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Firing of Terry Ryan confirms what we already knew: Twins are a mess
- Updated: July 18, 2016
3:09 PM ET
Where do the Minnesota Twins go from here?
Since 2011, the Twins have been the second-worst team in baseball; only the Astros have won fewer games. But while the Astros made the playoffs last year and are again contenders, the Twins continue to struggle with a 33-58 record, proving last year’s 83-79 record was a fluke, built primarily on a stretch of timely hitting early in the season.
General manager Terry Ryan paid the price for the team’s struggles when he was fired Monday. With the organization since 1972, the 62-year-old Ryan spent four seasons as a minor league pitcher and worked his way up to general manager, serving from 1995 to the end of the 2007 season, when he stepped down to become an assistant to new GM Bill Smith. When Smith was fired after the 2011 season, Ryan took the reins again, but hasn’t been able to match his previous success, when the Twins won four division titles in five years under him (and then two more under Smith).
A lot of what has happened was predictable. The Twins are last in the AL in runs allowed while giving up the most home runs, but a rotation that was counting on the likes of Ricky Nolasco, Phil Hughes and Kyle Gibson didn’t project as a good one, anyway. The bullpen lacked obvious upside. For years, the Twins’ development strategy was to build around strike-throwers — call it the Brad Radke model. The Twins have issued the second-fewest walks, but a lack of power pitching is no longer a viable alternative in the 2016 baseball universe.
Terry Ryan’s second …
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