Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Twins Question of the Day – Gardy Edition

While listening (and becoming irritated) to tonight’s Fanatic Jack Twins Talk podcast, there was some discussion about Ron Gardenhire as a manager. You will want to listen to the discussion for some background if you want, but it created a question in my head. So, I went to Facebook and posted the following:

Twins and Twins Fan Question of the Day: If Ron Gardenhire would have managed the 2009 NY Yankees, would they have still won the World Series? In contrast, if Joe Girardi was managing the 2009 Twins, would they have advanced past the ALDS and/or won the World Series?

What do you think? Personally, I think that a manager gets way, way too much blame for losses and probably a little too much credit for wins. I believe that over the course of a 162 game season, ‘managing’ the roster and the personalities and such is a grind and Ron Gardenhire does a great job with that. Do I agree with every decision he makes with Xs and Os and lineup construction? Of course not, but I guarantee every team’s fans have similar thoughts about their manager because they watch them every day. When teams are bad, managers get blamed.

Extend the topic by adding… are there any managers out there that, if they managed the 2009 Twins, they would have won the World Series? My thinking is “No.” But that is because World Series championships (regardless of them being the ultimate goal for every team) are not givens, no matter how good the team is.

I won’t say any more. I’d much prefer you add your comments to the topic as I don’t want to influence your thoughts. I do think it is an interesting discussion though so… Leave your comments here.

By the way… Twins Fans, you will definitely want to check out and then bookmark the new 1500ESPN Twin Cities sports wire page. It’s awesome. Phil Mackey and Tom Pelissero are doing really great things there. Lots of blogs/articles and the videos are terrific. I think you’ll like it!

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