Ryan Steps Down as Twins GM

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Added on: 09/13/2007 @ 4:18:58 PM

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Ryan Steps Down as Twins GM

So Terry Ryan steps down, and will become a Sr Advisor... saying

"I felt a lot of elation when we won and sorrow when we lost. Now all of a sudden the defeats are getting a little harder to take, and the wins aren't as much fun. That's not a good thing to experience as a general manager."

Well, how does it feel to be a fan, when your team is below 500 and the GM decides to tuck tail and run? Did Ryan know he was going to step down when he basically sat on his hands when it came to bringing in new talent? MAN, it's hard to like that guy right now!

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	Jeremy - 9475 Posts 09/13/2007 @ 04:40:32 PM
If anything it would be in his best interests to have made himself look in the short term, left, gotten a huge offer from elsewhere, and screw the next guy with an unaffordable roster.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Alex - 3619 Posts 09/13/2007 @ 09:52:56 PM
boo frickin hoo on your below .500 complaint. Haven't the Twins been praised as the small-market team that became competitive and actually stayed competitive for multiple years with this guy as the GM? And you want to burn him at the stake for one bad year in which he didn't make any in-season pickups (not to mention that pretty much no one made any moves this year besides the Braves)?		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Alex - 3619 Posts 09/13/2007 @ 10:00:57 PM
As long as we're on Twins talk, here's one opinion on their situation. And for the record I totally agree with this.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.
Alex messed with this at 09/13/2007 10:01:27 pm

	Matt - 3875 Posts 09/13/2007 @ 11:24:22 PM
Jeremy Wrote - 09/13/2007 @ 04:40:32 PM If anything it would be in his best interests to have made himself look in the short term, left, gotten a huge offer from elsewhere, and screw the next guy with an unaffordable roster. Even with the problems this year, he still looks good among baseball GMs, and will probably be a top target for teams looking for a new GM now or in the next few years. So he really wouldn't need to have screwed the team over to get a good job.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jon - 3375 Posts 09/13/2007 @ 11:43:28 PM
Alex Wrote - 09/13/2007 @ 10:00:57 PM As long as we're on Twins talk, here's one opinion on their situation. And for the record I totally agree with this. It's an idea there's been a little bit of talk about. I know a few of us have talked about it a bit in person, but I'll just repeat some of my thoughts on here. I agree that trading Santana could provide the Twins with a huge influx of young talent. It might be a good move. It might be able to keep us competetive now or in the near future. But I don't think they should pull that trigger. At least not yet. For one, Santana isn't just elite talent, he's all-time good. A lot of good and really good pitchers come into the majors, but how many chances will the Twins have to get a great pitcher. Even if we trade for Phil Hughes and other elite prospects, they're still prospects. Which means, what, they have a good shot at being good. An ok shot at being an All-Star, and a slim chance of approaching greatness. Prospects have been good to the Twins, but there have also been a fair number who never reached their expected potential. Also, trading Santana might be able to keep us competetive now or in the near future. But we've been there and done that. And I don't want to seem ungrateful, because I've really enjoyed when the Twins have been a playoff team. But I think having a great pitcher like Santana could help us go beyond competetive. Granted, advancing in the playoffs are a bit of a crapshoot, but that's really what we want out of this. We only have a small window where we can field the best pitcher in the game every 5 days, and every 3 to 4 games in the playoffs. Rather than hope that we can continue to be competetive in the future, let's take our chance now with a known quantity and see if we can't get a World Series out of the team NOW. Maybe we'll keep him and we won't get there and maybe we'll take a dip in the few years following because of it. Maybe at that point I'd be pretty disappointed and feel differently about this subject. I'm all for wise use of money and investing in prospects at appropriate times, but we need to take a real swing at being an elite team, and if not now, with the best pitcher in the game, then when? Besides, I like to think that if we sign Santana to a huge contract, we can hold on to him for a couple years, keeping the window open for this nucleus to do something together, and if we don't get it done, a team like the Yankees will still be waiting to trade for him. And since they have the means, they'll be willing to give a lot for him. He won't have as much of his prime left by then, but the Yankees have shown themselves to not take that into account at times. At least it seems that way.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Alex - 3619 Posts 09/14/2007 @ 12:29:15 AM
I can understand the go for broke now reasoning, but I think their chance for that was this year, so maybe that is a reason to be mad at the GM. The most recent news and notes on yahoo! speculate that it's looking unlikely that they'll be able to keep Hunter and looking at team stat he is a huge part of their already uninspiring offense (who knew he was out slugging Morneau?). They currently have the 8th best record in the AL, they're 3rd in a tough division, and they might lose Hunter. It seems like they need some sort of roster move to have a decent chance to even make the playoffs next year. Plus you have to wonder if they have any chance of resigning Santana at all. If not and there isn't a good chance to make a run next year, they might as well start rebuilding a year early so that they have a legit run in them again that much sooner. And honestly I don't really follow the Twins that much, so I could be way off base here.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jeremy - Cube Phenomenoligist 09/14/2007 @ 12:51:26 AM
Matt Wrote - 09/13/2007 @ 11:24:22 PM Jeremy Wrote - 09/13/2007 @ 04:40:32 PM If anything it would be in his best interests to have made himself look in the short term, left, gotten a huge offer from elsewhere, and screw the next guy with an unaffordable roster. Even with the problems this year, he still looks good among baseball GMs, and will probably be a top target for teams looking for a new GM now or in the next few years. So he really wouldn't need to have screwed the team over to get a good job. I was disagreeing with Carl's feelings Ryan screwed us on the way out by pointing out that, generally speaking, if you know you're leaving a job you do something in your best interests to make yourself look good to other jobs. You don't do something to make you look inept. Stupid short sighted moves might have as much, if not more, long term harm to a team like the Twins than sitting on your hands. Besides, who's to say it wasn't more along the lines of him being handcuffed than sitting on his hands. I really don't see a way the Twins keep Hunter and Santana when you look at what other players at their respective positions, who couldn't carry their respective jocks, are getting on the open market. Hunter's monster year certainly isn't doing us any favors in the "let's hope we can keep him" dept. I couldn't read that "IN" article by the way, what did it all discuss?		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.
Jeremy perfected this 2 times, last at 09/14/2007 12:53:55 am

	Jon - 3375 Posts 09/14/2007 @ 01:57:00 AM
Jeremy Wrote - 09/14/2007 @ 12:51:26 AM I couldn't read that "IN" article by the way, what did it all discuss? It talked about how you should pony up and get insider access! All the cool kids have it! Or, maybe I should say, all the cool kids' brothers have it. Actually, in his blog, Rob Neyer says, and I'm paraphrasing unless I actually quote something, that the Twins should trade Santana. Or, hold onto him for his last year under contract and then get compensation picks when he signs with someone else. He says that option might be better these days because maybe there won't be a mega deal type trade to be made. He thinks it doesn't make sense to devote 25% of a payroll to one player, specifically one pitcher. Then he talks about how the Twins have good pitching other than Santana. (Which is true to an extent, which is a reason I, Jon, think the Twins should hang onto Santana, at least for now, to push it from a good squad to an elite squad, especially considering without him it's just a bunch of young guys with success at AAA and some majors success. But then again, I'm no expert. To be fair though, he mentions the other starting pitchers and says, "I'm not saying there's a future Cy Young in that bunch. But those five guys are a solid foundation for a rotation that's both young and cheap." Which seems reasonable. As long as they don't all suck.) Then he mentions why the Twins need to save money. Their pathetic hitting. And they don't have help coming from the minors anytime soon, so they need to shop for it. He also predicts that if the Twins do deal Santana the local writers will say they aren't trying to win, but in fact, that's what they should do if they know how to win.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jon - infinity + 1 posts 09/14/2007 @ 02:42:47 AM
Just to add a few more thoughts of my own on this: I am somewhat conflicted. On one hand, you don't know what the future will hold and I feel like we should make a go of it now. I also know that our young pitchers have a good chance of being good enough and if we want to invest in Mauer and Morneau, maybe we could rely on the younger pitchers and they can all hit their stride in the next few years and we can have enough money for lineup support. Then of course, like I said, you don't know what the future holds. Maybe Mauer won't be healthy enough in the future. Maybe only two of the younger pitchers really end up succeeding and we just need another decent arm and we got rid of our ace. I get the feeling it could end up like the Vikings. Within a matter of three or so years, our strength turns to a glaring weakness. We're suddenly banking on guys who we can only hope end up 75% as good as what we already had. I know that's how things go sometimes, it just sucks to feel that way as a fan. Anyway, I think it would be a shame to not at least let him play out his current contract in Minnesota. I know there are risks to that. For one, they could potentially lose the opportunity to get a ton back for him, but we could at least get some compensation if he leaves via free agency. (As an aside, Matt and I were talking a while back and I think we both (or maybe it was just me) remember hearing that they were doing away with the whole compensation picks system, but apparently it's here still. Maybe someone will look into that. OK, I just did. They just tweaked it. One of the changes was eliminating Type C free agents, which I think was the lowest level, and therefore not applicable to Santana. You can read about the changes		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	jthompto - 209 Posts 09/15/2007 @ 10:16:52 AM
If you read the article on startribune.com about this, it talks Bill Smith who replaces Ryan as GM. He seems to know what he is doing and has been a much better talent scout than ryan for years. Hopefully they can be more aggressive. If the Twins were in the National League maybe they would have made the world series 4 years in a row. But were competing with the Red Sox, Yanks, Tigers, Indians and Angels here (and I guess you can throw in the Mariners.) This team needs alot I think. Mauer, Cuddyer, Morneau, Hunter is a pretty good 3,4,5,6. But I still think another power bat would help. (Kubel/Rondel White isn't cutting it) The Starting pitching should improve but they should have traded Carlos Silva because he will get alot of money from some other team because this years free agent starting pitchers suck ass. So next year I guess it will be Santana and the young guys again. It will be interestingto see if Liriano is the same guy next season. Garza should improve, but will Boof get any better? Another bullpen arm would help too, Rincon isn't what he used to be. the bottom line is that Ryans build for the future approach needs to stop beacuse the future is now.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.