terry ryan | Reggie Tales

If I had a dollar for every person who’s asked me, “What are the Minnesota Twins doing?” I’d have $14.

This much I know for sure: Former General Manager Bill Smith was asleep at the wheel and basically drove this franchise into the ground. And now current General Manager Terry Ryan is trying to resuscitate it for the upcoming year (doubtful) and for the long haul (promising).

One thing Ryan knows is minor league pitching talent. Any decent Twins fan can run through a lengthy list of pitchers Ryan plucked from other organizations as minor leaguers. Ryan’s history of staying at minor league baseball games for the entire nine innings is legendary.

So in Terry Ryan I trust. He will rebuild the pitching staff with one eye to next year and the other to the years beyond. He’s done it before and I suspect he’ll do it again. And keep in mind that I’m really down on this organization right now. But with February looming, hope springs eternal.

The Minnesota Twins did something very un-Twins like yesterday. They fired General Manager Billy Smith. And the Minnesota Twins never fire anyone. And while I never like to see anyone lose their job, this was the right move. The list of Smith’s mistakes had grown quite long and embarrassing. Off the top of my head: Trading JJ Hardy, trading Wilson Ramos for Matt Capps, trading Delmon Young for two people I’ve never even heard of before. They might not even play baseball. Back to the list: Letting Matt Gueirrer and Jesse Crain leave via free agency. I think I can stop there because it makes my blood boil.

But now to the good news. Terry Ryan is back in the picture and you can ignore the “interim” tag that they gave him for the GM job. You can bet your bottom dollar that he will have the job for as long as he wants. And I think he’s going to stay and be successful for the next 5 to 10 years. I also fully expect the no nonsense Ryan to remind the Manager that the players are paid to play. Apparently that was forgotten in Minneapolis.