? I certainly could be wrong on that. It seems to me though if someone came of age as a Twins fan post 2001, you expect the Twins to win the division, because more often than not they have. If you came of age before that you would probably appreciate the club winning more games than they lose more.
Remember that in 2001 ESPN did a preseaon on location bit from every team and the wanted to do the twins in the first week “before they are mathenatically eliminated”- their words not mine.
As a Phillies fan, I have to point out that Charlie Manuel does a lot of the same infuriating things that Gardy is accused of. But he gets a total pass (rightly or wrongly) because he won the WS and then went back the next year. Note that the “Fire Charlie Manuel” blog shut down in late September 2008. (LOL!)
For example, Charlie insists on batting Jimmy Rollins first no matter how poorly suited to the role he is — the guy won an MVP as a leadoff hitter, so it’s like he gets a lifetime pass. Now he’s got J-Roll (career OBP .329; 2009 OBP .296) penciled in at leadoff this year, and Victorino (career OBP .347; 2009 OBP .358) is likely dropping to 7th.
And it’s almost too obvious to point out, but Charlie’s total commitment to Lidge — the worst pitcher in baseball in 2009 BY A MILE — as the closer down the stretch last year was truly inexplicable/inexcusable. Yeah they still won 93 games, but they could have won 100.
In the category of game-by-game nitpicking, there have been too many head-scratching moments these past few years to count. To pick one example, in 2008 he was in love with replacing Pat Burrell defensively in like the 7th inning, only to have someone lame like Eric Bruntlett come up in the 9th with the game on the line. I have no way of checking how often this happened, but it seemed like every other day.
Yet Charlie wins (and gets few complaints from fans) because he’s got great players. Let Gardy have Utley, Howard, Werth, Ibanez, and Hamels, and I bet he’d have a ring or two as well.
How about a new poll, who is the best coach in baseball? Pick top 5 with top spot getting 5 points bottom getting 1. Just curious to see who fans think are the best managers.
How many managers in the history of baseball have managed the same team for eight (going on nine) consecutive years and are NOT considered very good managers?
@57 – I won’t pretend to speak for the “fire gardy” people, as I’m not one of them. They surely mean it when they say it. I was (perhaps presumptiously) speaking for the rest of us that are occassionaly critical of Gardy, in that while we appreciate that he helps us win, there are things we’d like to see changed.
@59 – I have no idea if the age premise is correct. I’m 45, and don’t hang with many 20 somethings (though as my kids age, I am now hearing what teens are saying). I just don’t have any idea if it is true or not. But, my point was that that was not what was interesting to me, the interesting part was the look at the 90′s and what it said (or at least implied) about the value of consitency in managers vs the consistency in the quality of the players.
@58 – that may be true. I just don’t watch enough non-Twins baseball to know if it is true or not.
Great conversation today, everyone. One of the things I like about coming here is the generally polite and rational tone of the posters.
I can’t really call myself a baseball fan (I’m a fan of the game itself, I just don’t follow other MLB clubs) because I only follow the royals, and I’ll be the first to admit that I couldn’t have told you the Twin’s manager’s name. But I’m friends with two of his nephews and on two occasions he has given us free tickets when the Twins were in KC. So, I feel the need to come to his aid here. So score one for your side Joe!
I’m also hoping to win the most logical post award. I mean you have to admit, from my perspective, if Gardy was a poor manager I’d only support him more since I’m a Royals fan.
W-L record is a pretty poor way to evaluate managers. Imagine if we did the same thing for position players.
If Brilliant Reader Chris wanted to discredit Gardenhire’s effect on the Twins, at the very least he could he start by discrediting the Twins.
In a 162 game season, the Twins finished 10 games over .500 playing an unbalanced schedule, almost half of which was comprised of games against intradivision opponents. The AL Central was so bad that all of them together couldn’t win more than 86 out of 162 games when they all played almost half their games against each other.
Sure the Twins won the AL Central, but someone had to. Of course, that [correct] line of reasoning leads to another point. While the Twins weren’t good, they were just better than four other teams – none of which were better than mediocre – they finished the year 17-4. Yes, I know all but one of those game was played against the crappy AL Central and that game was against Oakland who they had just lost two straight to before the arbitrary 17-4 stretch began. Yes, I know in that stretch they went 5-3 against Detroit and 11-1 against Cleveland, KC, and Chicago. BUT they still went 17-4 during a chase for the divisional championship with a mediocre team. So that has to mean something. I’m not a supporter or opponent of Gardenhire, but that has to mean something. Then again, the team wasn’t really good anyway. Put them in the AL East and they’d be 20 games under .500 and maybe even worse at which point Gardenhire would likely be fired. (Twins vs AL East 10-25 including the ALDS; Twins vs AL Central 46-27 including the one-game playoff)
Also, the Tigers did not collapse. They definitely played mediocre baseball at the wrong time, but they didn’t collapse. A team that finished with an 86-76 162-game record doesn’t collapse by finishing that year 8-10. That’s approximately what they’ve been doing all year (i.e., hovering around .500). Hell, a 100-62 team that finishes the year 8-10 wouldn’t be considered a team that collapsed. It’s baseball. 8-10 stretches happen to everyone. It’s not a good stretch, but it’s not bad and certainly not a collapse and in the 2009 Tigers, it’s commensurate with their overall season.
@63- OK. I don’t know if my age theory is correct either. As far as consistancy of ballplayers is concerned, looking back on the pre Mauer/Morneau rosters I think those who dislike Gardy would feel a bit sheepish looking at what he did with his ‘talent’.
Agreed on the civil tone of this site. It is a rare treat.
Do you think that winning all those games down the stretch when the Tigers collapsed had much to do with Gardenhire?
I don’t really feel too strongly about managers in general (other than the fact that pretty much every single one does really stupid inexplicable things for no good reason), but I feel that in general, X Manager fans give their boy way too much credit, while X Manager haters don’t give enough. Basically, X Manager fans tend to ascribe everything good to the manager, including stuff that could easily be noise (such as winning a bunch of games down the stretch). X Manager haters tend to ascribe everything bad to the manager (horrible bullpen performances, etc) while neutralizing everything good as noise. This applies to every manager on earth.
In a way, I think that giving managers credit in general disparages the players to a high degree – who had more of an impact on the Twin’s season, Delmon Young or Ron Gardenhire? Discussing merits and demerits of managers is sort of a silly past time that people occupy themselves with during ST when there’s no real baseball. And it’s a silly past time that I just participated in! C’est la vie.
To reiterate my point (#33) and @65 Nick O’s, if Gardenhire makes bad in-game decisions (and that seems to be the majority opinion), how can you call him a good manager? What is he bringing to the table?
You can’t use things like Division Titles and won-lost to prove that a manager is good. It’s boneheaded to do so. There’s so much else going on (player quality being by far the biggest factor). You can only point to in-game decisions. If a coach makes poor in-game decisions (like Guillen or Baker or Girardi or Manual) and that team still wins, it’s because the team is so good that it’s winning DESPITE the manager, not BECAUSE of the manager.
The Gardy debate reminds me of the Pinella bashing in Seattle in the late 90s when I lived there (and I admit I participated – I just googled “mariners bullpen disaster 1997 to revive some memories – Bobby Ayala where are you now?).
Anyway, the argument came down to this: “Despite all these great players having great seasons, the Mariners underachieve because of Lou’s tactical miscues.” Which may or may not have some small truth to it, but the way I’ve come to see it is that great players having great seasons is a hell of a lot more important than how often a team bunts, or runs, or even how they construct their bullpens.
And you know what? Ken Griffey Jr. had all his greatest seasons with Lou Pinella as his manager. So did Edgar Martinez. Jay Buhner had great seasons under Lou. Randy Johnson blossomed from curiosity to Hall of Famer under Lou. Alex Rodriguez became the most valuable player in baseball under Lou.
Sure, they had talent. Yes, two of them were first overall picks in the draft. Maybe you saw Buhner as a 40-hr guy when he was in the Yankee’s system. But nonetheless, potential is one thing. The fact is, they all became great players under Lou Pinella. I firmly believe that since a manager can’t take the field himself, the biggest impact he has is not in in-game tactics, but in helping his players play better. See some old Bill James stuff for Billy Martin’s record on that front. Everyone on the team seemed to improve when he took over. So I give Lou some substantial credit for the great seasons his players had, and to dismiss or discount the development of Santana, Mauer, Morneau et al when considering Gardenhire seems like being willfuly blind to what may be his most important accomplishment.
Likewise, judging a manager by looking at expected (Pythagorean) wins vs actual wins seems exactly backward. Essentially, you’re pitting the manager *against* his players’ performance when the most important difference he could possibly make would be to *improve* his players’ performance.
Well, maybe that’s too strong, but deviations from Pythag are known to be generally small and inconsistent from year to year. If you find a team that scores 900 runs and allows 700 and you use Pythag performance to evaluate the eventual record of the team, you’re saying “Just ignore the fact that the team scored 200 more runs than they allowed. The manager couldn’t possibly have anything to do with THAT. That’s a given. The manager was just given that, and it’s what he did BEYOND that that matters.”
CH
I see my comment (#70) is immediately preceded by brilliant reader Stephen (#69), which makes a nice contrast. As stephen said earlier, he thinks
“These guys are professional athletes, not college or little league. 99% of them are trying their hardest 100% of the time.”
Which seems to imply that professional athletes are from a different species from us other scruffy humans. I’m pretty successful in a very competitive field, and I can tell you those percentages don’t apply to me! And I can also say that who my boss is has made a tremendous difference in my performance over the years in various jobs. It’s not really that some bosses motivate better – my motivation to do a good job is there, regardless of or sometimes in spite of supervision – but some bosses actually make it harder for me to do a good job at my work – sometimes MUCH harder.
I don’t have any insight into what goes on in clubhouses, in spring training, and so forth. But I can imagine it might make a difference playing for an Earl Weaver compared with a Dallas Green or a Joe Girardi or an Ozzie Guillen or a Tony Pena…
Anyway, I’ll shut up now, but I think the contrast couldn’t be more extreme between Stephen’s view and mine, so I thought I’d point that out.
@71, agreed. Most HR research shows that people leave bosses more than they leave companies. Most research shows that your immediate supervisor has a large impact on your performance. I’d imagine (since I’ll never even approach being a professional athlete) that it is similar for professional athletes.
@69- It seems that using one person’s definition of poor in game decisions would be far more arbitrary than actual results, like w-l records and division titles.
For example, I might hate the idea of using a pitcher for a single batter, where someone else would laud the move for getting the right hitter batter match up.
@71 – I’m not suggesting otherwise, but are you among the world’s 1,000 or so best in your field? Are you getting paid millions of dollars a year? MLB players are the best on the planet at what they do. To suggest that they need a manager to fire them up in order to put forth a full effort seems ridiculous to me.
Also, whatever your job is, your boss’ affect on you is not applicable because it’s apples and oranges. For example, I think NFL coaches DO have a huge impact on a team’s W-L record (due to playmaking, preparation, and more important in-game decisions). Comparing business-type bosses to baseball managers is lunacy.
@73 – A poor in-game decision, as I’m defining it, would be a decision that defies the logic of a situation, one that cuts against the statistical evidence of a situation. Read #38′s comments about Mauer/Redmond/Kubel. That seems far more cut-and-dry than assigning an entire team’s win-loss record to one man. Batting someone with a low OBP at the top of the order would be a bad in-game decision. Bunting is almost always a bad in-game decision.
I’ll also say that, using the whole “Division Titles/W-L record” barometer:
If the state of Minnesota existed between Vermont and New Hampshire, the Twins would have zero Division Titles under Gardenhire and you’d all be calling for his head.
@74 & 75- Bunting almost always a bad decision? remember the Twins have been far more succesful playing small ball and creating their own luck than by hoping for hr’s and doubles. As far as your comment about geography- If New York and/or Boston were in Idaho they wouldn’t have the payrolls they have. I’m having a hard time finding how your geography what if is relevent.
I just realized that I actually screwed up on that post.
Switch the records around.
Actual: 728-570.
Pythag: 709-588.
Isn’t it about leadership? Don’t corporate CEOs make hundreds of millions a year because their leadership is so valuable that they are too important to take pay cuts? Don’t people run for Governor and Senate because they used to be business leaders, which is what America supposedly needs right now? Why is it that we can get on board with business leaders being super awesome while a winning baseball manager is a schmuck despite all evidence suggesting otherwise?
A couple rebuttals:
1. Those complaining about Mauer always getting day-games-after-night-games off instead of maximizing Redmond’s ABs kill me. Think about what you’re saying Gardenhire should do: he should let a handful of ABs by Mike Redmond take precedence over maximizing the chance baseball’s best catcher stays healthy and productive over 6 months. Sheesh, people. Think with your head, not your pocket calculator.
2. The Punto thing is unfair. For the most part, Gardenhire has played Punto because–sad but true–Punto has been the best option.
Gardy is not a bad manager by any description in my view. I don’t think he is all that good a manager though so my normal response would probably be “Meh.”
The argument that the tigers had to fold for the twins to win does have some validity however. After all, every game matters, doesn’t it? So why weren’t the twins playing well the rest of the year? It can’t just be because mauer was out 1 month; after all Morneau was out the last month.
Does gardy somehow morph into the great manager in end of the year scenarios when the twins are out of it but play crazy good to get back in it? I don’t know but that seems to be a continuing theme.
Is it not gardy at all but the style of play and the type of players that the twins get (dare I say gamers)? I don’t know but I will ask again – why weren’t the twins playing anywhere near that level earlier in the year?
Also let me ask which team was generally favored to win that division during the 8 years. I’d bet that the twins were generally viewed as a favorite or at least as a major contender. So did Gardy underachieve by winning 5? Did he get his good manager boots back on in time to compete at the end of the year?
The point is that when viewing him from overall success it is perfectly reasonable to say he is a good manager but when you view day to day decisions – exactly like giving Punto so many ABs – it is also perfectly reasonable to wonder if he is good at all.
I tend to fall on the side of the overall team success; after all larussa manages my team. While he is clearly a first ballot hall of famer, he makes cards fans crazy with his choices ALL THE TIME.
For example go take a look at ryan ludwick’s numbers the past 2 years – I’ll wait – then come back and explain why a HoF manager would have him in some weird OF rotation and not playing every single day. Heck TLR would rest him and play infielders who had never played the OF.
TLR also claims Duncan is a HoF coach (I think he is right) and that he goes where Dunc goes – yet when Dunc said keep haren and trade reyes for mulder, TLR vetoed him. Now ask yourself how well the cards would have done since that trade in the 04 off season had they kept dan haren.
Yet I am happy that TLR turned the cards into contenders and that they contend nearly every year despite being angry that we could have been doing much much better without the strange (and bad) decisions.
Conflicted is the correct word; both tlr and gardy draw a lot of criticism but because one is viewed as a HoF manager, he gets much less hate and more favorable recognition.
Of course that might be because tlr is much more adept at manipulating the media.
@70 Do you really think that Pinella deserves a huge amount of credit for the development of his players, especially players like Buhner, Griffey and Edgar? If that’s the case, how come he couldn’t turn out a winner in Tampa, or how come he hasn’t had as much success in Chicago? He’s the same manager. How come he couldn’t turn any of the Rays young players into Griffey and Edgar and Buhner?
#79 – I think you misunderstood my point on Mauer getting the day games off. I’m not saying they shouldn’t give Mauer a day off. I’m saying if there is a game on Tuesday night against a LHP and Wednesday afternoon against a RHP, why not give him the Tuesday night game off to take advantage of the lesser discrepancy between Redmond and Mauer’s numbers against RHP?
No pocket calculators needed.
Oops. That last RHP in the above post #82 should have been LHP.
Gardy-haters suck. Period. End of discussion.
#82- because fans come to Tuesday night games to watch Mauer play, not Redmond.
I’m a Twins fan who feels that over the course of season Gardy does more good than harm. He does have several irritating habits that wear on people over the course of a season, but the Twins are always in contention even if it doesn’t seem like they have that much talent.
One thing that I have always been irritated with with the Twins coaching staff is how they handle walks. The Twins pitchers are almost always number one in the league in fewest walks allowed, yet they don’t target patient hitters, and often have a low on base guy who can “handle the bat” in the two hole. If the coaches believe that walks are so debilitating to their pitchers, than wouldn’t they want hitters who do draw plenty of walks.
A minor point I know but it has always baffled me.
I was one of the flag-wavers on the field at Kauffman last summer and when in front of the visitor’s dugout, guys like Ozzie Guillen would yell and curse at us. Major League ballplayers making seven-figures would tease us lowly flag-waver types. Miguel Cabrera on more than one occasion threw full cups of water on us.
But Ron Gardenhire is like my grandpa. Or Santa. He would lean against the dugout rail and say things like, “nice job, sport,” with a wink and a smile. I feel like if I would have asked, he would have let me sit next to him in the dugout to watch the game. He’d put his hand on my shoulder and teach me about baseball, “You see, son, we’re sending our runners because even if Miguel Olivo could catch a baseball cleanly, he’s more likely to overthrow into the outfield than throw the runner out.”
Thanks, Santa.
No, I understand your point that Mauer could take the night game off, and play the next day game.
But I don’t think Gardy does that haphazardly. I think it’s because coming back for a day game after a night game is tough for a catcher, and in the big scheme of things, keeping Mauer healthy for six months is a bigger issue than a handful of ABs by the backup catcher.
By giving Mauer the day game off, it often amounts to a two day break (48 hrs between starts if there’s a night game following the day game) or a three day break (if there’s an off day following the day game).
I would’ve rather seen Redmond hit against LH pitching too, as I’m sure Gardy would, but the bigger issue takes precedence. It’s a long season.
Brian #87 – In Cabrera’s defense, it can get mighty hot in KC. God knows, a cup of water in the face isn’t always a bad thing.
In Miguel Olivo’s defense, he’s also more likely to adopt a child than to throw out a runner.
While I could reply to the raft of commentary meticulously critiquing the positives and negatives of Senor Gardenhire, I think that would miss Posnaski’s point (which is, as I understand it, that while opinions differ about Gardy its futile to be so antagonistically opposed to his existence on the planet earth). Rather than regurgitate stats or beliefs I would focus instead on one story.
At Twins’ Fest ’09 my girlfriend and I were wandering, aimlessly, avoiding lines, and saw: “hey, open door!” Walk inside and low and behold, there is Gardy (and Jesse Crain) befuddled and agog we walk up, shake Gardy’s hand and show him a set of photoshops we did (Bert Blyleven on a pseudo hall of fame plaque, Carlos Gomez as Ringo Starr, his own head on a Garden Gnome, etc.) Gardy, smiled, laughed, clearly thought we were insane but gave us a thumbs up (Crain didn’t even mind that we ignored him, and happily posed for pictures later).
Based on this evidence alone, Ron Gardenhire is a pretty damn cool dude. None of us have managed a major league baseball game, some of us ridicule him through photoshop, and still he smiles and gives out a gleeful thumbs up.
Ron Gardenhire: Great man, or THE GREATEST MAN?
A point was brought up a long time ago in this thread about comparing the Pythag to the actual record to judge a manager. I think that method would be flawed.
Imagine two managers, let’s call one Earl and the other Gene. Earl never plays for one run, preferring 3 run homers. Gene, on the other hand, loves to play for one run. It would seem to me that with the same level of talent Gene would artificially DEPRESS the number of runs his team scored, thus reducing the ratio between runs scored and runs given up, thus reducing his Pythag winning percentage, which means that he would have an easier time outperforming that record than Earl who was optimizing his team’s scoring chances.
Or in terms of results, it seems to me that Gene would have a lot of teams that Pythag said should be 81-81 end up 86-76 while Earl would have a lot of teams that Pythag said should be 100-62 end up 100-62. I am not sure Gene is the better manager in that case.
I totally agree with A Different Chris #70.
And totally disagree with this: “with all the information we have, there is often an objectively/statistically optimal scenario to be played.”
We have so LITTLE information on crucial things like injury, fatigue and player roles and their impact on performance. Those factors are huge in baseball, underrated by most fans, and a good manager will know all about those factors, while the fans will know little to nothing about them.
Many complaints about Gardenhire could be answered by any or all of those factors. We’ll never know which ones had an impact or didn’t have an impact on his decision.
And many of the other complaints are about defensible decisions that people just disagree with because of their personal preferences, they’re not objectively right and wrong.
The only way to evaluate managers is to estimate realistic expectations for the team before the season, judge things like the impact of injuries and luck during the year, and then look at where the team ended up. Gardenhire is one of the best managers in the game when looked at that way.
Of course all that is completely subjective, and we will not know a ton of very important info as fans, so anyone’s opinion on a manger– fans, sportswriters, other outsiders– has to be taken with a huge grain of salt.
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For the pythag discussion:
The record under Gardy that Mike K. posted is correct, the Twins have been 709-588. But the Pythagorean numbers are incorrect, at least according to baseball-reference.
I get 690-607 for their Pythagorean W-L for Gardy’s reign.
Which is 19 wins overall
@76 rural
-Bunting is almost always a bad decision. It’s been written about a million times (true, it’s not as bad as once thought, but still). And, for all your “creating their own luck” (which is a nebulous concept, at best) that the Twins do, they were 19th in baseball last year in sacrifice hits, 12th in walks, and 18th in stolen bases. They were also 13th in HR, which is something you said they don’t waste their time “hoping for”. Doesn’t really sound like “small ball” to me. It sounds like “medium-sized ball”, or “AverageBall”.
-My “geography what if” is me saying that if the Twins were in the AL East, they’d have no Division Titles under Gardenhire. Does that make them a worse team, or Gardenhire a worse manager? No. Which is why using Division Titles to judge a manager is dumb.
@95- In the 2006 season they were 13th in the AL in HRs and 11th in AL in 2b’s, yet 8th in runs. Last year was more ‘powerful’ than the twins teams we have seen for sure, but the other 4 division winning teams were more in the small ball style. I think the fact that this has gone for 96 posts discussing various points of view DOES suggest that what one person or another views as a ‘good in game decision’ is far more arbitrary than w/l records. Last I checked w’s and l’s counted, who made the most statistically correct decisions didn’t.
@96
Um, like 2 of the 96 posts are about what constitutes a good “in-game decision”: my first post, where I brought it up, and my other one, where I explained that it means taking statistical evidence into account and then playing the percentage.
And I’m lamenting your last sentence as an out-dated (and ridiculous) method of judging managers. You’re really going to give ONE GUY credit for the wins and losses accrued by an ENTIRE TEAM (when that one guy never even plays)?
To put it another way, in 2005, the White Sox won 99 games and a WS. In 2007, they won 72 and finished 4th in their own division. Are you telling me that Ozzie Guillen gets full credit for both? That he was on a hot streak in 2005 but was slumping in all of 2007? Using W-L to judge managers is even worse than using W-L to judge a pitcher, by like 10 million miles.
You can love him or hate him, it will not matter. The Twins are loyalist. Gardy will manage the Twins until he desides his time is up. And as a Twins fan, it is perfectly fine with me.
I don’t watch Gardy’s teams much, but if he’s anything like Jimy Williams when he was managing the Red Sox, I’d hate him too.
@97- Although it appears that we are not going to agree on this issue, I think it is an interesting question, and, frankly, one that until yesterday I didn’t spend much time thinking about. What makes a good manager? I’ll take Gardy not just because over 60% of the time his teams win the division and make the playoffs, but because he has done this with a revolving door of players, with different gm’s, and different styles of play to suit his club. And because like I stated about 60 posts ago, the 8 years he has managed the club have been far more enjoyable as a Twins fan than the 8 years prior.
I didn’t read all the comments so forgive me if this point has been raised, but I get a little irritated with the idea that the Twins only won the division because the Tigers failed. To the contrary, the Twins won the division because they stepped up at the right time and SEIZED it.
The Tigers w/l percentage in August+September was greater than their overall w/l percentage. They actually played BETTER down the stretch than they had been all year long. I’ll note that all year long they were in first place.
But the Twins were 17-4 in their final 21 games. That’s stepping up. I’ll also note that 3 of those 4 losses were to…………the Tigers.
So let’s not pretend the Tigers simply laid down for the Twins. Yes, they lost a 3 game lead with 4 to go. Yes, that is very bad and they should be ashamed. But they did not lay down for the Twins. The Twins stepped up and TOOK the division, and for that they should be commended.
As much as I dislike Gardy as well, I have to agree he does win. He can be compared to Iowa’s QB Rick Stanzi. No matter how terribly Stanzi plays Iowa still manages to win (Five interceptions vs Indiana and we still win? C’MON!). So at least Gardy wins.
I’m a Twins fan, and I’m all over the place with my Gardy hate/appreciation. His in-game decisions drive me up the wall (Punto, bullpen, etc.), and I hate hate hate how he plays favorites. I think he’s terribly overrated by people who don’t watch him every day.
However, he somehow gets it done (with help from the weak division and getting gifts from the baseball gods like Mauer and Morneau). I agree with poster #56…I think he’s better than whoever his replacement might be, but that’s about the best compliment I can give him.
I think even the best managers have blind spots and shortcomings, and Gardenhire certainly qualifies on both counts: He has to be viewed as one of the best managers in MLB. And there are definitely things to knock him for.
One problem I have with Gardy that I didn’t see registered in comments is his chronic overuse of set-up men. He treats his closer with such deference that the load falls on one or two seventh/eighth inning guys. Since ’02 he’s burned out J.C. Romero, Juan Rincon and Pat Neshek. You might laugh at my mention of Romero, but he was brilliant in ’02, and never the same after.
In addition, Matt Guerrier flamed out from overwork in ’08 (after Neshek went down), but came back with a strong ’09. (Guerrier must be rubber-armed.) Fortunately, Twins management finally seems to be coming around to the idea that if Gardy is your manager, you HAVE to give him a deep bullpen.
The other thing that should be noted is that the Pohlad spawn are slowly loosening the Twins’ purse strings. Our payroll is up to $90M, and it will soar into nine figures if ever they sign Mauer.
So Joe can continue to praise Gardy, but it’s no longer fair to say he’s doing it without any help from ownership…